Sorry if that sounds really ignorant or racist or whatever, I’m just trying to find out if they have more anal intercourse than Americans, Westerners or not? Anecdotal stuff I’ve read would seem to indicate that they DO have more - IIRC, superstitions in Uganda and South Africa hold that when a wife is widowed, she must get it in the butt from one of her husband’s friends in order to re-enter society, or something like that - there was a New York Times article about that, I believe. Institutionalized anal intercourse. That’s something the West doesn’t have.
Here is a report of a study, boiled down quite a bit, with some possible reasons why it may be so.
Theories say that the AIDS awareness info has neglected the mention of anal sex, since it is taboo to talk about it, so people think it is safer than vaginal sex.
There are a fair number of studies of the sexual behavior of sub-Saharan Africans, all of them questionable because they rely on how people respond to sensitive questions. It sounds like the authors of the article that UncleBill cites selectively cite studies that found evidence of frequent anal sex. I have no faith in their objectivity, especially since “The authors conclude that although unsafe medical practices probably caused most of the spread of HIV in Africa…” The unsafe medical practices is second only to mosquitoes as a discredited theory for explaining the susceptibility of sub-Saharan Africa societies to HIV infection.
One possible explanation for the recent reports of frequent, anal, homosexual sex is that sex researchers, like the HIV, have started in east, central, and west Africa and only recently moved into southern Africa and two things in southern Africa are very different from the other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. First, there are a lot of male migrant workers living in all-male hostels in parts of Southern Africa. Homosexual sex is supposed to be not uncommon there. Second, the HIV prevention message is an old one by now in southern Africa and it could be that the message, combined with public awareness of the sky high infection rate in the wealthier southern African countries has stimulated, as the article says, the substitution of anal for vaginal sex in some populations.
In short, based on reading about STDs and AIDS in Africa, five years living there, and visits to 20+ African countries, but NOT based on any formal study at all, I very much doubt that anal sex is COMMOM in MOST of sub-Saharan Africa. (Actually, isn’t it supposed to be NORTH Africa where homosexual anal sex is common?
There is a tradition in some tribes wherein a widow is supposed to have sex with a man selected for the task. This man is commonly the village drunkard or other undesirable. Recently, African women have defied this tradition successfully, a trend that I hope is ultimately successful in eliminating the practice.
“I don’t think anyone is singling out gay sex specifically. Rather, my impression from the OP was that we’re talking about HETERO anal sex.”
Well my impression of the OP was that it did NOT exclude homosexual anal sex. In any case, I gave one possible explanation recent reports of frequent, anal, homosexual sex and one possible explanation for recent reports of anal sex in general.
Another reason I doubt that anal sex of any kind is customary in sub-Saharan African countries (by which I mean practiced for more than jsut the last five or ten years) is that gonorrhoea, syphilis, and chancroid are fairly common in many sub-Saharan African countries (and have been common for many years), especially in southern Africa yet the many venereologists who have written about STDs in sub-Saharan Africa over the years have rarely mentioned rectal gonorrhoea or chancres near the anus. I don’t think that frequent anal sex can be kept secret all that well in a society where STDs are present.
