At a bar in Malate, Maricar downed margarita after margarita. She hadn’t seen Ed in three months, not since the theater project they’d both worked on had finished its run. She had a condom in her purse, though, because she was certain she would get laid. The mutual attraction had been there, beneath the playful friendship that had made rehearsals so pleasant. By her third drink, they had promised to be pals for life, by the fifth she was boasting about her blowjob technique. Ed turned out to be a great oral sex giver, but a bit too expert and impersonal. He didn’t call afterwards, and she worried he might have thought she was in love with him. She wonders if things might have been better had she waited till the third date.
This Thing Called Love
Both Arlene and Maricar had sex with men they didn’t know. In Arlene’s case, Derek was a total stranger; as for Maricar, she knew next to nothing about Ed except that he seemed a real nice guy. Both are intelligent, attractive Manila women, in their late 20s, with good jobs, no strangers to the restaurant and bar scenes. Neither wants to settle down and get married, yet both acknowledge that they need some way of fulfilling their sexual needs.
Looking back at their liaisons, neither of them feels much guilt, though both are quick to say that there was a genuine thrill in the brief courtship stage (if not in the sex itself). And as to the question of morals, both explain that love comes in different forms. Now more than ever, Filipina women are free to explore without having to be accountable to parents, husbands, or community.
Sandra Sedgbeer, in her book Sex, Lies, and Love, describes three types of love first analyzed by sociologist Dr. John A. Lee. One type is eros, or passionate love, “predominantly sex-based…romantic, obsessional, and intensely exclusive, (the partners) tending to idealize each other a great deal.” Another type is ludus, or playful love, “free of commitment, fun-based, and hedonistic.” The playful type of lover prefers casual, mutually enjoyable relationships, but would rather steer clear of intense emotions or intrusions upon their privacy. And then there is storge, or practical love, “long term and somewhat devoid of passion,” though with plenty of affection, understanding, and loyalty. This is the type of love that, up to the present, Filipino society requires women to find before they are 30.
It’s not easy to condense, in a few words, the reason why so many ludus lovers are out there feeling good about themselves today. Possibly it has something to do with the number of establishments, especially those whose business it is to put strangers together and in the mood for fun. The sexualization of culture—the association of personal fulfillment with sexual gratification—also plays a part. The faster pace of life, especially city life, creates a feeling of transience and the need to indulge in something good while it’s there. And also, the popularity of communications technology—that old “I’ll call you/email you/text you” line—creates a feeling of assurance that passion need not fizzle out as long as one is online.”
Lastly, women who know their smarts and their worth are less likely to depend on the counsel, or sanction, of more conservative family members or peers, as long as they think they can handle the consequences of their acts.
These women know that sex with a stranger is high-risk, with the possibility of the whole wham-bam affair turning violent; not to mention the glaring reality of AIDS. Still, they believe that with a little measure of safety—although in these situations, you can never be 100% sure—the risks are worth the enjoyment of intense, no-holds-barred sex.
Call It Quits
Still, many women are like Maricar, who was happy enough with her two-hour tryst with Ed, but feels the possibility of a friendship has been foreclosed by their having slept together too soon. She remembers what Ed told her the night of their cast party: “We’ll see each other someday—you and I have unfinished business.” She wonders if, for Ed, Act III is over. She’s barely in the auditioning stage.
Her concerns are neatly expressed by Sydney Biddle Barrows (Mayflower Madam: The Secret Life of Sidney Biddle Barrows), who ran a chic New York call girl operation in the early 1980s: “Some women sleep with men they hardly know because they’re afraid of being rejected or because it’s the only way they know to be held and hugged in a man’s arms. And some men try to sleep with women because they think the woman expects it or because sex is a quick and easy way of finding out where they stand with her.”
Consciously or not, very few women are looking for a one-night stand when they sleep with men they don’t know. But men’s needs and women’s need are often different, and after he’s had her, men find it hard to be frank with a woman and tell her it’s not going to work, not even on a part-time, short-term basis.
Heed the Signs
Still, there are a sizeable number of affairs that are never intended to last the day. Teenagers and 20-somethings who dial an illegal “party line” servicing Metro Manila often agree to “eyeball” at the skating rink in SM Megamall. If they like each other within the first half hour or so, they may pair up and head for Pasig’s motel row. Groupies who try to catch a musician in the restroom before a show want a scalp to hang by their belts. Of course, there are the proverbial pick-ups in bars.
A stranger seeking sex can be found almost anywhere. It is often up to the woman to decide whether to take him up on his offer. Belinda has been hit on many times, but has been too dense to pick up the signals or too nervous to return them.
Once, as a college sophomore, she accepted a ride from a nice man in a Tamaraw whom she thought was merely offering a lift. It was 10 p.m. and she was waiting for a tricycle at a Loyola Heights street corner, in shorts. The man showed her an ID from a prestigious university in Manila, told her he was a nice guy and asked if she would care to join him and his friends at a party in Cubao. With her ingenuous personality, she actually managed to inveigle a ride to her boarding house and escape unscathed.
Another time, she found herself next to a good-looking man on the bus home. Thanks to the traffic, the ride home took over an hour, and all throughout, he gently caressed the flesh of her arm in little circles, no one else knowing what was going on, until she was so aroused the couldn’t breathe. But she was too scared to even make him stop.
One Night Flight
If Belinda had the nerve to turn to that stranger and look into his eyes, she might have found herself in the novel, and possible exciting situation, of getting to know a man’s body without meeting his mind. The experience of making love to someone for the first time is a thrill unmatched for many people. Rolling up a man’s t-shirt and tasting his skin can seem like a tremendous privilege, and the sight of a stranger turning on to the paleness of her thighs can make a woman feel like a goddess. Sex with a stranger will be intensely physical, an opportunity to blank out those parts of one’s life where one feels thwarted, and to tune in to those parts that exist mostly through fantasy. And both partners are often game enough to take sexual creativity to the heights, making the most of a brief and guiltless interlude.
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