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By
Richmond Tiemoko
Here comes the last quarter of the (Gregorian) year with its characteristic heavy traffic not just on the highways, street and the skies but also sexually and emotionally. It is therefore a priority period to call for and promote safety and wellness. During this period the international community rightly marks three events related to safety and wellness: the international day of the elderly, the 16 days of activism against sexual and gender based violence and the international AIDS day.
Much of the discourses and actions are however embedded in the notion of risk (reduction) and violence. In this short article I call for a need to go beyond risk and address the broader concept of uncertainty . Uncertainty about how, when, where and the extent to which one can express and enjoy fulfilling sexuality. Uncertainty about how the society and the environment would safeguard our empowering and constructive difference.
Risk or Certainty?
In 2005 the ARSRC organized a public dialogue that explored the notion of risk and high-risk population. One of the conclusions of the dialogue was that in term of sexual health and well-being, everybody was at risk. This is confirmed by the increasing number of HIV infection among married persons. Consequently, the notion of high risk population may not only be judgmental but it could also give a false sense of security.
‘No safe heaven!' is the title and conclusion of the publication of Project Alert on Gender Based Violence , a Nigerian NGO, which monitored and analyzed sexual and gender based violence on women and the girl-child in Nigeria. The conclusion is certainly valid across Africa. The risk of being a victim or perpetrator of sexual and gender based violence is so high that people frame it and take it for granted..
Going Beyond Risk For The Promotion Of Safe Sexuality and Wellness .
Although risk is a helpful notion in addressing negative sexuality-related outcomes, it is still not enough. It is time to go back to the drawing board and use the distinction between risk and uncertainty as clarified by Frank Knight [1].
‘‘ Uncertainty must be taken in a sense radically distinct from the familiar notion of Risk, from which it has never been properly separated… It will appear that a measurable uncertainty, or "risk" proper, as we shall use the term, is so far different from an immeasurable one that it is not in effect an uncertainty at all. We ... accordingly restrict the term "uncertainty" to cases of the non-quantitive type ”.
Risk of course connotes hazard, danger. In economic, actuarial and epidemiologic works, risk has a known probability attached to the event or what Knight refers to as measurable uncertainty . But in sexuality and safety in many contexts, there is limited measured uncertainty. It is true that thanks to numerous critical research, it is quite safe to talk about risk of HIV transmission and even give the probability of transmission. And this body of research has certainly fed into the HIV/AIDS prevention discourse and . (It is assumed) that individuals know and quantify the risk (and the expected major negative outcome) and they could therefore strategize their behavior around this probability. However, in the field of expressed and lived sexuality , decisions are hardly taken by a board of experts or by individuals with a sound knowledge of probability, but rather by ordinary human being, sexual being facing multiple challenges and opportunities in an uncertain environment. It therefore makes sense to talk of and use the concept of uncertainty and uncertain environment rather than risk if we are to promote responsibility and accountability in positive sexuality and wellness.
The limit of the risk approach is well known to experts and has led to the qualifier safer sex (and not safe sex) in HIV campaign. There is more to this limit. In sexuality and wellness, the concept of bounded rationality clearly shows the limit of risk and risk reduction approach. B ounded rationality refers to the situation where individuals get overloaded and they use a shortcut by ignoring an event (even with great negative consequence) with low probability or with very high probability (quasi-certain). For instance when non sexual satisfaction of women in long term relationship is widespread, current and future partners tend to ignore this need.
With regards to violence for instance, using ” risk” approach, individuals who have been victims of intimate sexual violence (i.e. the violation of their sexual rights) tend to frame the risk and therefore ignore the fact that it is likely to happen again. Or as in the case of anti-HIV campaign, some young people rebel against safer sex because they minimize the risk or the consequence of this behavior .
Promoting safety, sexual health and wellness would be best served by using the uncertainty approach which is broader than risk. This is because the probability of the event with an important negative consequence is not only unknown but may be neglected. At the same time, many changing factors and circumstances affect the very calculation of the probability that the event occurs.
Uncertainty also goes beyond individual act and behavior to address lived environment and indeed the life world. Many things that impinge on individual sexual health and wellbeing are not necessary in their control or they don't have prior knowledge of them.
As McMinn[2] said 'the desire for and possibility of engaging in some form of genital sexual expression calls to us from many outlets such as billboards, television commercials, and our computer screens' . And even the toilets or public rest rooms displays uncertainty about sexual safety and wellbeing as indicated in Ruto's contribution. One would say that toilet is not necessarily one's time alone and for oneself.
The Challenges Of Being Socially Responsible Self
In both public and private spaces, women are not safe with regards to expressing their sexuality. ‘Don't be sexy, don't be there' in Simidele Dosekun' article is just one of many statements in pervasive discourses on sexuality. Even in physically secured places like the correctional institution, the safety of sexual expression still remains an issue. All these clearly indicate that it is still challenging and to some extent (for some people) even unsafe to be oneself, to be just human with the feeling of desire and emotion.
As we end this Gregorian year and usher in the year 2008, let's all work for safe, healthy, pleasurable and responsible sexuality.
References
- Knight, F. H. (1921) Risk, Uncertainty and Profit , Chicago: Houghton Mifflin Company cited in http://www.reference.com/search?q=risk change the
- McMinn L.G. (2004). Sexuality and holy Longing: Embracing intimacy in a broken world. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
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