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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
Rugby league is the national sport of Papua New Guinea and the game's huge popularity and international profile has been used in recent condom promotion campaigns in the nation's fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In this paper, I argue that the promotion of condom use through rugby league requires a national campaign strategy that includes understandings of condom use and masculinity at the rural level. I demonstrate this through a study of Gogodala men's understandings of the epidemic and condom use in Western Province. The Gogodala are a Christian-based society and many blame the national condom promotion strategy for an increase in promiscuity and for 'turning sex into a game'. Condom availability in this rural area continues to be restricted to a family planning program that promotes Christian values and excludes unmarried men. I explore the male condom dilemma where young men are more concerned with avoiding accusations that their sexual behaviour puts them at risk of contracting HIV despite acknowledging the preventative value of using condoms. In this context young men disassociate themselves from the disease and condom use through a process of calculated risk or risk minimisation.
Key words: sport, Christianity, condoms, masculinity, HIV/AIDS, Papua New Guinea.
INTRODUCTION
It is widely acknowledged that, when used properly, condoms provide the most available and effective form of biomedical intervention for preventing HIV transmission. Acknowledging this, Papua New Guinea has implemented a multi-sectoral approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic based on a prevention policy known as the ABC strategy, which promotes the avoidance of sex before marriage, being faithful to one partner and the use of condoms. While the first two have broad support among Christian communities, the promotion of condom use has been widely debated, criticised and variously rejected throughout PNG. A growing literature has emerged illustrating a range of cultural barriers and negative attitudes toward condom use throughout the world including the notion that condoms promote promiscuity, are only meant for family planning purposes, cause a loss of sensation, are unreliable and often unavailable and signal a lack of trust in partners (Bond and Dover 1997; Campbell 2000; Jenkins 1997; Pinkerton and Abramson 1997; Willis 2003). (1) This paper contributes to this discourse through a study of Gogodala men's attitudes towards condom use in this remote and rural area of Western Province. The Gogodala live in a flood plain region of the Middle Fly District and are a predominantly Christian community that rejects condom use outside marriage and people are particularly worried that promoting them will spread the disease. This paper is concerned with the way young men try to avoid community criticism by publicly rejecting condom use outside marriage and asserting themselves within the local context of dala ela gi, the male way of life. One of the main ways young men disassociate themselves from the disease, for example, is to play rugby league as a way of demonstrating their strength and social worth.
Rugby league is the national sport of PNG and has an almost fanatical following throughout the country. Australian rugby league players are particularly assigned heroic status and competitions like the State of Origin series, between New South Wales and Queensland, and international matches between the countries are special occasions celebrated every year. Recognising this following, in September 2005 an Australian Prime Minister's XIII rugby league team played the Papua New Guinea national side, the Kumuls, in an exhibition match at Port Moresby as part of an Australian government Aus-AID funded campaign to spread awareness on HIV/AIDS education and violence against women. The PNG National AIDS Council also utilised the popularity of Brad Fittler, the Australian Rugby League Captain at the time, in a condom promotion campaign that included television coverage and poster distribution. On 20th April 2005, for example, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported in Australia that as part of the PNG television campaign;
Fittler said: 'Lukautin yu yet long," in pidgin ('Protect yourself from AIDS') in the television campaign, which became as popular as NRL (National Rugby League) broadcasts. Football fans souvenired most of the 20,000 black and white posters and to meet demand organisers printed an extra 40,000 in colour ... Fittler's involvement has created a benchmark for local sports stars who are joining the campaign.
On the condom promotion poster distributed around the country Fittler holds a condom with the following words displayed "[t]o be World Champions we need to play hard, but we also play it safe. And in life, like sport you have to play safe to stay safe ... from AIDS". This paper explores what these images and ideas mean for men in a rural context like that of the Gogodala.
Elsewhere (Wilde 2003, 2004, 2004a), I discuss the way dala ela gi is expressed in terms of the performance of inner bodily strength and that men most often displayed this through work ethic and physical appearance. It is primarily through hard work that Gogodala cultivate their bodies into ideal thin and muscular body types and there is an intimate relationship between body morphology and social connectedness based on clan relations and Christian behaviour. I have argued, for example, that Gogodala men approach canoe racing and rugby league as work related activities that reveal social relationships and gendered bodily capacities (Wilde 2004a). Playing rugby league gives men community respect and status and provides a public forum for displaying their social worth, inner and clan strength and village solidarity. In this environment, unmarried men and young men leaving school are particularly challenged to demonstrate their strength and worth to the community by maintaining clan and family relationships. One of the primary ways in which young men feel marginalized by the community, however, is through a lack of control over clan land. As first born sons control most clan responsibilities, names, land, magic and ancestral knowledge, younger brothers often find it difficult to attract potential partners as they have little to offer. Such men are more likely to become disillusioned with village life and move around from place to place. They become known as oko bininapa dala or 'no work men' and are also referred to as awani kakada paka, or AKP, which means 'the unwanted bark of a tree' or 'skin of fruit' in the sense that both are considered to be rubbish and useless. Being labelled AKP is seen as a challenge for these men to prove their strength and worth to the community, by performing hard work and adhering to the Christian values of the community. Men's sexual health is also expressed through physique and work and success at rugby league is an important way young men, and AKP, can present themselves as socially responsible adults and therefore not at risk of contracting or spreading diseases like HIV/AIDS. Associating condom use with rugby league therefore is a complex issue in rural areas. How then can a national condom campaign succeed at the rural level where rugby league forms an integral part of a male way of life that does not necessarily include sexual health concepts such as 'play hard and play safe'?
THE FOREIGN SICKNESS
The first recorded European contact with the Gogodala came in 1898 when the Reverend James Chalmers, of the London Missionary Society, held several church services at Gaima on the north bank of the lower Fly River. Due to Chalmers' death in 1901, and the remote and rugged terrain, permanent contact was not made until 1933 when the Unevangelized Fields Mission (UFM) established a station at Balimo. The first missionaries chose the Gogodala people after being impressed by the performance of several tenant farmers at their plantation on the southern bank of the Fly River. (2) There are now approximately 26,000 Gogodala people residing in 35 villages and government stations in the Middle Fly District of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. The majority of villages are built along and adjacent to the Aramia River, several are scattered throughout an area that extends south about 40kms to the lower Fly River region. (3) Single hull canoes are the defining mode of transport as most villages are connected through a network of creeks, lagoons, tributaries and sago...
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