A Line of Defense

One of the women on the program, an activist who did not have AIDS, stated that we women have to stop compromising our lines of defense.  She said something else that was even more profound, and the only way I can do it justice is to paraphrase her.  Essentially, she said that we are living in a day and age where we can little afford to not ask questions of our men.  We have no choice but to ask them if they’ve engaged in the past or currently engage in sex with other men.  We have no choice but to ask them about their unprotected sexual histories.  We have no choice but to ask them to submit to testing for HIV.  And if we insist on having sex with them anyway, then we must insist on them using a condom.

The latter suggestion or better, mandate, didn’t sit well with me.  You see, I took that as condoning premarital and extramarital sexual relations, which I cannot do.  But on further inspection, that’s not what she meant.  What she meant was if a woman cannot insist upon abstinence or celibacy before marriage, and is insistent on getting her groove on, then she better protect herself.  In those terms, I got it.

As she continued, she made it abundantly clear that men do and have lied to us.  They will lie to us to have sex.  They will lie to enjoy the fruit, just like Adam did in the Garden.  And just like Adam, they will lie after they enjoy the fruit. 

Dang!  I thought.  The lines of defense are now our only offenses, I reasoned.  The very things that ground us, lend conviction and substance to our lives are the only things that can save our lives.  To compromise one conviction, moral or belief is to potentially choose death.  To refuse to stick to the guns of faith, morality and holiness is to take one’s life into one’s own hands.  And to refuse to ask those questions of men about sexual history, etc. is a decision to deal with the consequences. 

All of that makes good sense but how do you translate that into terms that most women will accept?  How do you articulate to women that they are worth more than the fear of losing a man who won’t answer those questions or a man who won’t tell the truth?  What exactly do you say to a woman that helps her understand her true value; a value that is greater than the good time promised by a man who will come into her life and who will most likely leave one day?