From South Dakota, USA to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
“I was 16 when it happened. Not planned at all, and then I was angry afterward because I thought it was his fault like ugh, you didn’t even ask or anything like that, so… it wasn’t a good first experience. And um, I think I was kind of in shock because, of course, I did not want that to happen, and some of my other friends had that happen, and, um, I don’t know, I felt dirty, and not – that wasn’t me I guess. Like I didn’t have time to think about whether I wanted it to happen or not, especially since we’d never talked about it also, it just happened.”
~Missy 21, South Dakota
The quote above came from research I did for my MA thesis, which looked at the contradictions that exist between the political and religious ideologies and actual sexual practices and lives of young South Dakota women. What did I find? In a nutshell, sex “just happens” and in most cases, it happens unsafely accompanied by fear and shame.
So What Am I Doing in Brazil, You Ask?
As we all know, unsafe and unhealthy sexual relationships are rampant around our world today and affect everyone—from young people to older generations. HIV continues to disproportionately affect women at alarming rates, over half of all pregnancies are unintended, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to plague sexual health. It has been my experience, from the health centers that I’ve worked in to the research I’ve done, tales like Missy’s above of sex “just happening” are all too common.
I wanted to come to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to explore sexuality because of the explicit contradictions that also seem to exist. The image of the beautiful bronzed bodies, tiny string bikinis and shaking bundas of the samba dance, reflect a “sexy” image prevalent throughout society. When one thinks of Brazil, romance and sex are some of the first things to come to mind and the country has some progressive policies to prove it. Brazil has also become a model country for dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic by promoting open discussions about safe sex and guaranteeing anti-retroviral drugs to all citizens that need them. However, in many ways it continues to be governed by a strong presence of the Catholic church. Abortion is illegal and this contributes to high maternal mortality rates. You may have heard about the recent case of the Catholic Bishop who condemned the medical community and the mother of the 9 year-old girl who was raped and impregnated with twins by her step-father, for obtaining an abortion.
In order to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a sexually health person, I believe we need to explore sociologist Ken Plummer's idea of what it means to have sexual citizenship—that is, as he explains, how are our most intimate decisions shaped by and in turn shape, our most public institutions?
When I arrived in Brazil, I found Onda Jovem, a group of peer educators coordinated by Promundo, an international NGO working to prevent violence and promote gender equality. Promundo, in accordance with numerous researchers, have confirmed that gender norms are among the strongest underlying factors that influence sexual behaviors, including violence against women (Gupta, 2000; Vargo, 2003 as quoted in Ricardo, Barker, Pulerwitz and Rocha, 2006).
Through this creative project with Onda Jovem, I hope to learn from and with Brazilian youth, in order to gain a deeper understanding of gender norms, sexual health and human rights. As a group, we hope to develop creative programming that truly strikes a chord with youth and empowers them to live happy and healthy sexual lives! To learn more about the project and how you can help, check out the Onda Jovem blog at http://ondajovem.wordpress.com/
