Against Their Will

By David Alexander

Photography by Steven Vigar and Chris Scott

In Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls Mary Pipher, a clinical psychiatrist, wrote of the intense pressure upon girls in America to act out sexually when they were physically, though not yet emotionally, “ready”. This kind of pressure was put into a nutshell by a man I served with in the American army. He said of girls, and women in general, “If they’re old enough to bleed, they’re old enough to breed.”

Describing the pressure from the girl’s side, Dr. Pipher offers the story of a ninth grade girl named Cayenne, who had been diagnosed with herpes. After several months of therapy relating to the general problems of adolescence, Cayenne eventually opened up about her sexual initiation, which happened in the middle of the eighth grade. At the time she was being teased by her friends for still being a virgin. During the first hour of an unsupervised party where there were 10

 

boys and 10 girls, all about the same age, she had sex with a boy a year older than her. Reflecting on the experience with Dr. Pipher later, Cayenne said, “I wish it had been more romantic.”

Middle and upper class American adolescent girls have a luxury not shared by their sisters elsewhere Middle and upper class American adolescent girls have a luxury not shared by their sisters elsewhere in the world, many of whom experience even less romantic sexual initiations. in the world, many of whom experience even less romantic sexual initiations.

  

South Africa
There’s a rumor in Africa that having sex with a virgin will cleanse a male of AIDS. The Johannesburg city council conducted a three-year study of about 28,000 men. They found that one in five men believed in the virgin/AIDS cure. The fallout from that is a rise in assaults on women and children. Of particular alarm has been the rise in infant rapes. Not all researchers blame that on the virgin/AIDS cure-myth, but they believe it has contributed to it. The rape of the nine-month-old baby by six men in Upington at the end of 2001 enraged many South Africans. That was followed by the discovery of a seven-month-old who had been raped and left for dead in a suburb of Capetown in November, 2001.

The belief in the virgin/AIDS cure is not restricted to Africa. According to a Knight-Ridder report from Mark McDonald in January 2000, it also helps fuel child prostitution in Cambodia. McDonald says that many Asian men believe having sex with virgins will cleanse them of AIDS. The same is true in India and Jamaica. The belief that AIDS is cured by having sex with a virgin is an outgrowth of a long-standing belief (held by many cultures) in the healing powers of sex with virgins.

Afghanistan
After the 1992 overthrow of the government and suspension of the constitution in Kabul, women's rights were violated with impunity. Rape by armed guards of the various warring factions was condoned by leaders. It was viewed as a way of intimidating vanquished populations, and of rewarding soldiers. Fear of rape drove women to suicide, and fathers to kill their daughters. Scores of women were abducted and detained, sexually abused, and sold into prostitution. Most girls were victimized and tortured because they belonged to different religious and ethnic groups. This is, in a nutshell, the record of the Northern Alliance, which is run by the

 

very same warlords that are now strutting around Kabul with the support of the US.

Fourteen-year-old Fatima begged the Hazara soldiers not to rape her, saying she was young and a virgin. One of the soldiers threatened her with his gun, ordering her to undress or be killed. Two soldiers raped her, and then three others raped her mother. The mother asked why the soldiers were doing these things. She was told "You are Talibs and you are Pashtun." Before leaving, the soldiers beat Fatima's crippled father unconscious, and carried off all the family's possessions. "There is nothing left for us; marriage and honor are gone," Fatima's mother said.
 


Swaziland
Futhi (not her real name) is from Makanyane, Swaziland. She was 13 years old when her father first raped her. He was HIV positive and his sexual abuse infected her with the virus. When she was diagnosed, she told other family members about the rapes. They didn’t believe her and eventually forced her to leave home. She now lives in a halfway house. “I’m HIV positive and I’m afraid,” Futhi said. “I take 13 pills a day. My family knows I have HIV. I got it from my father. They still blame me. They don’t see that my HIV is my father’s HIV. They didn’t ask where or how I acquired it.”

  


America
Sexual initiation against the will of the initiated is not limited to far away places, or even to women in dangerous situations. On Jan. 13, 2006, Thomas Gumbleton, the auxiliary Roman Catholic bishop in Detroit, Michigan, declared that he had been sexually abused as a teenager by a Catholic priest while he attended seminary.

During the Vietnam war, rape was an all too common occurrence, often described by GIs as SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). Public archives include records of an August 1967 atrocity in which a 13-year-old Vietnamese child was raped by American Military Intelligence interrogator of the Army's 196th Infantry Brigade. The soldier was convicted only of indecent acts with a child and assault. He served seven months and sixteen days for his crime.

Dreaming Dreams
It would be great if all stories of sexual initiation contained nothing more unfortunate than amusing anecdotes about accidents with tapioca pudding and fire ants. One would hope that all who tell such stories could regale their audience with tales of their feelings of security, bathed in love and are now surrounded with memories of commitment and care. Unfortunately for many girls, boys, men and women around the world, that is not the case.

David Alexander is the International Students' Advisor at Tainan Theological College and Seminary.