This is the second article I referred to from Jamaican writer Kei Miller. Our girls are indeed living on the edge. While the Jamaican far-right fundamentalists are panicking about predatory gays, our young girls suffer. The heterosexual rape culture is alive and well…and largely ignored. Ask the NGO Eve for Life, which seeks to support and empower young girls living with HIV and AIDS. The (true) stories they will tell you…
Just last Sunday, sitting on a cool verandah here in Jamaica, a good friend told me a story and all week I have had to think hard about my reaction to it. I have had to bow my head and feel thoroughly ashamed with myself. Over and over again I have been asking – why did laughter escape my mouth? There was nothing funny about the story.
My friend works at a school in an inner-city community in Jamaica and recently he had to fire one of the security guards. The security guard had done something unacceptable. And when asked about this unacceptable thing, the security guard had explained himself in these words: ‘Well, the little girl did show me a thing so mi just EDGE it a little.’ I was laughing of course at his language, this depiction of an act that wasn’t quite intercourse, but just the ‘edge’…
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