Oxford University Press Modernizing Sexuality: U.S. Hiv Prevention In Sub-Saharan Africa (Sexuality, Identity, And Society)

Moving beyond the boundaries of HIV scholarship, Modernizing Sexuality shows how Western idealizations of normative sexuality and the power of modernity intersect in U.S. HIV prevention policy. In this book, Anne Esacove gathers interview, archival, and ethnographic data from the United States and Malawi to reveal failing U.S. prevention efforts. As seen in the promotion of "love matches" and women's right to "say no" to sex, modernization embedded within U.S. policy actually limits action against this widespread epidemic, and even exacerbates HIV risk among women. Instead, by illuminating the collective solutions and multiple paths of prevention used by Malawians, Esacove's analysis expertly exposes these fundamental flaws and provides direction for potentially more effective strategies. Through this analysis, Modernizing Sexuality not only reveals major U.S. health policy flaws, but asks important questions about prevention narratives, medicalizing social justice advocacy, and feminist and sexuality theories as a guide for HIV prevention policy. Closing with an alternative narrative, Esacove reimagines risk and offers readers innovative prevention strategies to guide future policy endeavors. Review Esacove has amassed a treasure trove of data from international and domestic policy discussions to local conversations, turning Modernizing Sexuality into an immensely stimulating book. -- Joanna Watkins, Senior Public Sector Specialist, The World Bank This is an outstanding contribution to the social science of sexuality and a piercing analysis of moralism hidden in global health work. -- Jennifer Hirsch, Professor and Deputy Chair for Doctoral Studies, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University This extraordinary book offers a compelling critique of U.S. policy to tackle HIV in Africa. It highlights an intensely moralistic agenda in efforts to modernize sexuality through outsider led but locally delivered forms of bureaucratic control. A real eye-opener on what has happened in recent years and why such efforts are doomed to fail. -- Peter Aggleton, Scientia Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Australia Esacove's book reveals how interpretations of gender, external and internal discourses of modernity, and discord between risk perception and prescriptive solution combine to fundamentally challenge the efficacy of public health interventions designed to stem the spread of HIV. -- Rachel Sullivan Robinson, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, American University Overall, perhaps the lasting and most important contribution of Esacove's work is to illustrate the power of stories to direct billions of U.S. dollars to determine what interventions are carried out, and ultimately whether those interventions are set up for success or failure. This book's significance and innovation earn it a place on the bookshelves of scholars of HIV/AIDS, gender, health policy, African studies, and culture. -- American Journal of Sociology About the Author Anne W. Esacove, Associate Director of the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality, and Women at the University of Pennsylvania, is motivated by questions that arose during her public health training and years of working to promote sexual and reproductive health. In addition to U.S. global HIV-prevention policy, her research has challenged intentionality-based behavioral models of sexual decision-making, explicated the social movement framing and counterframing of "partial-birth" abortion, and explored the circumstances that lead women to use emergency contraception. Her current research examines the burgeoning natural death movement in the United States.