The nightclubs at the other end of that stretch of EDSA are for those leggy, busty model-types who have long, shiny hair and ample curves.  They are for those who prefer their women sensuous and luxurious; the kind of woman you cannot call a “whore.”  For this end of EDSA, where the road reeks of diesel fumes and Tanduay, there is less of the presumptuous and more of the carnal.

I watched them from the bus I was riding.  There were no pretenses in these beerhouses lining the Pasay stretch of EDSA.  You don’t need to look for the “guest relations officers.”  Your GROs are right there, waiting outside the karaoke bars.  There’s no disguising the invitation for vice and flesh.  One stands there, in her backless red dress that barely covers her thighs and breasts.  Still another waits for you in nothing more than a black tube top and extremely tight denim shorts.  Just a few strides away there’s a lady in a black halter top and a black miniskirt, smoking a Philip Morris menthol cigarette through a thick layer of lipstick.

The heavy traffic gave me a bit of time to observe this live whoring taking place right before my eyes.  You would think that prostitutes would make a beeline for young twenty-something types who drive a Mercedes, but this is the other side of EDSA.  Two ladies entered an eatery, sauntering by, thinking that by revealing their ample assets they would get at least one taxi driver to fork over the day’s earnings for sweet release.

I am not a moralist.  I’ve never been to bed with a woman, much less a prostitute, but I can’t help but stare at them.  I stare long and hard – among other things – of the eroticism and tragedy of whoring.  You know where they come from: the provinces, the depressed areas, and blessed with enough beauty and curves they hope to pull their families out of poverty.  Dignity, much less virginity, becomes less and less valuable.  Could you pay your brother’s tuition or your sick father’s medicines with your own two hands?  Yes you could, but not as fast as what you have between your legs.

I don’t know what’s up the other side of EDSA (although I have a good idea of what is “up”), if the model-types have the same stories as these wretches of whores, wherever they came from.

Perhaps I’ll never know, since the traffic cleared up too fast for me to stop staring and wondering.

Before I outline my stand on reproductive health, let me give you a good idea of where I stand on the issue of sex and RH in general:

1. I am for responsible, prudent sex, but sex should be enjoyed to its fullest.
2. I write “Roman Catholic” on legal forms for purposes of filling out those forms.  I was born, raised, and educated as a Roman Catholic, but I am - for all intents and purposes - an atheist.  There are, however, times that I go to Church out of duress, or a kind of desperation that makes me a temporary God-believer.

Let me get to my points…

Point #1. I am pro-abortion on two counts:

1. If pregnancy and/or childbirth directly threatens the survival of mother and child.
2. Unwanted pregnancies under exceptionally meritorious circumstances (i.e., the complete inability to raise the child, or if the pregnancy and childbirth gravely threatens the social standing of an unwed or underaged mother).

Point #2. I am for contraception on two counts:

1. I’d rather have a 95% effective condom protecting me and my schlong than the extreme Catholic view of 0% protection.
2. The problem of overpopulation in the Philippines is a serious one, and if it takes condoms and other contraceptives to at least partially address the issues, then the measure is welcome.

Let’s talk about the Catholic concept of Hell for a bit.  I’m sure that pious, Church-going Catholics and/or Christians are legitimately afraid of burning sulfur and oceans of flame, but there’s also hell in hunger and poverty.

Just because I am for abortion doesn’t mean that I’m a baby-killer, and I advocate infanticide, or we should “decriminalize” abortion.  There are situations that pregnancy or childbirth can threaten the survival of both the mother and the child.  There are some situations that an unwanted pregnancy can bring so much shame, hunger, and other extreme compromises that I’m sure women - and their children - should not endure.

As someone who believes in the merits of abortion, I do not advocate dilation and curettage done with a wire-hanger.  There should be a legal clause that allows for medically-supervised abortion, one done with the proper instruments, technique, and under exceptionally meritorious circumstances.

Oooh, boldface.

I am aware that abortion is NOT legal under HB 16, it violates the Constitution, and it violates the sensibilities of right-thinking, decent people.  RH is not an endorsement of abortion, and HB 16 is NOT A PRO-ABORTION BILL.

So just because there are pro-choice advocates like myself doesn’t mean that the RH bill is automatically a triumph for abortion.  HB 16 is a triumph of our laws addressing the pressing problems of society.  Do we favor existing norms and beliefs in society and ignore the need for something to address overpopulation?  Heck no; reproductive health is a public issue.

As Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel pointed out in her privilege speech, RH is a secular issue debated as a form of public policy.  I may be an atheist, but I don’t think that God will smite the godless condom-wearing Sodomites of the Philippines with pillars of fire and turn us all into pillars of salt because of an RH bill.  The RH bill seeks to prevent and address the problem of overpopulation and encourage safe sex practices, not to enforce the wearing of a condom.

Besides, there’s already solid proof that condoms are a good way to help prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted illnesses, not to mention sperm cells.  If you don’t trust the liberal anti-Christian stuff found on the World Wide Intarnets, then go see your doctor.

