10. “You Have to Understand: Some of Us Are Glad AIDS Has Arrived” Christianity and Condoms among the Huli, Papua New Guinea

“With AIDS I am happier than I have ever been before”

“…Many of them were widowed or divorced and had moved in with parents or siblings, where they often felt the need to demonstrate that they were morally worthy of care. AIDS is associated with immorality, and it is sometimes assumed that an HIV‐positive person must have lived in such a way—reckless, licentious, selfish—as to deserve having been infected (Eves ; Hammar ; Wardlow ; Kelly‐Hanku et al . ).…”

The (extra)ordinary ethics of being HIV‐positive in rural Papua New Guinea

“…She shows that these parents 'often find themselves propelled in a quest to imagine a new sort of life for themselves or to become different kinds of persons ' (2014: 5). And I myself have found a virtue ethics approach to be productive in explaining some Huli men's attempts to become more companionate husbands to their wives (Wardlow 2014). However, though quite attentive to how best to interact ethically with others, HIV-positive women did not typically articulate specific virtues they were striving to enact.…”

“…Women's fear of retribution for infecting others, even in the case of rape, requires some explanation. In the past, sexual assault was largely understood as a violation of a woman's family and was, at least for the purposes of restitution, considered equivalent to consensual pre-and extra-marital sex: all were the theft of a woman's sexuality from those who rightfully had custody over it (Wardlow 2006). While rape is increasingly understood as an individual violation that is emotionally damaging to its survivor, the moral exceptionalism of AIDS, and the dread it inspires, renders infection with HIV the greater misfortune in many people's minds.…”

“…A man's infection with HIV from his rape victim can inspire as much or more sympathy than his violent act against her. Moreover, women's testimony, including testimony about sexual assault, is more subject to doubt than men's (Goldman 1983;Wardlow 2006). For some people, it was within the realm of possibility that an HIV-positive woman might claim rape when in fact she was trying to infect others out of anger at her own infected state.…”

“…While women must properly manage their bodily emanations, a greater worry is their transgressive and untrustworthy nature; they are often characterized as less innately orientated towards the larger social good and more irrationally obstinate. Consequently, women must be 'fenced in' (Wardlow 2006) by men through rules, physical discipline, onerous labour, and children (whose care requires women to stay within family territory and who are said to tattle on their mothers if they smoke, gamble, or have visitors without asking permission). The preceding is often vigorously debated as people try to sort out the best and right ways to conduct their marital and religious lives, and many Huli have rejected some of the above discourses and practices as 'backwards' or 'unchristian' .…”