Sex And Culture

AIDS, Sex, and Culture is a revealing examination of the impact the AIDS epidemic in Africa has had on women. Moving from her own story growing up in South Africa, anthropologist Ida Susser, looks at the AIDS epidemic in Africa in terms of its impact on a particularly vulnerable—both biologically and socially—group: women. She touches on global inequalities underpinning the AIDS epidemic, the impact of social conservativism in the US that has caused a reduction in support of certain AIDS prevention programs in favor of abstinence instruction, the logic of Mbeki’s AIDS denial, recurrent stereotypes of the “Dark Continent” and women’s fights for access to the female condom.

At the heart of Stripping, Sex, and Popular Culture lies a very personal story, of author Catherine Roach's response to the decision of her life-long best friend to become an exotic dancer. Catherine and Marie grew up together in Canada and moved to the USA to enroll in PhD programs at prestigious universities. For various reasons, Marie left her program and instead chose to work as a stripper. The author, at first troubled and yet fascinated by her friend's decision, follows Marie's journey into the world of stripping as an observer and analyst.