HB 16 is a rare instance that I actually agree with the Government (OK, shoot me now).  Let’s deal with issues of corruption, much less Hell, later on, and judge this bill on the basis of it being a public policy. To say that we should maintain a “Christian” or “Catholic” perspective is to spit at the very foundations of free expression: not to merely say that not every Filipino is a Christian, but also to say that 40% of Filipino Catholics believe in the merits of an RH bill.  Let us take this bill as a means to address overpopulation because of a long-overdue means to manage our growing population.

All ideas, no matter how wrong they sound, should always be tested in the crucible of debate.  In a democracy, there is room for all sorts of ideas and all opposition.  So don’t pray for my soul; enlighten me with ideas - a sound opposition - to why an RH bill should not be passed in the Philippines.

Over at Filipino Voices, I wrote an article entitled “Fahrenheit 2464,” where I stated - in rather clean terms at that - why I disagree with Sen. Manny Villar’s proposed Senate Bill 2464, or the anti-porn bill.  I understand that the good Senator, who tries to pass himself off as morally erect (excuse the innuendo), wants to criminalize the production, viewing, and exhibition of “porn” in the country.  Here are some of the obscene and pornographic materials that the Senator wants you - should this law be passed - to pay P300,000 to P500,000 if you do make the immoral mistake of viewing it.  Quoting verbatim:

1. Showing, depicting, or describing sexual acts;
2. Showing, depicting, or describing human sexual organs or the female breasts;
3. Showing, depicting, or describing completely nude human bodies;
4. Describing erotic reactions, feelings, or experiences on sexual acts;
5. Performing live sexual acts of whatever form.

Let’s admit it: Filipino society is full of Onanites and Sodomites who violate the purity of their bodily temples… at the mere mention of sex.  SB 2464, in fact, is a very important law because it prevents us from getting the animalistic satisfaction that will doom us to burning sulfur, and an ocean of hellfire and brimstone.  Sen. Villar, who is a philosopher of mind in this case, believes that the inherent duality of the body and the soul.  It must mean that what we do to our bodies is effectively what we do to the soul.  As such, it is up to a moral warrior to stand up (so to speak) against the immorality of humankind, and declare anyone who engages in the pleasure of the flesh to pay the price of his or her debauchery.

I’m kidding.  Yet SB 2464 is not a prelude to the state-wide ban against men who hold their penises because they urinate, or women who adjust their brassieres.  It’s a prelude to censorship and moral fascism…

And I, Marocharim, am at war.

ADDENDUM, Sept. 14, 2008: Angela Stuart-Santiago wrote yesterday about Senate Bill 2464, a.k.a. the new anti-obscenity bill.  So I kind of figured that this post is my little act of waving my private parts on that wank-rag of a censorship bill.

In Yahoo! News oddball reports today: Hong Kong TV news reporter Chiu Yu-Kit, former news reporter for Asia Television, was arrested for masturbating naked while he was alone on the top tier of a double-decker bus. Chiu got caught on July 31 by a police officer who was jogging past the bus, and saw him standing on a seat naked, facing a window. Chiu’s defense: he was only trying to “release his stress.”

I think you know where I’m going with this…

Before you start cocking your eyebrows, I think that the man is, in fact, thinking straight. I’m sure that there are many other ways to relieve stress, but 99% of men out there will agree with me that masturbation is a great stress-reliever. Sometimes you need get a grip on reality, make the needed strokes, and gush forth about the strains of daily life. You know what they say about life: you have to give it that extra inch… so to speak.

Although I don’t recommend taking off your clothes inside a bus, and jack off like your life depended on it.

What makes me wonder is why Chiu took off all his clothes just to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh. Or how he did it: the crazy hurly-burly of being a Hong Kong TV news reporter shoving microphones in the face of famous people all day can get really taxing. I’m sure that the One-Handed Pump didn’t do it for the guy, and I’m certain the Stroke-and-Pull did not do it either. If you’re going to take off your clothes and masturbate on top of a double-decker bus while standing on a window seat, it’s a choice between the Slap-Trap-and-Roll, the Spit-and-Shine, and the old reliable 7-10 Split would do nicely.

If you do need to masturbate in public, the norm is to keep your clothes on. Like put one hand in your pocket. Or open your fly. Or there’s the expert level: jiggle your leg (with what leg… it depends on how your penis hangs). I guess Chiu must be so stressed out that he decided to take off all his clothes and (oh boy) play Guitar Hero.

It also makes me wonder how stressing Chiu’s job can be. I can think of many stressing jobs in the Philippines alone that can blow the minds - and the nuts - out of people. It takes a bit of perversion to figure out how many commuters at EDSA would be so stressed that they’d take a page off (among other things) the Chiu Yu-Kit Book of Public Masturbation:

• Call center agents taking the inbound-outbound account
• Sales personnel bagging the groceries
• Computer technicians starting the boot sequence
• Accountants balancing the reports
• Maintenance personnel doing the sweep-and-mop routine
• SEO specialists building the links
• Writers checking if the pen is indeed mightier than the sword (I just had to put that in).

