IS THERE A DISTINCT AFRICAN SEXUALITY - A CRITICAL RESPONSE TO CALDWELL

In the current HIV debate there are diverse opinions about the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa and the reasons for it. Caldwell and his colleag ues, for example, argue that the whole of Africa has a distinct sexual ity which is inherently permissive. They claim moreover that no religi ous moral value is attached to sexual activity, and Christianity has t hus not succeeded in changing matters. They find in this failure the r eason for the failure of the fertility control programme in sub-Sahara n Africa, and they argue that HIV/AIDS control efforts will fail simil arly unless the fear it generates forces Africans to adopt the Eurasia n model, with its religious, moral value. The article re-examines Cald well el al.'s conceptualisation of the role of moral value in social c hange. Without considering the internal expressions, mechanisms and so cial contexts within and through which moral value is maintained and c hanged, they assume that Christian moral values could lead to a change in sexual behaviour from permissive (as they see it) African sexualit y to the Eurasian model. In making such an assumption they ignore the ethical and behavioural contradictions generally inherent in moral sys tems. Moreover they pay little attention to the process of change in W estern societies, where Christian morality has lost a great deal of it s control over behaviour. But even if we assume that internal contradi ctions and processes of change do not exist, the christianisation proc ess in Africa fundamentally transformed local customs in ways that del inked their role in regulating behaviour, including sexual behaviour. For discussions and decisions on options and strategies for the preven tion and control of HIV/AIDS, identifying the nature and impact of tha t transformation is essential. This article attempts to do so. It is i n three parts. The first is a summary of the thesis as presented by Ca ldwell et al., including their location of African sexuality and their conceptualisation of change. The second offers a critical response, f ocusing mainly on the problems of research into sexual behaviour and t he christianisation process, with special reference to the case of the Kikuyu people, among whom, recent studies suggest, even where sexual activity may have appeared largely free of moral restraint, there was indeed a moral order. The same studies indicate the specific way in wh ich missionary activities transformed that moral order. Part three off ers a new way forward.