Editing Syphilis and Zoophilia (section)

== Syphilis and zoophilia ==
The name syphilis is used for the first time by Girolamo Fracastoro in 1530 in his work "[[Syphilis sive de morbo gallico]]", where he describes the allegorical story of a shepherd named Syphilus who was said to have been the first to contract the disease for having angered the gods.

As we can see, doxa has often associated syphilis with an exotic disease brought to Europe by sailors from America in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is the evil come from elsewhere par excellence. It was believed then that the Spanish conquistadors had brought her back from America by catching her with the native women. The [[legend]] consists in thinking that they themselves had contracted it by their husbands shepherds who left for several weeks in the mountains with their herds of llamas. It would be by having zoophilic relations with their animals that these pastors would have been reached. This belief is reminiscent of the rumors that attributed [[AIDS and bestiality | the origin of AIDS]] to male / monkey sex in Africa.

Thus, syphilis is presented as the embodiment of interracial sexual depravity. This interpretation brings the native closer to the animal and sets up an opposition between the colonizer and the colonized by making any interaction with the natives threatening. Syphilis has even been used to prove the biological difference of races. It is then claimed that the colonized accustomed to this disease being more resistant to syphilitic germs, it is argued that even the uncontaminated natives are exceptions. The asserted generalization of this contamination justifies the mistrust that the colonists must impose on themselves vis-à-vis the local populations.

This description "of" the other ", this strange individual, by his" race, his diseases and his perversions, acts as a negative which allows to reveal the positive model which is the colonizer. Faced with the Asian man, graceful , effeminate, sensual, drugged, poisoned and pederast, stands the figure of the European man, victorious, robust, virile, muscular and heterosexual. Facing the masculine Asian woman, shapeless, neglected and repulsive, stands the figure of the European woman, feminine, with advantageous forms, graceful and attractive. "The other" is substantially the inferior, and his role of dominated is all the more natural and makes him all the more suspect, even dangerous. " (Jean-Raphaël Bourge, December 2006)

In an article, Franck Proschan highlights the role of joint constructions of races, genders and sexualities in the French colonial enterprise. Also, in the age of post-colonialism, it is interesting to see to what extent this discourse has mutated to continue to justify racial discrimination under another approach ...