At least we know now why the people on the bus go up and down, why the money on the bus go ching-ching-ching, why the mommy on the bus says “You’re so sweet,” and why the daddy on the bus says “I love you.” The babies going “Waah-waah-waah” and the children saying “Let’s play games” don’t count.

* * *

On a side note, I’m getting so sick of David Cook and “Always Be My Baby.” I think the guy should reprise another Mariah Carey hit, like “Honey” or “Heartbreaker.”

Would I dignify a blog controversy?  Nah…

There are songs to make love with, and then there are songs that just make you feel… well, horny.

Music has a lot to do with libido.  Carlos Santana’s “Europa,” for example, is the kind of piped music you’d expect in a gay bar (not that I know anything about gay bars).  Anyone who watched porn would have heard of those deep, rhythmic bass sequences followed by the saxophone solos from a guy who plays Kenny G music through a Kazoo.  Speaking of Kenny G, I don’t find it horny at all: “Silhouette” and “Forever in Love” are music better suited for idle days at 7-Eleven, provincial buses, and Japanese movie channels on intermission.  And Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” does not reek of horniness: it reeks of sex.

Anyway, here’s this week’s X-List:

*     *     *

10.  Boyz II Men, “I’ll Make Love To You”

A lot about what the comedian Pablo Francisco calls “brother music” revolves around the musical celebration of sex.  It all depends on how sexy you can get it.  Like pouring the wine, lighting the fire, throwing your clothes on the floor, so I’ll take my clothes off too.

The 1990s was a time ripe - and rife - with Boyz II Men clones (anyone can remember All-4-One and “I Can Love You Like That”), but nothing beats the original when it comes to overall… horniness.  “I’ll Make Love To You,” like many of the group’s non-wholesome songs (like “Uhh Ahh” and “Four Seasons of Loneliness…” I just find it wrong), is about good old-fashioned fem-dom bitchin’.  It’s so romantic, and at the same time so… BDSM.

My favorite part: “Baby tonight is your night / And I will do you right / Just make a wish on your night / Anything that you ask / I will give you the love of your life / Your life / Your life…”

9.  Keith Sweat, “Twisted”

It may sound so racist, but when it comes to horny jams, you simply can’t beat a black dude.  Keith Sweat’s “Twisted” has horny written all over it.  For one, I think that you can’t get any hornier with a name like “Keith Sweat;” I don’t care if your Keith Urban, Keith Richards, or Toby Keith.

To be honest, I don’t really know what “Twisted” is all about.  On the one hand, it sounds like a dirty love song about making up and making love.  On the other hand, you get reminded of a game of Naked Twister.  “Twisted” also kind of makes you suffer from a bit of bad LSS, if only to sing the song as if you have a sinus problem.  Well, it does sound like it.

My favorite part (except for Keith Sweat doing the second voice things): “You got me twisted, thinkin’ ’bout the way that things used to be / When it was you and me girl, I was so free / See you had my heart from the start like Cupid / And I was just downright foolish and stupid.”  Reprised later on by the Philippines’ own Salbakuta.

8.  Meat Loaf, “I Would Do Anything For Love”

Like many of you, I don’t understand this song one bit.  Some folks find this song romantic, some people find this song alluring, some people find the late Selena sexy, and heck some people even find Meat Loaf sexy.  I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask… you would do anything for love, but what, pray tell, is “that?”

The reason why this song found a spot at the X-List of horny music is that there’s something about the mad, dramatic rush of piano keys.  It’s perfect for karaoke, although there’s always that philosophical question of what’s the “that” in the song.  Is this one of those Brokeback Mountain things?

My favorite part: “Some days I pray for silence, and some days I pray for soul / Some days I just pray to the god of sex and drums and rock ‘n roll / Some nights I lose the feeling, and some nights I lose control / Some nights I just lose it all when I watch you dance and the thunder rolls!”  Give it to ‘em, Meat Loaf!

7.  Sisqo, “The Thong Song”

No list of horny musical tracks would be complete without a mention of the man called Sisqo.  We all laughed watching or even singing “The Thong Song,” especially if some white dude sings it.  Or we “sanitize” the wrong-sounding lyrics and (in the tradition of a classmate of mine back in high school) change it to “Let me sing that song… that song, so-so-song, song song.”

I don’t know what happened to Sisqo, and to be honest, I could care less.  Not that “The Thong Song” ever drove me horny (it drove me insane with laughter, I can tell you that), but it was nothing more than a shameless musical presentation of butts and thighs and a man with a really bad panty fetish.  Well, don’t we all?

My favorite part (save for Sisqo’s hair): “She had dumps like a truck / Truck, truck / Thighs like what / What, what / Baby move your butt, Butt, butt / I think i’ll sing it again…”  Uhh, no thanks.

6.  Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack, “Tonight I Celebrate My Love”

If you’re a 1990s kid, you know that Peabo Bryson was the voice behind Disney soundtracks like “Beauty and the Beast” and “A Whole New World.”  How the man could be able to sing something so dirty, I don’t know.  My parents used to sing this song to each other, and while it sounds romantic, I can’t help but hurl.

