Filipino Discourse On Sex And Sexuality

ELMAZ F. SOBREVEGA December 2, 2015

2010-10214 Eng 103 - D

How Language Constructs the Filipino Discourse on Sex and Sexuality

There are many ways to describe how a person makes sense of the world. By making sense, it could mean perception, or perceiving, creation of meaning, or even awareness. By world, it could mean the immediate real, or the imagined, or the subconscious. By person, clarifications such as gender, sex, ethnicity, race, culture, beliefs, and religion among other categorizations and conventions can be raised. Through mixing and matching all these possible combinations, there will be infinite possibilities to describe how one individual understands the world they live in. For structuralists, such

But due to our history and culture being heavily rooted from Christianity and religion, its influence on how we perceive such discourses cannot be disregarded. Up to now, it can be noted that Filipinos still find it inappropriate to even talk about it, may it be in private or in public. Filipinos live in a place where premarital sex, prostitution, cohabitation, homosexuality, sex tourism, and contraception are widely condemned but frequently practiced, but because of the influence of religion combined with conventional notions of conservatism, there has been negative views on sex and sexuality (Heussaff and Katigbak, 2012). As much as our culture wants to bury the discourse on sexuality, this silencing act produces more avenues to discuss

The disapproval of sexual relations particularly premarital, extramarital and homosexual relations is much greater in the Philippines than in other countries. One part of the results of his research showed that the more a person is active on his church duties and activities, the greater is his or her disapproval towards unconventional relationships, especially in Catholics and Christians. The Roman Catholic Church prohibits talks of sex other than it being a way of reproduction. They deemed sexual acts out of desire and lust, and premarital relations as sinful, and required it to be reported through the act of confession (Cameron & Kulick, 2003). Also, Roman Catholics for centuries have been required to confess to the activities and the desires which their Church prohibits: far from maintaining silence about sex, the pious were obliged to put forbidden desires into words (2003: 19). It is also the same here in the Philippines. Our media censors and limits the talks on gender, sex, and promotes what can be considered as pleasure and not pleasurable—with special consideration of the church. When GMA 7 released its first homosexual teleserye, My Husband’s Lover (2013), the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines prompted the network to think clearly on what they are going to be showing on national TV. They told the