"Tell me where I can find the condom!" Catholic AIDS discourses in South Africa during the 1990s

Abstract

Imagine a male celibate priest trying to talk about sex and AIDS to a church congregation whose majority is women! It is naturally embarrassing and challenging. This is the situation that most Catholic lay, religious, and the hierarchy had to deal with in South Africa during the 1990s.The article is an attempt to use archival and oral history materials collected between 2007 and 2010 to analyse how the Catholic Church spoke about HIV and AIDS and how that discourse influenced South African society during the 1990s. Here I argue that although the church's statements on AIDS, condoms, sex and sexuality during this period were openly defensive, often ambivalent, and characteristically passive, it was what the church said and how it said it that created controversies, more than anything else.

"Vetel my waar ek 'n kondoom kan kry!" Katolieke VIGS diskoerse in Suid-Afrika tydens die 1990s Verbeel jou dat 'n selibate priester probeer praat oor seks en VIGS en die gehoor is 'n gemeente waarvan die lede grootliks vroue is! Dit is uiteraard uitdagend en vernederend. Dit is die situasie wat die meeste Katolieke leke, gelowiges en die hierargie mee moes omgaan in Suid-Afrika in die 1990s. Hierde artikel poog om argivale en orale bronne, versamel tussen 2007 en 2010, te gebruik om te analiseer hoe die Katolieke Kerk oor HIV en VIGS gepraat het en hoe hierdie diskoerse die Suid-Afrikaanse gemeenskap tydens die tydperk beinvloed het. Ek argumenteer dat hoewel die kerk se uitsprake oor VIGS, kondome, seks en seksualiteit tydens die periode passief, openlik verdedigend en soms teenstrydig was, was dit wat die kerk gesê het hoe dit gesê is wat meer as enige iets anders wat kontroversies geskep het.