Die volgende ope brief is geskryf na aanleiding daarvan dat Woolworths baie prominent LGBT-produkte bemark het om sogenaamde “Pride month” te vier. Dit word elke jaar in Junie gevier om die 1969 Stonewall-opstand in Manhattan te vereer. Dit het op 28 Junie 1969 plaasgevind.

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Open Letter to Roy Bagattini, Group CEO – Woolworths Holdings Limited

I took note of your stance on Pride Month.

You pride yourself in taking action to “address social justice and social development issues.” You are also “ensuring that members of the LGBTQ+ community are heard, valued, and loved.” Furthermore, you believe you “are doing the right thing towards Woolworths’ ambitions of building a more inclusive world.”

Apart from Intersex, which is biologically in nature, all the other letters in the acronym LGBTQIA+ have to do with gender, which is psychological in nature. This brings us to the socio-political term, Sexual Orientation.

Sexual orientation is a social construct and is determent by a person’s self-declaration, meaning it is self-chosen and thus self-defined.

The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines it as, “one’s enduring sexual attraction to male partners, female partners, or both. Sexual orientation may be heterosexual, same sex (gay or lesbian), or bisexual.”

This definition focuses only on the gender of the person an individual is attracted too. However, it is too narrowly defined. Dr. Michael Seto, the Director of the Forensic Mental Health Research Unit at The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research, University of Otowa, notes “we have an incomplete understanding of how human sexuality is oriented if we focus only on gender as the important dimension; there are other dimensions to consider, of which age is important as well.”

In his 2017 article, The Puzzle of Male Chronophilias, he suggests a helpful definition of sexual orientation, which more fully addresses the complexity of human sexuality:

“In this article, I more broadly define sexual orientation as a stable tendency to preferentially orient – in terms of attention, interest, attraction, and genital arousal – to particular classes of sexual stimuli. If we accept this broader definition, then we can imagine that individuals actually have multiple sexual orientations rather than a single sexual orientation, corresponding to their sexual preferences along a variety of different dimensions, including age.”

Besides age and other dimensions he discusses, he says, “Another dimension involves a distinction between human and other species (anthro – zoo). A paraphilic interest in any nonhuman species falls broadly under the rubric of zoophilia, but can encompass single or multiple other species. Most of what we know about zoophilia involves domesticated mammalian species, such as dogs, horses, goats, or sheep. There is some evidence to support the idea that some individuals have a sexual orientation toward nonhumans.”

It is therefore clear that sexual orientation entails more than just gender. Based on research age orientations like Pedophilia and Hebebefilie, as well as Zoophilia can be seen as dimensions of a person’s sexual orientation. By implication it means that a person can for instance be a bi-sexual male pedophile and zoophile.

It is therefore, with great concern that I take note of Woolworth’s stance, which promotes immorality and disregards sexual ethics, the family unit and the protection of children and animals. I therefore encourage people from the faith communities, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc. and South Africans in general, to boycott Woolworths.

A Concerned ex-customer.

André Bekker

7 June 2023