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July 13, 2007

Comments

I just hope that the neocons don't try to spin this into "Look what lustful beasts African men are." Has there been any cause/correlation studies of corresponding cases in countries such as Thailand or Mexico? I assume that sex tourism, to those countries and elsewhere, is (praise Allah) similarly income elastic.

Not much sex tourism to Zimbabwe, Saija, I should think. Read the article - it's about income-dependent polygamy, not sex tourism. I suspect that polygamy of this kind isn't as widespread in Mexico.
Also, wouldn't sex tourism increase if the economy was suffering, just because the exchange rate would be favourable for foreign tourists?

Look what lustful beasts African men are.

Well, in my case (not that I'm a neocon, but I so frequently get lumped in with them that...well, I give up) it's not so much that, as if it hurts when you do that, stop doing that.

I thought I read a long Harper's article about a year or so ago that argued HIV rates in Africa were overstated because the tests employed there are much more prone to false positives than those used, e.g., in the U.S./Europe. Which, IIRC, caused one doctor to remark that you can go from HIV positive to HIV negative merely by flying from Zimbabwe to France.

Maybe I'll try to dig it up.

Ugh--
I remember reading that article too. Some of it, if I'm not mistaken, also had to do with the relative glamour (although it seems like a macabre term to use in this context) of AIDS relative to malaria and some other diseases. AIDS was assumed as a way of making the numbers even more dramatic.

Ajay - didn't think that about the exchange rate. Although my point was about sex tourism as a mode of behaviour as pernicious as polygamy, undertaken by rich foreigners unlikely to get criticized for it. I grokked perfectly well that Zimbabwe didn't have any sex tourism going on, although rereading my comment I realize why you might have got that impression.

re Sajia's comment:

I would also worry that religious conservatives might make the following argument: since major economic disaster causes people to behave more virtuously and also to become healthier, we should never intervene to help countries suffering from tremendous economic privation, or try to prevent this privation in countries teetering on the edge of it.

Yeah, who needs condoms when you've got famine?

"a mode of behaviour as pernicious as polygamy"

Oh yeah? Tell that to the Hendersons, Bill, Barb, Nicki, and Margene(now there's a pernicious third wife you can be proud of)

It just occurred to me: why bother empowering women in Africa to end the AIDS plague if a recession will keep their husbands from running around?
Sorry, that's what prolonged exposure to white male assholes online and offline will do to your trust in the good faith of conservatives. Believe me, somewhere in Redneckdom someone is already making these arguments.

"I just hope that the neocons don't try to spin this into
'Look what lustful beasts African men are.'"

Is there a history of "the neocons" doing this?

Certainly it's an old racist trope, but I'm unfamiliar with its associational history with "the neocons": could you elaborate?

"I would also worry that religious conservatives might make the following argument: since major economic disaster causes people to behave more virtuously and also to become healthier, we should never intervene to help countries suffering from tremendous economic privation, or try to prevent this privation in countries teetering on the edge of it."

Religious conservatives not having just come on the scene in the last six months, and the same for major economic disasters, it would seem reasonable to actually check reality to see if there are, in fact, any actual religious conservatives making any such arguments, before "worrying" about them.

Then one might want to investigate whether a significant number of people are making such arguments, whether that specific argument is in the national zeitgeist, is that argument gaining popularity, and so on.

Is this, in fact, the reality, and something therefore worth spending time worrying about?

Cites?

But perhaps this thread is dead.

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