RH Bill now the Law: Will Filipinas now be satisfied on the banig?

Now that the RH Bill has been passed in Congress, I can rest assured that access to ‘satisfying’ sex is now an entitlement enshrined in the law. Or can I? Indeed, with the advent of legal access to ‘safe and satisyfying’ sex, a woman can in principle vote with her feet if her man fails in both departments. Or can she? The earlier of course is the easy part. Just get the man to slip on a rubber (now available free to those who cannot afford) and you’re supposedly safe. The latter, however, perhaps may not be that straightforward.

Oh behave...

Oh behave…

If safe sex is now by law assured by free condoms, what will the state give out for free that will satisfy the law’s “satisfying” stipulation? Free Viagra? That’s assuming of course that a man’s ability to produce a stiff woody alone is enough to qualify the sex he delivers with it as “satisfying”. For that matter, how many girls out there even know enough to tell whether the sex they are already getting is satisfying? Considering that scoring a copy of Satisfying Sex Bible Cosmopolitan will set you back an amount of money that could feed an average Filipino family of five for an entire day, I doubt if the average Filipino woman would be any the wiser. Maybe the government should also give out free copies of Cosmopolitan to poor women.

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY!
Subscribe to our Substack community GRP Insider to receive by email our in-depth free weekly newsletter. Opt into a paid subscription and you'll get premium insider briefs and insights from us.
Subscribe to our Substack newsletter, GRP Insider!
Learn more

Indeed, you don’t have to be a poor teenage country lass married to an oversexed tricycle driver to be ignorant of what one is (now by law) entitled to on the banig. I once had a friend back in college to whom it never occured that having sex was supposed to be something that lasted more than two minutes. That there was more to it than that was an orgasmic revelation her second boyfriend was only too happy to facilitate. It’s a happy ending that, unfortunately, does not describe the majority of cases in the Philippines.

Thing is (and I could be mistaken here given my less-than-ideal knowledge about the RH Law), the “safe and satisfying” thingy is one presumably applicable only to married couples. After all, Philippine politicians though they may be hailed today as being the “courageous” enough heroes to dare defy the mighty Catholic Church in signing RH into law are not that ballsy (regardless of how many triathlons certain Senators may run). Sex after all just does not happen before marriage in the Philippines, right? (wink wink) For many a hapless Filipina maiden, the option to test-drive a prospective hubby before tying the knot simply does not exist.

So pity the average God-fearing sex-only-after-I-do Pinay who finds herself trapped in a marriage with the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet Pinoy male. Wham-bang-gone-in-sixty-seconds on the banig is all she gets every night. The RH Law may guarantee her “satisfying” sex, but at the end of the day offers nothing in the way of escape clauses when that part of the contract in a marriage is breached. Divorce in the Philippines, after all, is illegal and its proxy preferred by the swimming pool set, “annulment”, is a perverse philosophical farce far beyond Mrs Superman’s financial means.

So my sympathies to the average Pinay who all but misses out on the golden nuggets of 21st Century wisdom so readily available to many of us in the “gurl-power” articles printed on the pages of Cosmo. I would’ve wanted to congratulate you ladies on your coming a long way, baby the day after the dawn of “reproductive health” in the Philippines. Sadly, despite “satisfying sex” being successfully legislated in the Philippines, it does not look like there will be much coming going on for Pinays on banigs all over the archipelago tonight.

[NB: A banig is a bed woven out of Philippine hemp that is used in traditional Filipino households.]

31 Replies to “RH Bill now the Law: Will Filipinas now be satisfied on the banig?”

  1. ‘Safe and satisyfing sex?’

    For politicians that means being in a different city to their wife.(which brings lito lapid to mind. Normally conspicuous by his silence, now conspicuous by his absence in rh vote. Wife still under house arrest in LV! – LL now old man about town with young korean!)

    For politician’s wives it means an unlimited credit card.

    For a politician’s mistress it means as little as possible, for as much as possible.

    For enrile, he is too old to care

    For p-noy it means ‘banging the bishop’

    For bishops, it means banging young boys

  2. dripping with sarcasm lol.

    seriously, will people stop looking at “reproductive health” as just “sex”?

    reproductive organs also mean adolescent phase, menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, andropause, prevention of STI, ED, vagnismus etc

    people who still think of reproductive organs as just “sex” are plainly crude people akin to the puritan katchila who blush and rant por dios por santo the the mere implication of pubes.

    and yes, the two minute ejaculation is called premature ejaculation. it’s a recognized disorder that is also treatable if pinoys knew about reproductive health and that premature ejaculation is really a disorder.

    but I’m not sure if reproductive health education can cure generalized stupidity if after all attempts of education, one remains to be ignorant, that’s no longer the fault of the educator. *wink*

    1. Yeah, I didn’t say the RH Bill was just all about sex. I just chose to limit the scope of my article to its sexual aspect.

      Then again, at the end of the day, everything really is all about sex. If we haven’t noticed yet the need to couple underlies everything — our drive to acquire wealth, make beautiful music, look fashionable, keep well-groomed, and be witty and likeable.

