“Tough-love, Sex, Poverty, Infidelity …?” – 2000

A 52 min documentary special on AIDS in South Africa produced for International AIDS Day – 2000.

Who are the most vulnerable to HIV / AIDS?

Most people still have stereotypical views as to why it is something that ‘other people’ get – but the truth is that we are all vulnerable.

When it comes to choices concerning sexual behaviour we need to realise that we have to individually – each & every one of us – take personal responsibility for our own protection – you cannot hold anybody else responsible.

Do not have have unprotected sex.

It’s the only guarentee you have – even if you believe that you are in a stable relationship.

In this regard – perhaps those most vulnerable now include middle-class married women – secure in the belief that they are happily married with faithful husbands.

“He was out there, going with prostitutes & other women while I was at home living in a dream world,” relates Sally Vosloo of her ex-husband who was diagnosed HIV+ in 1990. “A lot of my friends gossip about what happened to me behind my back, but I know their husbands do the same. When men go away – on business, for conferences – they go to other women; so there are going to be a lot of women sitting with this same problem.”

Dr Liz Floyd, Director of the Gauteng AIDS Programme puts it this way:
“The definition that we use is ‘men who work away from home and do stressful work’. Now that goes way beyond a hostel-dweller – it includes executives, leadership – there’s no class-immunity to HIV. In the early stages of an epidemic like ours, the middle class is as affected because it hasn’t understood what it was facing.”

When it comes to statistics, the group most at risk are the youth – where-as the target group for those working in the HIV / AIDS field used to be 18 to 25 – it is now 12 to 20! Canvassing a wide kaleidescope of situations from rural to urban, adult & youth that embraces all constituencies of South Africans, “Tough-love, Sex, Poverty, …. Infidelity … ?” presents a challenging & focussed look at AIDS in South Africa today.

Cameos of people living with HIV / AIDS include, Martin Vosloo, Judy Seidelman, Mercy Makhalemele, Florence Ngobeni, Edwin Cameron and Inkosi Johnson.