While the song is unmistakably about sex oriented towards everlasting love, the horniness comes a posteriori, so to speak.  On many piano instrumental collections, you’re bound to listen to at least one iteration of this theme.  What I remember most is when this was used in Saturday Night Live in a skit featuring (I think) Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell.

My favorite part: “Tonight, I celebrate my love for you / And that midnight sun / Is gonna come shining through / Tonight, there’ll be no distance between us / What I want most to do / Is to get close to you / Tonight…”  Emphasis on “There’ll be no distance between us” part.

5.  The Spice Girls, “2 Become 1″

Horny; definition: Spice Girls.  If there’s any song made for mental porn, it definitely has to be “2 Become 1,” when you need some love like you never been in love before.  As much as any man will profess to hate Baby Spice, Sporty Spice, Posh Spice, Scary Spice, and Ginger Spice… well, we all know the many hits of Girl Power.

I should know: Spice Girls are a karaoke specialty of mine.  And I always had a crush on Victoria Beckham then.  Not now.  Video of “2 Become 1,” anyone?  The brain-dead-ness of Spice Girls songs is bordering on obvious, so much so that “2 Become 1″ is a 100% horny jam.  Although I have to say that as much as I “hate” the Spice Girls, this terrible headache of a song is not without its merits.

Which brings me to my favorite part: “Come on get a little bit wiser baby / Put it on, put it on / ‘Coz tonight / Is the night / When 2 become 1″ may be about condoms.  You go girl.

4.  Whitney Houston, “I Will Always Love You”

You have to wait for that heavy drum cue, that two-second pause, and then scream, “AND I… WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!” to get the full effect of this epitome of wife-beating, cocaine abuse, and all around horniness.

The theme song of The Bodyguard may be relegated to the drunken parts of Friday karaoke sessions, but there’s something about the high-pitched dramatic falsetto that either has to come from the ovaries.  In the case of men singing this song, you just have to draw your pitch from the testicles.  It’s a sad break-up song, but hey, it can get horny.  Sexual Chocolate!

My favorite part: I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the high-pitched Falsetto of Death that makes you either cover your ears in agony, or strip naked.

3.  Paula Cole, “I Don’t Wanna Wait”

Nobody got horny watching Dawson’s Creek back in the day.  No, wait, nobody I know will confess to watching it.  I know I did; heck, I even watched Tabing Ilog. I think that it’s not Katie Holmes that was the absolute product of “Dosong Kriks,” but was that really horny-sounding opening track that, well, none of us want to remember.

In these days of random shrieks by Leona Lewis, Paula Cole did the exact opposite: avoid breathing all together.  I don’t know what’s horny about this song, but I’ve been told that some of my friends make love to this song.  So after some random research on sex, I kind of get it.  Granted that it is romantic, but there’s something about the vocalization (and less-than-satisfactory grammar) that makes it horny.

My favorite part: “I don’t want to wait / For our lives to be over I want to know right now / Will it be yes or will it be / Sorry.”  I kind of sounds like an indecent proposal more than a tragic love.

2.  Creed, “My Sacrifice”

The interpretation of a song has a lot to do with personal taste.  It’s like saying that Lifehouse is emo because of one song (well, they are).  “My Sacrifice” by Creed is one of them; you may think that it’s religious, you may suppose that it’s a song about sacrifices.  I think that it’s a song about masturbating.

I’m not saying this on the basis of lyrics; I hate semiotics.  I’m saying this on the basis of the voice and tooth-clenched singing of Scott Stapp.  You think about the onomatopoeic, animalistic grunting of a man stroking the staff of life, and you suppose that Scott Stapp’s singing is akin to that.  The lyrical kabastusan comes later.

Since I brought that up, my favorite part: “Hello my friend we meet again / It’s been a while, where should we begin / Feels like forever…”  It takes a perverted imagination, but yes, it can drive you into horniness when you just wanna say hello again.

1.  Ricky Martin, “Maria”

I think it makes sense: Ricky Martin = horny.  I think it has a lot to do with the gyrating, the use of Spanish, or that you just want to scream “Heppa!” at the mere mention of his signature horny hit, “Maria.”

I don’t understand Spanish, and to be honest, I don’t know what “Maria” is all about.  But the “Heppa!” ad lib has to take the cake; it’s either a demand for a doctor because of a hepatitis-caused seizure, or that you’re just mad about the idea that Ricky Martin gets all the babes even if there’s ongoing speculation - ten years running - that the guy is gay.  You can only imagine how to attract chicks with this song because you had one too many shots of tequila or Goldschlager at some swanky club somewhere in Makati or Malate.

My favorite part: well, it definitely has to be “Heppa!”

*     *     *

So you see, there are a lot more important things to talk about than blog controversies.

I was checking out Original TMX and had one serious laugh trip.  Back then, I used to pay so much attention to the way my blog looks, and even installed a chatterbox.  On the tagboard of my old blog, I found a rather interesting… proposal, which was so funny I just have to blog about it:

For purposes of translation, an apparently “hot girl” named “sexy_katrina4″ is apparently attempting to solicit cybersex from yours truly.  It’s a sickening reminder, but I have zero experience with legitimate sex, much less cybersex.  Hmmm… maybe I should take up the offer of the sexy fourth Katrina without a surname, admit to myself that I’m a pervert, and have at least one thing to brag about to my friends when the topic of sex comes up (so to speak).

