and changed, if HIV/AIDS is to be curtailed. Caldwell et al. are well aware that the ’Eurasian’ obsession with ’female sexual purity’ and abhorrence of “sexuality that had contrived, and especially commercial, components” (Caldwell et al. 1989:192) have influenced Western ways of seeing, to the extent that “even now Western social analysts find it difficult to see Africa from any other viewpoint” (Caldwell et al. 1989:193). Nevertheless, Caldwell et al. themselves are doing exactly that: looking at sexuality in Africa from Western points of view, inadvertently biased by the whole load of cultural bagage, which determines what they see and don’t see, as well as the ways they describe their findings. Valid points of critique have been raised by several authors, among others Beth Maina Ahlberg (1994) and Suzette Heald (1995), both pointing to weak points in the argumentation put forward by Caldwell et al. None of them, however, cut the matter to the bone. Ahlberg takes issue with the Caldwell et al.’s dismission of Christian influence (which goes more or less like this: ‘the missionaries struggled to impose female chastity, but alas in vain’) and argues that what they call ‘permissiveness’ is a result of Christian preaching, not something which has survived from age-old African customs in spite of missionary presence.[56] “Conversion to Christianity was measured by the extent to which the Africans abandoned their customs” (Ahlberg 1994:229). This meant that all the rules and restrictions guarding pre-Christian sexual life—including various forms of ‘safe (i. e. non-penetrative) sex’ were broken down. ”With no public discourse or socially imparted and maintained sexual discipline, and with changed beliefs… coupled with the individualization characteristic of Christian morality, socially sanctioned non-penetrative sexual activity was replaced in time by full sexual intercourse” (Ahlberg 1994:231).
Heald’s critique is partly overlapping, but also different. Like Ahlberg, Heald is adamant that ‘no Christian morals’ does not mean no morals at all, and as a contrast she wants to portray “African societies as preoccupied with sexual morality” (Heald 1995:491)—but a morality which, of course, is different from the ‘Eurasian’ one. Building on knowledge from her own fieldwork among the Gisu in Kenya, Heald stresses what she sees as the ‘profound ambiguity’ of the sexual act: it is life-giving, but also dangerous (Heald 1995:501). Sex is not just like ‘eating and drinking’ as Caldwell et al. have it (although also eating and drinking may be serious business at times). Engaging in sex is to engage with strong, even sacred powers, and rules and restrictions are accordingly manifold. Mandatory sexual intercourse takes place for instance after the death of a spouse, when the impurity linked with death still hangs on to the surviving spouse.
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Intercourse is used by the living spouse to remove pollution and transfer its contagion. This is a dangerous act, and widows and widowers are required to walk far from their house to find an unwitting partner… In the context of death, coitus is thus presented as a positive counter, neutralizing its pollution. (Heald 1995:499.)