      It’s all about sex ultimately. πŸ˜‰

    2. Why blame the writer? Media (and the Senators) are the ones coming out with this idea that RH Bill is all about sex. But I think that in the end, discussions will end up on sex issues, since reproductive after all involves sex.

  3. SSS or safe, satisfying sex.It will always be satisfying if the right mix of hormones are present in a body free of physiological deficiencies but cannot be always safe especially with multiple partners or same sex liasons.

  4. And the point of the RH Bill becomes satisfying sex. I wonder why that needs to be legislated.

    I think that there is an erroneous assumption behind the bill – that women are marginalized in the Philippines. I disagree. Women are not marginalized in the Philippines, or else we would not have two women presidents.

    And even if women may be marginalized in the country… how does the RH Bill solve it? I see the connection between giving more free condoms and contraceptives to women’s rights as a very vague concept. Or in simple terms – I don’t see the connection.

    1. That’s the point I tried to make in the article. Those who crafted and championed the bill take a lot of knowledge for granted — knowledge that ordinary Pinoys can hardly grasp.

      Our modern urbane minds see sex as necessarily a pleasureable thing but forget that many ordinary Pinays (which, for all we know, make up the majority) don’t see pleasureable sex as an entitlement and have other more pressing matters to worry about.

      1. This kind of stuff is more based on our culture than the law. For example, men beating up women is an issue of culture for me. Pleasurable sex is a cultural, or even personal thing. Legislation on it is useless. If womens’ rights during sex are the issue, security of person should have already covered that.

  5. Kudos to commentor Roy Gamboa.
    now that’s a comment that has common sense.

    RH bill is not just about sex idiots. use google.com to know more about it.

    jeezz.

  6. Kate,

    To paraphrase Drew Carey — ever hear that seventies song “It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion”? Well, IT’S THE MEAT!

  7. Instruction needed for safe and satisfying sex? Why not? Prolonged and continuous foreplay along with safe/protected sex will work wonders on any normal woman. Swooning, multiple climax, weak knees and a radiant look translates to very satisfied.

  8. Hey guys and gal,

    I dont know about you but how often do women get orgasms; vaginal and/or clitoral or otherwise? Do men always get orgasms and timely ejaculations? Or can stress be a factor why things not work as it preferably should work. Men and women who work more than 40 hours per week, being in traffic jams, doing grocery shoppings, cooking, cleaning, visiting parents (and parents-in-law) do not have much time to engage in making love in a quality way. And as a result orgasms may even fail then. It needs time to (re-)charge the batteries with such a busy schedule. Is it impossible to have satisfying sex without orgasm and ejaculation? It all depends on how obsessed one or a couple (married or unmarried) sets its limits to what satisfying sex is for them. French kissing, cuddling, touching, toys, candle light, soft music, strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, can also be very satisfying and may even lead to one or more orgasms in one or both persons. Or is that too un-macho, too sissy, too corny?

  9. @Kate,

    there are more and far more exciting places to make love than only exclusively on a banig. Pls think outside the box. What about the rug? What about the bathroom? What about the couch/sofa? Do I need to continue…?

    1. Well, what I had in mind when I mentioned the banig is the living conditions of the average Filipino female. In her teens and early 20’s she’d probably still be living with her parents or be cooped up in bunk-bed dorm she rents in Manila to save on commuting to the factory or shopping center that employs her. By the time she’s in her early to late 20’s she’d likely be living in a one-room lean-on with her five kids and husband, and still be sleeping on and having sex on a banig. πŸ˜‰

      1. @Kate,

        From a dutch/western point of view “your scene” looks a bit boring and dull. In that case I dont need a condom but I need lots of band aids to put on my mouth, so that I wont wake all 5 kids from all the moaning, sighing and the “happy end”. Or are pinoys and pinays making no noise whatsoever during ML? Thinking out loud now: where will the “five” kids be when a pinoy and pinay are making love in “your scene” (aka “your circumstances”)? Squatting outside?

  10. I am wondering: it is called reproductive health bill/law, right. Then why not put it in the health insurance packages/policies. I am sure that condoms are the cheapest available birth control devices compared to IUDs or pills, right?

    1. Just the same, it is read by lots of “trendy” urban Filipino women. So perhaps the real miseducation going on here is of the rich rather than of the poor…

  11. What would the wife do, if she does not have a satisfying sex. Call the Police? Report it to the Barangay Captain? Or hire a lawyer? It is a useless Bill.

    1. The wife could have prevented all the dis-satisfying sex by making love to the prospect husband during the phase of “dating & courting”. When I buy a car, I always do a test drive (no kidding). Then she can tell him how good or poor he is as lover. Or that they still have a lot to improve. Thats why we use phases like “dating & courting” for, to see what the other is made of (in all aspects including sex). I will never continue a relationship with a woman who is lousy (on a “banig”).

    2. To find out during marriage how someone really is, is a little late, dont you think?

      That is why I dont understand the Philippine concept of “dating & courting”.

Leave a Reply to Kate Natividad Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.