July 12, 2001

12:36 PM

No soup sex for you!. President Daniel arap Moi has urged Kenyans to abstain from sex for at least two years to try to curb the spread of HIV. The government announced plans on Wednesday to import 300 million condoms to fight AIDS.
posted by 120degrees (18 comments total)

Abstain! or get married.
posted by Postroad at 1:05 PM on July 12, 2001

Never fear, I’ll pick up the slack.
posted by capt.crackpipe at 1:10 PM on July 12, 2001

Getting hitched won't protect you from a partner with AIDs. This effort is aimed not only at slowing infection, but also at lowering the birth rate of positive infants.
posted by skyline at 1:12 PM on July 12, 2001

that's gonna be one fu#ked up country in two years!
posted by brucec at 1:19 PM on July 12, 2001

We could send them info on masturbation but the right wing in America would probably say this was sinning and we should have a hands off policy.
posted by Postroad at 1:31 PM on July 12, 2001

hands off. . . heh, heh, heh.
posted by ColdChef at 1:38 PM on July 12, 2001

Easy to giggle and criticise, but how about coming up with an alternative?

I'll wait. Think about it.

Yeah, not so easy, is it?
posted by Dreama at 2:06 PM on July 12, 2001

I guess I'm just cranky, but I fail to see the humor in this. Every time I read another story about the AIDS epidemic in Africa I get seriously pissed off. Cultivated ignorance (and I'm not just talking about the organized religions involved, but that's a biggie) killing people by the thousands.

This is preventable.

Wait, let me say that again...THIS IS PREVENTABLE FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

Phew. Thanks. I feel better now.

Frankly, faced with his choices, the President is doing the best thing he can. He doesn't have much to work with. I applaud his efforts.
posted by frykitty at 2:24 PM on July 12, 2001

wait...

"don't have sex!"

"here's 300 million condoms"

sounds a little like the US policy...
posted by o2b at 2:53 PM on July 12, 2001

It may sound laughable to us, but (a) at least the *leadership* is actually attempting to *lead* and (b) it certainly can't hurt, can it? I mean, it's bound to reduce to SOME degree the prevalence of HIV and newborn-infected cases...right? Drastic times...
posted by davidmsc at 4:34 PM on July 12, 2001

Do you really think that a political leader asking people to abstain from sex is leadership? Distributing condoms is effective. Urging abstinence isn't. Why doesn't Moi do something to increase the economic and social status of women in Kenya?
posted by rdr at 4:42 PM on July 12, 2001

Urging abstinence is giving in to Kenyan Catholic pressures, its not leadership and its completely impractical. Let the condoms flow.
posted by skallas at 5:40 PM on July 12, 2001

How effective are mass distribution of condoms in reducing reported AIDS cases? Anyone have any before and after numbers? I would think that in a lot of third-world cultures, they wouldn't be very effective at all -- the men would dislike wearing them and the women wouldn't have the power to make the men put one on. Not to mention that, at least in this case, they'd have a religious excuse for not using it.

Abstinence forever is of course impractical and self-defeating, but asking the populace to voluntarily cut back on risky sex for a fixed period of time to achieve a specific goal seems like a perfectly reasonable use of the bully pulpit to me.
posted by kindall at 5:59 PM on July 12, 2001

Good questions. I think it really depends on whether the Kenyans consider AIDS in their country an epidemic or not. With almost 10% HIV infected, there's much more of an incentive to use condoms than living in a country with HIV stats like these.
posted by skallas at 6:20 PM on July 12, 2001

Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder.

Kenya is one of the hardest hit countries in the world by AIDS. Like most Third World governents, they've been in denial about the scale of the problem and policies of prevention and control.

With 10% of its poplualtion infected with HIV, it's time to ignore the "Law of God" folks and finally get on with the education programs and the condoms.
posted by lagado at 6:22 PM on July 12, 2001

%10 is bad.. but not as bad as %25 of all Black Gay Americans have HIV.. almost the highest rate in the world.. and we have the best education and prevention tools.. makes you wonder if there is a solution at all.
posted by stbalbach at 5:55 AM on July 13, 2001

I'm surprised nobody's pointed out that this country is also one of the fastest-growing in the world...the bigger problem is that they should be asking people to abstain from sex to curb the spread of Kenyans...
posted by DiplomaticImmunity at 10:48 AM on July 13, 2001

stbalbach, your right that is a disaster.

I guess we need to be comparing groups of adult populations. According to this page, Kenya has 13.9% of adults infected. Once you start breaking things down into smaller population groups, you find that for example 1 in 4 young women in Kenya aged between the ages of 15 and 24 are infected with HIV.
posted by lagado at 5:04 AM on July 14, 2001