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The Deputy Minister’s notion is based on a long outdated legal notion of “conjugal rights” as an ENTITLEMENT of marriage.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.