I’m not a moralist, but cybersex is wrong.  If you watched “Napoleon Dynamite” before, you would know that the people you get to meet on the Internet - much less “have sex with” - would probably not be who you were really expecting.  Like when Kip met LaFawnduh.  Worse, you may even end up in an online sexual predator sting operation and find yourself condemned, shunned, and ostracized by even by the denizens of McDonaldland because you’re the type of person who would have sexual intercourse with Grimace, doing the “Brokeback Mountain” thing at The Hamburger Patch.

So who says that “I wish I knew how to quit you?” line again… can Grimace even talk?

Of course, if I stumble off my rocker again, I might just take up the offer for cybersex.  The bad thing is, I’m a blogger.  Pardon me while I make a stereotypical comment about bloggers in general, but there is no way I’m going to pass up the chance of telling the entire world how my sexual encounter with sexy fourth Katrina without a surname went.  I’ll do the smut-on-the-Interweb thing myself.  With my virtual 27-inch genetic jackhammer, I ended up virtually ploughing sexy fourth Katrina without a surname’s virtual steaming, juicy virtual love tunnel.  Oh yes, she virtually took all 27 inches of my rock-hard virtual love rod.

Well, so much for bragging rights.  Sorry, sexy fourth Katrina without a surname, this 27-inch anaconda ain’t leaving the jungles of the Amazon.

Don’t get any ideas, pervert.

Recto, Manila, 3:00 PM

It’s not too often that I find myself freaked out.  Not that I got robbed at this infamous place, but because of the many things I found out about this seedy section of the capital city.

In a word: ammonia.

The long weekend, no thanks to the President herself, leaves me bored on the very first day.  Once again, I decided to commute to wherever the road will take me.  In this case, the train tracks.  After a lunch at some eatery at Katipunan, I decided to take to the LRT station and go to Recto.  After all, I have to buy a book for my sister back home.

The moment I left Recto Station, the rank smell of piss filled the air, so much that I just had to smoke.  As I walked along, the ammoniacal smell of urine grew stronger.  Then I came to the source: a woman was pissing right on the sidewalk like it was a normal thing.  As she stood up and walked away, you could still see trickles of piss falling from deep under her skirt.  Even the most perverted won’t go there.

As I was walking along asking vendors for book titles, I realized that I didn’t have the monopoly of questions at Recto.  Save for those kids tugging at my jeans asking for loose change - which I didn’t have - the enterprising cheaters and tricksters that populate this section of the Metropolis ask me to violate my honor in my face.

“Boss, resibo?”

“Boss, pagawa ka ng diploma?”

“Pards, transcript?  Mura lang.”

So I bought the book needed by my sister, and decided to walk around to see what these sidewalk bookstores have to offer.  Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed.  Maybe it’s because I don’t have patience, maybe because I’m in the wrong section of Recto, or maybe because this is Recto.  By the time I got to the infamous seedy bars and GROs who start hawking their… services, at 2:30 in the afternoon, I was entreated to “literature” that pass for “erotica.”  Right by military supply stores you would find all sorts of pornographic magazines and novellas that discuss everything from incest to sadomasochism.  Rags that talk about “love tunnels” and onomatopoeic transcriptions of primal coital screams.

Then, seeing it from the corner of my eye, an insane man was defecating near a pile of construction cement.

“Now I’ve seen everything,” I said.  Maybe saying it out loud sent the wrong message to a scantily-clad woman in a red tube top and an extremely abbreviated miniskirt, who asked me if I could take her to the nearby Sogo “for P500.”  In broad daylight.  Then she told me she needs the money for tuition.

That did it for me, as I walked far away really fast, huffing and puffing on the filter of my Philip Morris, knowing that maybe there’s no semblance of decency in Recto.  If there is, it’s very hard to come by.

It’s not too often I find myself disgusted by Metro Manila, knowing that I made the choice to stay here.  I’ve seen my own fair share of “dark underbellies” in this complex of 17 cities and municipalities over the course of three months: the motels and “dance clubs” of Pasay, the poverty of Commonwealth Avenue, the annoying traffic of Cubao, and the tasteless pomposity of Ortigas, Eastwood, and Makati.

I’ve always thought that whatever moronic report is broadcast on primetime news is merely fantasy.  Like murders, robberies, pickpockets, rapes, and the literal diploma factory that is the “University of Recto.”  I thought wrong.  There’s ammonia everywhere here: not only in the urine of old women and the feces of madmen, but also in the very souls of people who make a living out of whatever soul that there is in the bodies of the desperate.

And then you feel it stick to you.  I am a cog in the wheel of this abyss of skyscrapers and congested roads.  Every day - whether it’s work day or a day off, is a time for ammonia.

