By Fr. Joel O. Jason
In its February 2010 issue, Time magazine ran an article on Dr. David Ho, a scientist very active in researching over an antibody that he believes would prevent HIV infection. Interestingly, the article narrated a 2007 incident when, in an AIDS conference where Dr. Ho was in attendance, a presenter flashed a cartoon of a blindfolded baseball player swinging mightily at an incoming ball and, of course, missing. I’m not sure what the purpose of the presenter was. But according to Time, the imagery was clear. The blindfolded baseball player was Dr. Ho and his team, and the incoming fast ball was AIDS. It was another futile swing and a miss — one of the many in humanity’s long battle with HIV and AIDS.
I admire Dr. Ho and his team for their dedication and humane passion to eradicate the challenge of AIDS. But I thought that cartoon incident offers volumes of commentaries over the issue.
It reminded me of a story I read before.
A bull that has been working in the bull ring for several years finally retired. Talking to a fellow retiree, he shared his conundrum (i.e., a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem or dilemma). In utter frustration he shared, “For years I have been chasing after that red cape and I never really did catch it. How do I solve the problem of that red cape?” The fellow retiree whispered, “Just between us, the problem is not the cape. It’s the matador. Eliminate the matador and you eliminate that pestering cape as well.”
This Aesop’s fable explains why the bull was always painted as a dumb animal. It charges mindlessly, without thought, without purpose. Driven by inordinate passion and sheer instinct, it chases its target clueless and not knowing that the real target should be something or someone else. The result: frustration, energy spent in futility and, for some, even death at the hands of the matador.
Isn’t this our collective experience so far in our long standing battle with AIDS? It has been more than 25 years since the pandemic and we all look like a blindfolded baseball player swinging mightily at an incoming AIDS fastball — frustrated, spent and, for some, dead. The rate of HIV transmission and AIDS continues to swell. Just last March, the DOH noted an alarming increase in HIV cases among the young and specially the MSM (men having sex with men) sector in the country.
In February 14, 2010 the Department of Health placed itself at the center of discussion with its distribution of free condoms to celebrate “love” day. When called to task for such actions, the DOH explained that it’s the Department’s way of battling the HIV and STD transmission. It was to remind people to have safe sex. I was asking myself, “What is safe sex?” More properly, since when has sex become unsafe anyway?
In the Beginning, It Was Not So
Once, I was at a conference with young professionals and I was sharing with them John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.1 During the open forum a guy came up and asked, “Father, is having a good sex life important?” I was a bit surprised. Gathering my senses, I answered, “It depends what you mean by good.” “If by good sex you mean sex whenever, wherever and with whomever I want,” I continued, “then my answer is no.” Then I concluded, “ But if by good sex you mean, sex as God intended it to be, then by all means, go and have good sex.”
When we read in the Bible, “(t)hen God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it’” (Genesis 1:28), God was telling the first man and woman to have sex. God created sex. Genesis 1:31 concludes by saying, “And God looked at what He has created and it was good.”
Sex is among the things God has created. Therefore sex is good, sex is safe. Notice that sex and the ability of the woman to bear a child is the first thing that God blessed in the world (see Genesis 1:28). John Paul II calls it the world’s “primordial blessing.” But why do we now speak of the need to be protected from “unsafe sex” and the need to have “safe sex”?
It is not because sex is naturally unsafe. It is our behavior and the inordinate desires of our hearts that has made sex unsafe. No scientific literature will contest that sexually transmitted diseases like HIV and others are not natural by-products of sex. God did not make sex with HIV and STD on the side. They are the by-products of irresponsible sexual behavior. Christ calls it in the Gospel of Matthew as the “hardness of our hearts.” It is our “sex whenever, wherever and with whomever” mentality that has ruined the world’s primordial blessing and morphed it into the modern world’s primordial threat. Case in point, no one who is practicing abstinence or monogamy and fidelity has ever contracted HIV or any other STDs (unless he is a drug user and may have used an infected needle).
So how do we make sex safe and redeem it back as the world’s primordial blessing? Unless we change our behavior and look into the “hardness of our hearts,” we remain a hapless bull and a blindfolded baseball player, helplessly missing the point. No one in his right mind will contest that abstinence (if you are single) and monogamy/fidelity (if you are married) are the only 100 percent ways of eliminating the HIV and AIDS menace. But why aren’t we considering it? It is not because it doesn’t work. It is because we are not willing to give it a try. It’s the hardness of our hearts.
The Heart of the Matter
I once read of a man suffering from obesity due to his uncontrollable desire for food. To remedy the situation, he underwent an operation to shorten his small intestines to simulate the feeling of being full even with a little amount of food. It didn’t work. The man developed new complications. His intestines were close to bursting with continuous food intake. What’s the problem? The problem is not with food. The problem is not with his small intestines. The real problem is with his heart — his inordinate desire for food. Even if all of his intestines are taken away, the problem will remain unless he corrects his attitude.
Similarly, the problem of STDs and HIV is not about sex. It is not an issue of disease control but self-control. It is not a technical problem. It is ultimately a problem of the human heart and it will not be solved apart from correcting the desires of our hearts.
The Condom Files
Last March 19, 2009, the National Review Online reported in its publication the results of the work of Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. In his recent study he announced, “We have found no consistent associations between condom use and lower HIV-infection rates, which, 25 years into the pandemic, we should be seeing if this intervention was working.”
