That these lines of thinking have not expired during the three quarters of a century which have passed between the (supposed) epidemic of syphilis in Uganda in the first decades of the 19th century and the present pandemic of AIDS is evident in many a discussion of ‘African sexuality’. When John Caldwell et al. launched the idea of ‘African sexuality’ in their much debated paper from 1989, it was more a re-vitalization of these age-old images fed by sexual anxieties and fears than an introduction of something new. It is all there: The unbridled black female sexuality, excessive, threatening and contagious, carrying a deadly disease.
Caldwell et al.’s basic line of argument is well known: they contrast a so-called ‘Eurasian model’ of sexuality, where female chastity is the central moral norm (cf. female chastity as emblem of civilization) with what they call ‘African sexuality’ characterized by ‘permissiveness’, indicating that having sex is as simple and straightforward as eating or drinking (Caldwell et al. 1989:195). Marriage bonds are loose (i. e. there is little control of women) and there is no moral ban on exchange of sex for money. For a hundred years Christian missionaries tried to change all of this, according to Caldwell et al. however without much success. Thus so-called ‘sexual networking’ is rampant, and this is what must be studied,
Arnfred Page 68 Wednesday, March 3, 2004 2:38 PM