I was conversing with a friend who points out a rather interesting argument: the moment you “put yourself into ‘minority’ issues” (quotations mine) like alternative sexuality, people “automatically” (quotations mine again) assume that you have an alternative sexuality.  It becomes a piece-of-string thing, that maybe you (in this case, me) are, “in fact,” gay.

For someone whose college running joke has been “I’m in love with amoebas,” this assertion can go a lot of ways.  So could this rejoinder, but that’s just me.  After all, I’m a guy who takes Being-in-the-World to its practical extreme.

“Class,” when used in the economic sense, is monolithic.  While there is a very broad continuum for wealth and its connotations (sophistication, taste, fashion sense, and so on), there are only two things you should be concerned with.  It’s either you’re rich, or you’re poor.

“Culture,” as a word, is fundamentally ambiguous; it can mean so many different things.  The very notion of “difference,” to me, is rooted on the many different components of different culture where we, as different people, differ in so many different ways.

Bottom line: class is stratified, culture is flux.  Gender is not a class issue; rather, it is a cultural issue that has implications on class.  To treat a cultural issue, you need to see it from a cultural standpoint.  Not in terms of stratifications, but in terms of divergences.

This is going to sound offensive: “paglaladlad” is not an affirmation of liberation.  There is nothing liberating about gender roles, and the affirmation of gender roles.  Liberation and emancipation comes with transcending the limitations of gender as a perspective, and viewing society beyond gender roles.  Gender is a lot like Wikipedia: it is a portal to understanding the consequences of the class structure that defines the situation of everyone in a capitalist society.  This is why I take a very nonchalant, if not insensitive, view of “gender.”

I’m not saying that gender is a non-issue.  If it weren’t, there would not be an advocacy for it.  If it weren’t, there would not have been movements for it.  Yet we must remember that society is further fractured and divided along other different lines.  Discrimination is never a superficial phenomenon rooted only on something like race or gender or religious views.  I hope I do not sound “reductionist” here, but it is true that the economics of things will come into play.

Let me put things this way.  A woman, a lesbian, or someone gay is excluded from participating in production, i.e. work.  Do we protest the injustice on the basis of their sexual preference?  I don’t think so: we should protest the injustice on the basis of the injustice itself.  The moment I protest injustices on the basis of differences, then I am, in effect, being unjust to other people who are excluded from society where gender is not a concern.

Who speaks for the disabled?  Who fights for the rights of those committed to mental institutions?  Who will stand up, see a child sleeping on a cardboard box on the sidewalk on a dewy Saturday morning, and say, “This is injustice!”  Do we even engender those injustices?  Do we ask questions about sexual preference in the face of injustice?

At the end of it all, what we really need is freedom for all.  In a society that demands freedom, equity, fairness, and justice, it is an oppressive class structure that fractures our society the most.

Written as a response to “Homophobia 101″ by Danton Remoto

Some of my best friends are gay.  I am very aware, and very confident, of my sexuality and my sexual orientation.  I can’t say I’m gender-sensitive all the time, but I do try my very best to be as gender-sensitive as a straight man could possibly be.

Then again, I’d like to sum up a sentiment with a series of rhetorical questions:

Yet why, oh why, do some people insist that I’m gay?  That there’s at least an ounce of homosexuality in me?  Why should some people demand that I “come out of the closet,” when there’s not even a closet to speak of?  Why do you continue to compare me to a gay person, as if you’re bent on proving that you, as someone who’s gay, are far more competent and able than I am?

Whoa!  I mean, WHOA!

I think of myself as a level-headed straight guy.  I happen to like being straight.  I live the lifestyle shared by many straight people.  Does it make me any less of a man if I don’t find anything erotic about two gay men getting it on?  Am I a lesser degree of a man for not getting aroused looking at gay striptease?  So I don’t look at a handsome man with the same longing gaze as a beautiful lady; does that make me a hypocrite?

I don’t think so.

Great men are judged because of what they do, not for their sexual preferences.  History never judges greatness on the basis of who a man sleeps with at night.  Yes, a gay man will reel off the names of so many historical figures who have had a shred of gayness in them, but I dare ask of that gay man to reel off the names of so many gay men who have the shreds of greatness in them.

Like straight men, not a lot of gay men are destined to be great.

I dare any gay man to show me how “green” his blood is.  And I will sure as hell show him that the difference in the color of our blood is not even remotely caused by him being gay, and me being straight.

To a certain degree, I admit to being homophobic.  But my own homophobia does not excuse me from exercising respect, or at the very least, restraint (which I’m not particularly good at).  But to say that I have “gayness” in me - and insist in its latent presence - is borderline ridiculous.  Eh ano ngayon kung hindi ako bakla?  I’m not “gay” by virtue of watching Brokeback Mountain, I can tell you that.

I respect gay people.  I will even applaud them if need be for showing their “true colors,” for all my applause is worth.  But “succumb to my inner gay?”  No freaking way.

There is none, and there never will be.  So deal with it.

   I like reading Friendster Bulletin Board surveys and “repost this” stuff.  For one, people’s answers are kind of funny.  Especially those love-related surveys.  I got a “28 things” BB post today, and man, do I disagree with a helluva lot of them.  So for today’s romantic experiment, here are 28 things most girls don’t know about guys, and why I think that this BB post is dead wrong.

