Not just a naughty request
Friends have reported that acquisition of a recently released book entails having to whisper its provocative title to a sales lady at a National Bookstore branch. That’s because it may be considered as R-18 material, leading to a modicum of concealment, as other shoppers might be uncomfortable with its public presence. A writer from Gensan said that he had to point out the copies that were placed behind a cashier.
The book is Pukiusap by Swedish comicbook artist Liv Strömquist, translated to Filipino by Beverly W. Siy, and published by Anvil Publishing under its new imprint Pride Press.
For progressives and feminists of whichever gender who have become familiar with Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, which has also been translated into Filipino (often as Usapang Puki) and presented numerous times at local venues that have included universities, this literary release can only expand awareness, contribute to modern-day knowledge, and advance equal-rights advocacy. So it’s not must a matter of quipping a naughty request when one asks for a copy.
At the outset, author Strömquist lists seven specific males and male groups in history whose obsessive fascination with the female organ had them dispensing woeful advice. These man are cited as “Mga lalaki na lubhang nahumaling sa bahagi ng katawan na kung tawagin ay ‘ari ng babae.’”
John Harvey Kellog (1852-1943), the cornflakes inventor, took a dark view of female masturbation, and announced his discovery, in his book Plain Facts for Old and Young, that carbolic acid applied on the clitoris would reduce a woman’s “abnormal” desire to stimulate this part of her organ.
Dr. Isaac Baker Brown (1811-1873) pioneered in radical clitoridectomy, or excision of the clitoris, which he promoted as the surefire solution to a myriad regrettable conditions besetting women, including “hysteria, sakit ng ulo, depresyon, kirot sa gulugod, walang ganang kumain, at matigas ang ulo…”
The operation he introduced was adopted by many other doctors, even in Sweden. When the divorce law was passed in 1857, he also proposed clitoridectomy for women intent on divorcing their husbands. But in the mid-1860s, Dr. Baker Brown was ousted by the Obstetrical Society of London when it was found that he didn’t explain the effects of his operation to women who underwent it, and that they hadn’t asked permision from their husbands.
And yet clitoridectomy remained in fashion till the end of the 1800s, with the last known operation conducted in the United States as late as 1948 — to stop a five-year-old from masturbating!
St. Augustine (354-430), a theologian and prolific writer, acknowledged in his early book Confessions that he had enjoyed sex in his youth, “at nagkaroon din siya ng parang friends-with-benefits set-up with a girl. Oo, fubu, as in fuck buddy.” But he eventually expressed and extrapolated on his opinion that “Ang sex daw ay nakakadiri at maling gawain.”
He went on to condemn sex as not having come from God, but was rather a betrayal of God. “At ang mga babae ay natatanging makasalanan at malaswa — dahil kasalanan ni Eve na kumagat sa bunga ni Adam. In short, ang mga babae raw ay tagapagdala ng laswa, ng tukso.”
John Money (1921-2006), a professor of medical psychology, propounded the binary two-gender system as defined by sex organs at birth, which led to the practice of operating on the one to two percent of infants whose gender couldn’t be categorized since they had both organs.
“Dahil ‘mas madali’ gumawa ng puke, halos lahat ng baby ay ginawang baby girl. Kadalasan din, napipinsala o nabubura ng operasyon ang pandama ng mga sex organ nila.”
Also in Strömquist’s list are the men of the 1400s to the 1700s who conducted trials of suspected witches, whom they believed could be determined with an examination of their private parts. Any supposed abnormality was said to be the devil’s mark, such as “‘itinatagong balat o laman, na nakalaylay, mga kulugo o utong’ na siyang sinusupsup ng ‘demonyo at ng mga alagad nito.’”
Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) purchased a female slave from Africa whom he then exhibited in public, for a price, as the “Hottentot Venus” — for her “‘dambulahang tumbong’ at ang ‘lawlaw na pisngi ng kanyang puke.’” Cuvier believed that the latter feature was a mark of “seksuwalidad ng isang hayup.” Such theories influenced scientific racism.
Last and foremost on the list are the men behind the exhumation of the remains of Queen Christina of Sweden in 1965, three centuries after her interment at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, for the express purpose of determining that her skeleton still showed traces of her as a “pseudo-hermaphrodite” or an intersexual.
This list of heinous men among those who exacerbated conditions for women through centuries starts off this well-researched comic book of 143 pages. It then also “narrates the social history of the vagina, discussing everything from yoni worship to … the specifics of the female anatomy (and) the pyschological projection evident in the language of sanitary napkin advertisements.”
Bebang Siy’s translation adapts the text for Filipino readers, while capturing the original wit and irreverence topped by Strömquist’s signature humor.
* * *
Pukiusap is available in National Book Store, Powerbooks, and online at www.anvilpublishing.com. #Pukiusap #books #comic #feminism #pride #vagina #sexuality