We should not be surprised at this. In scientific circles, it is openly admitted that condoms are in fact not 100 percent safe. On an average, it is said that there is a 10 to 15 percent inefficacy, since the AIDS viruses are much more ‘filtrating’ (i.e., able to pass through) than the sperm. Google “condom voids” and you will discover that the male sperm is small enough to easily pass through the pores or natural voids of the rubber latex, thus the 10 to 15 percent failure rate as a contraceptive. Condoms have natural microscopic holes, which measure 5 microns (.0002 inch) while the HIV virus measures 0.1 micron (4 millionth of an inch). It’s a no-brainer. Prescribing condoms as a protection for HIV and AIDS is a virtual Russian roulette. Sooner or later, you will have it. It’s only a matter of time. Therefore, even at a “technical” level of efficacy, one should question the scientific seriousness and the consequent professional seriousness of the condom campaign.
Speaking to the National Review Online, Mr. Green added, “The pope is correct, or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments. (T)here is… a consistent association shown by our best studies, including the U.S.-funded ‘Demographic Health Surveys,’ between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV-infection rates.”
Green added, “I also noticed that the pope said ‘monogamy’ was the best single answer to African AIDS, rather than ‘abstinence.’ The best and latest empirical evidence indeed shows that reduction in multiple and concurrent sexual partners is the most important single behavior change associated with reduction in HIV-infection rates.”
Missing the Mark
In ancient Greece, archery is a sport of excellence, a measure of greatness. Failing to hit the bullseye is considered a great failure. They have a term for it — hamartia, i.e., missing the mark. It’s no coincidence the Greek word for sin is likewise hamartia. Sin, or moral failure, is not only about breaking a moral law. It is missing the mark of human excellence, of true manhood (humanity).
More than the threat of HIV and AIDS, the Church looks at the issue as a question of growing in authentic love and in our humanity as sexual persons. With or without the threat of HIV/AIDS and STDs, the Church has always called and will call for an education in chastity, premarital abstinence and marital fidelity, which are authentic expressions of human sexuality. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave out the invitation to experience the joy and thrill of being chaste. Secular mentality proposes an attitude of always being on a chase.
Look at a recent TV ad showing in local television. A sexy woman passes by, looks seductively at a man of her fancy, and the man begins to run after her. Whether the man or the woman is committed to one another or to another one is not important. The point of the TV ad is best described by the sheepish smile and boast of the male lead, “Ang tunay na lalaki, proteksyon bago umaksyon.” It’s a “bullish” portrayal of manhood. If I feel like charging, I will, for as long as I have protection. No wonder our relationships leave us frustrated, spent, dead.
Jason Evert, a husband, father, chastity speaker and Theology of the Body enthusiast couldn’t have said it more eloquently, “A real man is not someone who will conquer a woman for the sake of his desires. A real man is someone who will conquer his desires for the sake of a woman.”
What kind of manhood does condom distribution promote? Your answer is as good as mine.
The Thrill of the Chaste
I end with another fable. An eagle egg was accidentally mixed with chicken eggs. After a period of time, the eagle egg hatched and soon the eaglet found itself growing in the company of chickens. All the while, he thought he was a chicken, a ground creature. Until one day, he saw an eagle soaring up in the heavens. Something in him was stirred. He found himself constantly looking up in the heavens, waiting for the eagle to soar by. The image of the soaring eagle seemed to awaken a deep unconscious desire in his heart. Until one day, while admiring the flying eagle, he just found himself flapping his wings, lifting himself up in the air, and soaring with the eagle he daily admired. It was then that he realized he was not a chicken. He was an eagle destined to soar up in the heavens.
It took the image of a soaring eagle to reveal to him his genuine identity.
Our culture wants us to believe that we are nothing but chickens — ground creatures. I hear it often. Someone will say, “Father, palay na ang lumalapit sa manok.2 Ano pa ang gagawin ko? (Father, if it’s the grain that approaches the chicken, what will I do?)” I always answer back, “Kung manok ang tingin mo sarili mo, eh di tukain mo (If you think of yourself as a chicken, then go peck the grain).”
The first line of the morality section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#1691) richly says it, “Christians, recognize your dignity.” The Church position on the condom question is more than a question of technical efficacy (although even by technical efficacy, the Church position is unarguably the best solution). It is a question of educating and inviting us to discover the joy of genuine love, the beauty of genuine human sexuality and our nobility as human persons.
Is AIDS really an untouchable fastball? Is the red cape really invincible? Maybe we’re just blindfolded and simply “bullish” in our approach. In any case, we are missing the mark. How do we solve the condom conundrum? I propose we take our blindfold, get wise, stop our “bullish” behavior and start aiming at the real mark. Otherwise, like a mindless bull we will forever be on a chase, missing out on the real thrill of the chaste.
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1 Fr. Joel O. Jason is also the author of the book “Free Love, True Love: Rediscovering Love and Intimacy in John Paul II’s Theology of the Body” published by Shepherd’s Voice Publications and available at major bookstores
nationwide. The Theology of the Body is the late John Paul II’s teaching on the beautiful and truly liberating teaching of the Bible on the meaning of human love and sexuality. The book is now on its third printing.
2 A Filipino idiomatic expression for a woman who makes the first move to attract a man
