Sexuality, Morality and Lifestyle: The ABC of HIV Prevention Strategies in Rural Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This article explores the national program for the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea and its intersection with the experiences of a rural community in Western Province. The social marketing of HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention has seen an influx of categories and definitions of people, sexual behaviour and HIV/AIDS that have the potential to create confusion, but also spaces in which rural populations can understand and conceptualise AIDS. In the present paper, the preventative program is examined from the perspective of the Gogodala, whose understandings of sickness and prevention are based on an intimate and interactive relationship with the local environment. In this context, ‘lifestyle’ (ela gi) and the maintenance of certain ‘laws’ is the primary method of sickness prevention. I argue that an exploration of the local dynamic between sexuality, morality and lifestyle is vital to the evaluation of the impact of these awareness and prevention programs and the possibilities for future prevention strategies.

Keywords:

• HIV/AIDS
• Lifestyle
• Morality
• Prevention
• Rural Papua New Guinea
• Sexuality
• Social Marketing

Notes

1. This is an idealised version of marriage in Western societies; in studies relating to sexual negotiation and HIV in Australia, Kippax, Crawford, Waldby and Benton (1990, p. 540) note that ‘[c]ontrary to the official wisdom regarding HIV infection, our analysis suggests that monogamy in heterosexual relationships does not present a promising scenario for sexual negotiation … How can a condom suddenly be introduced into the marriage bed?’.

2. I have explored the significance of Christianity and churches in PNG for the HIV and AIDS epidemic, as well as the way in which Christianity in particular is a primary vehicle, arbiter and discursive base for understandings and experiences of HIV/AIDS, elsewhere (Dundon 2007).

3. Wilde (2007, p. 59) notes that rugby league is the national sport of PNG and has an ‘almost fanatical’ following throughout the country. Both NACS and AusAID programs have taken advantage of this level of interest; for example, in 2005, AusAID funded an exhibition match between the national team, the Kumuls, and the Australian Prime Ministers XIII in Port Moresby. Brad Fittler, then Captain of the Australian team, was also used by NACS in a television and poster program promoting the Karamap brand of condoms for HIV prevention programs.

4. In the past, male initiations were the primary source of information about sexuality for young men, and they learnt how to regulate not only their own sexuality, but also that of their spouse. The initiates were taught techniques for compensating for sexual contact with women through the ingestion of certain types of food and other substances, such as semen from older men (cf. Wilde 2003).