   This is going to take a while, so I’m waiving Rule #1 of TMX: write an entry in an hour.

1.  Guys hate sluts even though they have sex with them!

   Here’s the thing: all guys love sluts.  Deep inside every guy’s head is the irresistable urge to have sex.  Look at it this way: a rapist would sexually assault anyone from a possible FHM cover girl to an 80-year-old woman.  Deep inside every man, there is a rapist-in-the-making.  To many men, sex is a completely impersonal activity.  Passion is something girls look for, but men don’t.  Because of this, emotional factors like “love” and “hatred” don’t mean anything to men who have raging erections (figuratively and literally).

2.  Guys may be flirting around all day but before they go to sleep, they always think about the girl they truly care about.

   Like heck they do.  First, “flirting” is a female thing: a guy who flirts is not a guy.  Straight men will always steer clear of actions that will compromise their machismo, like hanging around with girls.

   More importantly, girls: if you think that guys think of you before they go to sleep, you are so deluded.  We men are faced with the burden of this patriarchal society as much as you women: when we sleep, we are confronted with problems like wages and the economics of things.  In this patriarchal society, we are confronted with the challenge of changing the goddamned world by thinking of theories to explain humanity, the origin of the universe, and looking for the lowest and highest prime numbers in an infinite set of numbers.

3.  Guys go crazy over a girl’s smile.

   Oh please: that’s just a cover-up to what we really go crazy for.  We go crazy for hot, tight, rockin’ bodies.  We men have mastered optical deception: when we look at your faces and “admire your smile” or “admire your eyes,” we’re looking at your cleavage.

4.  Guys will do anything just to get you to notice him.

   This is a woman thing: we won’t dress in our best clothes or expose our best assets just to get you girls to notice us.  We play basketball games for two things: win the game because our coach is going to kill us if we lose, and for cheerleaders at halftime.  We won’t jump off a plane with a parachute made out of a used condom just because we “want to be noticed.”

5.  Guys hate it when you talk about your ex-boyfriend or ex love-interest.

   Here’s where I can partially agree.  If you consistently rant and rave about how big your ex’s penis was, we would hate it: we hate going to the bathroom carrying a tape measure (but we do like it when we go to the bathroom carrying a ruler).  But outside of sex, we like it when you talk about your ex: we take mental notes into the mistakes your ex did that we shouldn’t do.  But we would really hate it if that ex is someone we know.

6.  Boyfriends need to be reassured often that they’re still loved.

   Maybe: we spend too much money on you girls that if ever we get married, we get entitled to beating you up for our money’s worth.  Just kidding!  But really, it’s often the girlfriend who needs the kind of animal-like reassurance that a dog needs to know that he’s still man’s best friend.

   Look at it this way.  You text us at 3:00 in the morning to ask if we still love you.  You ask us all the time if we love you, and to appease your paranoia, we send you elaborate quotes just so that you would be appeased.  All the reassurance we need that we’re still loved is to please give us a damn “Thank you” for that teddy bear-perfume combination we bought from the Blue Magic store.

7.  Don’t talk about your guy friends to your boyfriend.

   We do like you talking about your guy friends.  To men, having more guy friends is an advantage, especially when we want to expand the drinking circle a bit to cover the tab for an extra bottle of gin.  So talk to us about your rich guy friends.

8.  Guys get jealous easily.

   I have to admit, we do.  You girls look at hot men all the time, and we silently let it pass knowing that Jake Cuenca already has his own love triangle.  But we look at hot chicks all the time: like I said before, we have mastered the art of optical deception.  When we want to have a date with you on this nice restaurant, we’re really after the hot-looking waitress.

9.  Guys are more emotional than they’d like people to think.

   We’re not.  FOR CHRISSAKES, WE’RE NOT!

10.  Giving a guy a hanging message like “You know what?!..uh…nevermind..” would make him jump to a conclusion that is far from what you are thinking. And he’ll assume he did something wrong and he’ll obsess about it trying to figure it out.

   For all intents and purposes, we men are stupid (so much for solving the problems of humanity).  We don’t jump to a conclusion: we don’t know the difference between “conclusions” and “concussions.”  When you give us a hanging question, we’d rather let it pass than hang ourselves on our closets figuring it out.

   More importantly: if a girl asks a hanging question, we men always have that stroke of genius that you did something wrong.  Girls are more articulate with their feelings than men.  So if you say “nevermind,” we already know that you’re having an affair.

11.  Guys are good flatterers when courting but they usually stammer when they talk to a girl they really like.

   I have to agree with this one.  All men court through text messaging: we don’t “talk.”  We send you elaborate love quotes when we court you.  When we are confronted with the demand to talk to you girls in person, we start stammering and stuttering like cows chewing cud… or something like it.

12.  A usual act that proves that the guy likes you is when he teases you.

   We men tease you girls for a good reason: because you’re tease-able.  When we like you, we don’t talk to you at all: we admire you from a distance, source your cellphone number from somebody, and then we start sending you the text message-barrage of inspirational love quotes from Romeo and Juliet.

