It Spreads the HIV by Play Sex

It’s the end of the first term here in Rwanda which means I have a mound of papers to grade. I know you’re wondering how I’m going to connect grading papers with sex education but hold on to your horses. So as a crawling through entrepreneurship tests I find this gem… The question was: name a disadvantage of self-employment. It seems pretty straight forward but some kids just missed the mark. One student’s answer was: “you can get diseases like AIDS etc.” Another student answered: “it spreads the HIV by play sex”. Yeah I never really thought of those two as being disadvantages to self-employment. I know I shouldn’t poke fun at my students and I think and hope that there is a misunderstanding there but I also think that these answers speak to a trend I’m starting to notice, a total misunderstanding of sex education.

I know your thinking; wait is Evan going to be all judgy here? Well yeah a little bit I guess, but I promised I wouldn’t be too judgy till I lived here at least 3 months and I have passed that mark so it’s fair game

I am the faculty advisor of the Anti-sida (AIDS) club which means I get a lot of kids asking me real questions about sex on a one on one basis and half the time I’m stunned to hear what kids say. I am also the resident muzungu at a local bar, where I also receive a ton of cross-cultural sex questions. One thing that’s good is that sex is spoken about openly even if it is misunderstood. I can’t say that this is true for many Christian circles. The church is one place where many people receive a lot of information about sex and AIDS and it often times conflicts with what non-profits are teaching. I have heard young children as well as grown adult’s totally skew information they have heard especially about AIDS, condoms and pre-marital sex.

Seeing the term “play sex” was not the first time that I have seen or heard that phrase. I think in efforts to simplify and differentiate between monogamous sex with the intention to have a baby and all other sex, they use the term “play sex” which I think is something dangerous to simply down to the word “play”. Some people are disproportionately scared of condoms ripping that they choose not to wear them at all. Some people believe you can only get AIDS by having sex outside of marriage. One thing is clear though, having AIDS is absolutely horrible and you shouldn’t catch it regardless of if you have a clue about what AIDS is or not.

For many countries, I would think the problem regarding the spread of HIV/AIDS and sex education is that it is severely lacking. I think for at least Rwanda’s case, there is too much sex education and it comes from many different sources and even those sources change their message. This has resulted in a vast majority of the population just being plain confused about sex. Non-profits and churches need to get on the same page and propose reasonable, understandable and applicable education and stick with it. Please, let’s work together for the sake of the people we are serving.