Having the solid support of family and growing up in a nurturing environment eases the difficulties of a young boy's transition into early adulthood. Photo by Bernard Testa, InterAksyon.com.
My puberty years didn’t see the so-called sex education as part of my school’s curriculum. I belonged to an exclusive school for boys and our curriculum was focused on technical and science subjects from grade school to college. The closest we got to discuss sex was in biology where our science instructor would uncomfortably rush through the pictures of the human anatomy. Not to discount, of course, the difficulty in a class setting of showing the human anatomy (male or female) to a bunch of rowdy boys.
The same unfamiliarity went with the so-called ritual of circumcision. The only reason I underwent the cut was because “it was a Filipino tradition.” Uncircumcised Filipino boys get jeered at by their peers as “supot.”
Psychology talks about “the coming of age from boyhood to manhood.” It raises issues on “the teenage years” and “adolescence.” Physical changes, emotional confusion, and sexual experimentation further confused me with what is “natural and normal” against what is an act of sinfulness. Masturbation alone is a topic of profound confusion. If science claims it to be “natural and but normal,” how is it a sin? Indeed, the stage of puberty can be confusing yet I wonder what or who added to the confusion?
Adolescence is said to be a universal experience. My years of pagbibinata indeed had a lot of changes but the experience also had its cultural context. Not everyone has the same experience especially in the domain of sexual awareness.
My family used to live in an apartment row with a long and deep driveway. Not a lot of people owned cars then. Our neighbors and I had the driveway all to our selves to play in. There we played luksong-tinik, patintero, limbo rock, teks, jolens, tumbang-preso, and many more that my memory fails to remember now.
“We” were a group of boys and girls with ages ranging from 9 to 15 years old. I’m not sure if this experience qualifies as sexual awareness, but as early as 10 years old, most, if not all of us boys were already “aware” of the girls’ presence. Was there attraction? Yes. Was there any romantic notion? We didn’t have an idea what that was. Was there any “sexual” manifestation of intent? Ano iyon?
Definitely we were gender-aware and taboo lines were drawn. We, boys and girls, didn’t talk about this or were there any agreements made to the effect of “hanggang diyan ka lang.” I guess the homes from where we came from had a lot to do with our attitude. It is called upbringing but I like to defer to what we used to call it: delicadeza, a deep respect for covert rules.
There were no chauvinistic declarations of “ako ang masusunod, kasi ako ang lalaki!” One was followed because that person had the necessary competence to achieve the task at hand. Interestingly, it was the girls who knew what to do most of the time so we followed them. There were no arguments. It was natural and normal. The only time we boys put in our ten centavos’ worth was when brawn was needed for protection or to do heavy physical stuff. On hindsight, all we boys were good at was the provision of logistics. The girls did the rest.
Sexual experimentation kicked in during mid-puberty and the experience of adolescence wasn’t really private. Our group of boys discussed our bodily changes and needs though nobody really took these changes seriously.
“Binata ka na!” was the coming of age bestowed upon me by my relatives and my neighbors This was about the time when my father (and my mother) started to give me some responsibilities for the family. It was, for me, a time of great pride (and fear) as I got to flex my muscles regarding sibling discipline and family order.
Pagbibinata was a time when I felt that I could be trusted with such great responsibility over my siblings and our home. But with that great pride also came the struggle to live up to the family’s expectations while trying to break free from the unhealthy stereotyped images of manhood and masculinity.
Thus began what could have been a solitary and alienating transition of discovering what it means to be “a real man”—were it not for a foundation earlier built on learning compassion and respect among siblings and peers, and being in touch with one’s emotions first before one’s gender.
How about you? Tell me what you think.
• Roderick Marfil, RGC, is a family therapist. He is available on Thursdays by appointment only at the Ilaw Center, Miriam College in Quezon City. For inquiries: (0939) 211-0403; (+632) 520-5400 loc. 1134.
