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Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Death from HIV/AIDS is increasingly common in Kenya. However, the ways in which people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and society more generally make sense of this kind of death has been little investigated. By analysing accounts from a sample of fourteen heterosexual people diagnosed HIV positive and presented for treatment in four specialized clinics in Nairobi, and other accounts elicited from members of the clergy and lay persons, this paper examines how people make sense of death from HIV/AIDS. To be infected by HIV equates to death, and because AIDS acts as a metaphor for moral and physical contamination, HIV infection confers on the individual a spoilt image and identity. This image and identity is projected into life beyond physical death, and is reinforced, popularized and legitimized by Christian and African religious schema in such a way that death from HIV/AIDS is now constructed and experienced as 'permanent'. This kind of death has implications for the way in which people living with HIV/AIDS seek treatment and manage an HIV seropositive status. It is also relevant to an understanding of the ways in which funerals and burials for people dying of HIV/AIDS are now being organized in Kenya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about sexual practices and life experiences of men having sex with men in Kenya, and indeed in East Africa, is limited. Although the impact of male same-sex HIV transmission in Africa is increasingly acknowledged, HIV prevention initiatives remain focused largely on heterosexual and mother-to-child transmission. Using data from ten in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions (36 men), this analysis explores social and behavioural determinants of sexual risks among men who sell sex to men in Mombasa, Kenya. Analysis showed a range and variation of men by age and social class. First male same-sex experiences occurred for diverse reasons, including love and pleasure, as part of sexual exploration, economic exchange and coercion. Condom use is erratic and subject to common constraints, including notions of sexual interference and motivations of clients. Low knowledge compounds sexual risk taking, with a widespread belief that the risk of HIV transmission through anal sex is lower than vaginal sex. Traditional family values, stereotypes of abnormality, gender norms and cultural and religious influences underlie intense stigma and discrimination. This information is guiding development of peer education programmes and sensitisation of health providers, addressing unmet HIV prevention needs. Such changes are required throughout Eastern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Culture, Health & Sexuality is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The scripting of sexual encounters among young people in Kenyan is described using results of 28 focus group discussions conducted with young people attending primary school standard 7, from four different ethnic groups and living in 22 different communities. Sexual encounters were described as both mundane and inevitable and followed a predetermined scripted sequence of events and interactions in which girls and boys played complementary roles. These scripts were set within discourses of force and the exchange of gifts for sex. The gendered nature of the script and its social and cultural foundations are discussed. Potential strategies for developing HIV prevention programming are discussed from the perspective of existing sexual scripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 20 years, demographic analyses have shown female education associated with decreased fertility and infant/child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Far less studied are the pathways and overall effects of female education upon Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). An earlier 1996 study of one community of Ariaal Rendille pastoralists in Marsabit District of northern Kenya, suggested that female education may reduce the risk of STIs by removing educated adolescent women from the cultural tradition of pre-marital sexual relationships featuring early sexual debut and frequent partner change. Log-linear analysis of a 1998 sample of 127 adolescent women supports this model, with female education being negatively associated with the nykeri tradition. However, the full potential of female education for lowering STI risk may be negated by traditional Ariaal cultural patterns of differentially sending boys rather than girls to school. Au cours des vingt dernières années, diverses analyses démographiques ont démontréque l'eéducation des femmes va de pair avec une diminution de la fertilitéet de la mortalitéperinatale en Afrique subsaharienne. Cependant, l'impact global de l'éducation des femmes sur les maladies sexuellement transmissibles (MST) a été beaucoup moins étudiée. Dans une étude réalisée de 1996, qui portait sur une communautéde pasteurs Ariaal Rendille, résidant dans la région de Marsabit au Kenya, nous avions suggéréque l'éducation des femmes pourrait réduire leur risque de MST en permettant aux adolescentes scolarisées de prendre de la distance par rapport à la tradition culturelle des rapports sexuels pré-maritaux, qui se caractérise par une initiation une initiation sexuelle précoce et des changements de partenaire fréquents. Une analyse log-linéaire, effectuée sur des données de 1998 auprès d'un échantillon de 127 adolescentes, corrobore cette hypothése en montrant une corrélation négative entre l'éducation des femmes et la tradition du nykeri. Cependant, cette potentialitépourrait être réduite par les usages culturels traditionnels des Ariaals, qui envoient de préférence les garçons à l'école plutôt que les filles, ce qui diminue les chances que l'éducation des femmes réduisent le risque de MST. Los análisis demográficos demuestran que desde hace más de 20 anás la educacián de la poblacián femenina ha disminuido la fecundidad y la mortalidad infantil en África subsahariana. Pero se han estudiado mucho menos las rutas y los efectos generales que tiene la educacián femenina en las infecciones de transmisián sexual. Según un estudio anterior realizado en 1996 en la comunidad pastoril de Ariaal Rendille en el distrito de Marsabit, al norte de Kenia, la educacián de la poblacián femenina se puede disminuir el riesgo de adquirir enfermedades de transmisián sexual porque distancia a las adolescentes educadas de la tradición cultural, que estimula las tempranas relaciones sexuales prematrimoniales, y los cambios frecuentes de pareja. El análisis log-lineal de una muestra de entre realizada en 1998, 127 mujeres jóvenes, confirma este modelo en el que la educación de la población femenina se asocia negativamente con la tradición nykeri. Sin embargo, todo el potencial que tien la educación femenina para intentar disminuir las enfermedades de transmisión sexual puede ser invalidado por el tradicional modelo cultural de la comunidad Ariaal en el que los chicos van al colegio, pero no las chicas, reduciendo el potencial de la educación femenina para disminuir los riesgos de infecciones de transmisión sexual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]