13.  Guys love you more than you love them if they are serious in your relationships.

   I have nothing for that one because it’s true.

14.  Guys think WAY too much. One small thing a girl does, even if she doesn’t notice it can make the guy think about it for hours, trying to figure out what it meant.

   Again, we men are stupid.  So one small thing a girl does will not make us think for hours, we think for weeks.

15.  Guys seek for advice from girls not other guys. Because most guys think alike, so if one guy’s confused, then we’re all confused.

   We seek advice from guys, all right.  All men think the same way: the answers to the most basic of romantic questions is not found in advice: it’s found in drunkenness.  If one guy’s confused, we’re definitely all confused: which means we’re drunk.

   These days, we guys seek more advice from gays.  Gay people have that unique situation of knowing both sides.  We do this very, very discreetly: the least we want is to be spotted by our girlfriends talking to gay dudes.

16.  When a guy asks you to leave him alone, he’s just actually saying, “Please come and listen to me.”

   Let me get back to the “we men are stupid so we think about sex all the time” theory: when we ask you to leave us alone, there’s a good reason for us to be left alone.  One: leave me alone, because I’m with my guy friends and we’re talking about what it’s like to have sex with you.  Two: leave me alone, because I’m with my best friend between my legs and I’m asking him what it’s like to have sex with you.  Three: leave me alone, but I’m actually saying, “Please come… and please be honest about it this time!”

17.  If a guy starts to talk seriously, listen to him. It doesn’t happen that often, so when it does, you know something’s up.

   YES YOU SHOULD.  When we men talk seriously, we have emerged from our usual stupid state and have fulfilled our intellectual duties to the patriarchal social orthodoxy.  We have discovered some extremely important things: that the rings of Saturn will actually collapse because of the planet’s gravitational pull.  That one can create a singularity with an eggbeater, three magnets, and an electric motor.

   We also talk seriously when we have that inadvertent erection.  By talking seriously, we take our minds off sex and will Mr. Happy back into his placid, flaccid state.

18.  If your best guy friend seems to avoid you or is never around when you’re with your boyfriend, he’s probably jealous and likes you.

   Girls: stop inflating your own delusional idea of how much guys like you.  To us men, it’s a matter of mutual respect: when our guy friend is with his girlfriend, we will give him all the space necessary to make your relationship work for the day.  We men live by a macho sense of honor: as jealous as we may be, we just think of our friend and you having sex.

   The mental image of our friend’s clenching ass is enough to rid us of all feelings of jealousy.

19.  When a guy tells you that you are beautiful, don’t say you aren’t. It makes them want to stop telling you because they don’t want you to disagree with them.

   Got nothing for that one because it’s true.

20.  When a guy looks at you for longer than a second, he’s definitely thinking something.

   One: you’re extremely hot and we’ll wait for you in Maxim centerfolds.  Two: we get so amused by that pimple on your nose, because it looks like Mars from a distance.

21.  Guys don’t like girls who punch harder than they do.

   No duh.

22.  A guy has more problems than you can see with your naked eyes.

   Let me rephrase: a naked guy has a lot more problems than you can see with your eyes.  In architecture as well as visual art, there’s this thing called “single-point perspective.”  Given any naked man, you would see some, uh, problems.  Every man has problems with proportion, angular perception, and so on and so forth.

23.  Don’t be a snob. Guys can be intimidated and give up easily.

   I don’t get it: why do girls keep underestimating men?  Man, in his infinite stupidity, gives up only when he’s in the kind of rut that he cannot escape from.  I have this theory that Cupid’s arrow is tipped with some sort of psychotropic drug that messes around with neurochemicals, thus inducing an obsessive disorder.

   Really, men don’t get intimidated from girls playing hard-to-get.  My suggestion to girls, however, is don’t test the shark-infested waters when it comes to men.  The more you play to the Tantalus in man, the more you put yourself in all sorts of trouble with the guy.

24.  Guys talk about girls more than girls talk about guys.

   How true.  Nothing for that one.

25.  Guys hate rejection, but they hate being led on even more.

   Spot on.

26.  If you are going to reject a guy, just do it. Don’t say they are like a brother or just good friends, it just hurts even more. Tell them that you aren’t interested in a relationship and they will respect you.

   Really, this is the biggest piece of romantic bullshit I have ever heard.  No woman will ever reject a guy in a straightforward fashion.  To all guys, any independent clause that would lead to rejection hurts just as much as dependent clauses with all sorts of excuses or qualifiers.  Ever watched “Just Friends?”

   Besides, if you say you’re not interested in a relationship, the truth is guys won’t respect you and think you’re an third-rate economy-class sanctimonious bitch.  Trust me: I’m a guy, so I know.

27.  Guys really think that girls are strange and have unpredictable decisions and are MAD confusing but somehow are drawn even more to them.

   OK, this is true.

28.  When a guy sacrifices his sleep and health just to be with you, he really likes you and wants to be with you as much as possible.

   Hell no!  A guy sacrifices his sleep and health for better reasons than that… OK, maybe he doesn’t.