Thousands of South African men, horrified by an apparent surge in the rape of baby girls, joined women and children in a protest march in Cape Town yesterday. The crime-weary nation was still reeling from the alleged rape of a
nine- month-old girl by six men earlier this month, when it was shocked by reports this weekend of the rape of another eight-month-old baby [...] Patricia de Lille, a member of parliament with the Pan Africanist Congress Party, told Reuters that the recent incidence of rape of infant girls was almost certainly linked to the myth that sex with a virgin could cure the incurable disease - AIDS.
Dear god.
How on earth can this damnable myth have gotten started? After all, the disease, in its present virulence, is only 20 years old. Unless there was a gruesome child rape rate before the fall of apartheid -- and given the horrified attitude of most South Africans to their current situation, it seems unlikely -- the rise of that myth seems like the sort of thing that would be completely improbable. After all, sex with a virgin doesn't cure any other sexually transmitted disease; it just gives it to the virgin, and they almost certainly knew that. So how did this one come up?
It almost seems like it's just an excuse. After all, most men, of whatever culture, would find raping an eight-month old baby to be completely abhorrent. It seems like these men are taking out their anger at being incurably sick on someone they know can't fight back, can't identify them to a court, can't get back at them in any real way, shape or form.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!