Linking cancer to “marital duty” and #gbv in this way is failure to apply the mind

I lost both my breasts to #breastcancer, three weeks after my 37th birthday

But most important, I worked as a health rights activist helping indigent black women living w/ breast cancer in kasis https://twitter.com/kumalopatricia/status/1297192407189127168

As a lawyer I want to first discuss the issue of sex as “marital duty”.

The Deputy Minister’s notion is based on a long outdated legal notion of “conjugal rights” as an ENTITLEMENT of marriage. A partner ~ READ A HUSBAND, could access SEX on DEMAND often w/out the wife’s CONSENT

Let me help YOU fellow South Africans

There is no such thing in South African law as a “right” to sex, so-called conjugal rights under our old law. PREVIOUSLY a husband couldn’t be accused of RAPING HIS WIFE.

Current SA Law = Wives HAVE TO CONSENT to sexual acts in a marriage

As a breastless woman who had her breasts amputated due to #breatcancer I want to say the Dep Min is ill educated on the treatment fall outs of my disease

* Losing a breast is traumatic. Think implications of BODY IMAGE. Who fucken feels sexually desirable?

(Support patients)

#Breastcancer & sex

I was diagnosed w/ hormone receptor positive breast cancer as a PRE-MENOPAUSAL woman. (I had just turned 37, 3 weeks b4 diagnosis)

I had to be put into MEDICALLY INDUCED MENOPAUSE - within 3 weeks post diagnosis. My hormone treatment KILLED my sexual desire

#Breastcancer, Sex & black South African womanhood

* I was a double BREAST AMPUTEE and newly divorced at age 37

* I was treated in private practice and ONLY one of my 8 white specialists talked to me about sexual desirability & breastlessness

* Breastlessness is STIGMATIZED

#Breastcancer, TREATMENT INDUCED LACK OF SEXUAL DESIRE, “Lobola entitlements” & #GBV

As a lawyer and #Breastcancer activist

I had to help obtain PROTECTIVE ORDERS against 5 husbands who were physically and MENTALLY abusing their partners who were on hormone treatment due to #bc

Hormone treatment for #breastcancer leads to low libido (lack of sexual interest) and vaginal dryness.

My kasi sistahs with #breastcancer were being BEAT UP for “refusing to have sex” with husbands who felt owed sex because THEY PAID LOBOLA.

(SHIT of “sex as marriage duty”)

#breastcancer, sexual interest, black South / African womanhood, #GBV and #reproductivehealth

I was put on HORMONE TREATMENT (read no ovulation) for FIVE YEARS as a premenopausal woman with hormone receptor positive bc.

This meant that such a young patient CANNOT CONCEIVE.

#BreastCancer, Lobola, The Politics of Black SAfrican Women’s Bodies, Sexual & #ReproductiveHealth

I worked with fellow black women living with bc in kasis and informal settlements for 5yrs.

Legally help patients who got beat up were mentally abused coz they could not conceive

Lobola entitled spouses were mostly the PRIMARY #GBV ABUSERS

But there was also the cruel mental abuse from mothers-in-law/female relatives. Women who encouraged their male kin to obtain sexual satisfaction from other women. Or to impregnate s/one else

(MAKOTI WI IMPOHLO (SP??)

How grave is the MENTAL ABUSE of young black with #breastcancer with low libido (medically induced lack of sexual interest)?

I started a lay Psycho-Social Counseling Unit at Chris Hani Breast Unit

We supported women in bc treatment whose in-laws enabled husbands to have sex

with other women in the couple’s MARITAL BED in the cancer afflicted wife’s presence.

The IMPOHLO (barren woman) narrative was weaponized against patients who couldn’t conceive becoz they were on prolonged hormone therapy to control their cancer

(Makoti, YOU OWE US OFFSPRING)

#BreastCancer, socio-cultural issues and black SAwomen’s bodies

Here I am speaking to CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta about #BreastCancer in black South African. The issues are as pressing as they were in 2009.

Vital Signs - Staring down the Stigma via @YouTube

The Dep Ministers’ poorly articulated position on #breastcancer, lobola & #gbv is not new.

Here is my socio-cultural & human rights based position articulated ELEVEN YEARS ago in an interview w/ @ecancer

(MPS was my given name before I LEGALLY became Kwanele Asante in 2012)