Abstract
This article examines a passage in a largely neglected 18th-century novel by the Marquis de Sade. The passage involves a culturally Africanized character who logically refutes homophobic Christian arguments against tolerance of sexual diversity. In that way it precociously anticipated heated debates that bedevil human rights and HIV/AIDS interventions to the present. Sade, by representing African sexualities as more complex than asserted or implied in the heterosexual African AIDS literature, makes a positive contribution to contemporary debates about sexuality and race in Africa today, with implications for anti-essentialist scholarship and AIDS activism globally.
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