SEX IN THE PHILIPPINES: HISTORY, INFLUENCES, STORIES

SEX IN THE PHILIPPINES

Original Sex Bomb Girls performing at Howlers Manila Music Festival in 2023

A survey by Time magazine in 2001 asked Filipino if premarital sex is okay: 56 percent of males and 39 percent of females said yes. When asked how many sexual partners they had had: 28 percent of males and 76 percent of females said one; 47 percent of males and 23 percent of females said two to four; 17 percent of males and 2 percent of females said five to 12; and 8 percent of males and 0 percent of females said more than 13. In the 2001 Time sex survey 82 percent of males and 11 percent of females said they were the ones who initiated sex; 69 percent of males and 48 percent of females said they had had oral sex; and 55 percent of males and 68 percent of females said they thought they were sexy.

Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: “The peoples of the Philippine archipelago, both indigenous and immigrant, Muslim, Christian, and other, reflect the cultural attitudes and behavior of their mixed Malaysian and Chinese ancestries. There are also wide variations because of the sociocultural and linguistic mix. However, the dominant Catholic Church, the legislative body, and the educational system are essentially an amalgam of the old Hispanic dogma and the modern Western flavor with the present public sexual morality reflecting the values of these enduring institutions. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality, 2001]

Before the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, the Philippine islands were home to independent tribes that valued freedom and adapted to their local environments. When Magellan arrived in the central Philippines, he landed on an island called Limasawa. He observed that some local groups practiced polygamy, with men having multiple wives. At the time, this was a common tradition in several parts of the archipelago. Trade with China had already been taking place centuries earlier, bringing cultural influences and some intermarriage between Chinese traders and local communities. Over time, different regions developed their own customs regarding marriage and relationships. In the southern Philippines, Islamic traditions allowed forms of plural marriage, while many northern groups practiced monogamy. In some communities, marriage could take place soon after puberty, with girls marrying in their early teens and boys a few years later.

With the arrival of Spanish colonizers, Roman Catholic Church teachings became dominant. These introduced new ideas about marriage and sexuality, including later marriage ages and stricter rules about sexual behavior. Practices like masturbation were strongly discouraged, and sex was expected to take place only within marriage. In more recent times, social life has become more relaxed, especially among young people. Gatherings such as fiestas, parties, and school events provide more opportunities for socializing and relationships, reflecting gradual changes in attitudes toward dating and sexuality.”

Pregnant Man and Weird Sex Stories from the Philippines

a book

A sensational story about a “pregnant Filipino man” made global headlines in 1992, but it was later exposed as a hoax. Reports claimed that a 32-year-old nurse from Malaybalay, Edwin Bayron (also known as Carlo), said he was six months pregnant. Doctors initially believed him based on an ultrasound and test results, and the case even drew attention from government officials who offered support. However, further examination revealed that Bayron had fabricated his medical history and was not pregnant. He had convinced people he was intersex and had undergone surgery, but the entire story turned out to be false. It was later suggested that the hoax may have been an attempt to support a legal bid to change his name and gender so he could marry his partner. [Source: malepregnancy.com]

In 2001, a devout Christian Filipino man believed his penis was driving him to sin. In a fit of religious fervor he sliced it off with a machete. Doctors were able to reattach it but it was 20 percent shorter than it was before. There have also been several widely reported cases in the Philippines involving women injuring their partners out of jealousy, often compared to the well-known 1993 case of John Wayne Bobbitt in the United States. In 2008, a traffic enforcer named Joelito Bayabado was hospitalized after his wife cut off his penis during a domestic dispute, reportedly driven by suspicions of infidelity. Doctors were able to reattach it after surgery, and he later chose not to press charges for the sake of their family.

Similar incidents have been reported over the years. In 1995, a woman in Quezon City attacked her partner after he said he wanted to return to his wife. In another case, a woman in Pateros seriously injured her partner for seeing someone else, though doctors were again able to repair the damage. These cases are often highlighted in media reports as extreme examples of domestic conflict linked to jealousy and infidelity.

Concepts of Sexuality and Love in the Philippines

Virginity is no longer seen as a strict requirement for marriage in the Philippines. A 1994 survey of young people aged 15 to 24 found that 18 percent approved of premarital sex, while 80 percent disapproved and 2 percent were undecided. Over time, attitudes have become more open, influenced by media and global communication. The same study showed that many educated women in cities were adopting more flexible views about relationships and were more likely to use contraception. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality, 2001]

Women across social classes try to balance their roles as mothers and partners, though their experiences differ. Middle- and upper-class women often have help from maids, babysitters, or relatives, making it easier to manage family life. Younger, educated women are generally more open in their relationships and communication with their partners. In contrast, many women in rural areas—who make up about 65% of the population—tend to be more conservative, less likely to use contraception, and have less independence.

The Philippines has a relatively young population, with a large percentage under age 49, and slightly more women than men. Some women find work as domestic helpers or caregivers. Traditional gender roles are slowly changing, especially in cities. Many educated men now take a more active role in raising children and see the benefits of shared responsibilities and dual incomes. They are also becoming more open and relaxed in their relationships.

Although urban Filipino society today is strongly influenced by Western culture, it remains conservative in terms of laws and public values. The Catholic Church continues to have a strong influence, and officially, only heterosexual relations within marriage are considered acceptable. Other behaviors—such as prostitution, pornography, polygamy (except in some groups), premarital and extramarital sex, cohabitation, and same-sex relationships—are traditionally discouraged or restricted. However, in practice, some of these, like cohabitation and quiet same-sex relationships, are becoming more socially accepted, especially in urban areas and among public figures.

Religious Factors Affecting Sexuality in the Philippines

Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson noted that the Roman Catholic Church has long had a strong influence over Filipino society, shaping the beliefs and behavior of most of the population. Historically, political leaders often aligned with the Church, which has played a major role in areas like education, family life, and moral values. It has also influenced attitudes toward issues such as contraception, abortion, and the recording of life events like births, marriages, and deaths. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality, 2001]

The Church promotes traditional views on sexuality and gender roles. It teaches that sex should only take place within marriage and considers practices like premarital sex and masturbation sinful, while also discouraging homosexuality. Virginity before marriage is highly valued, inspired by the example of Virgin Mary. This idea of purity is symbolized by the use of white clothing in important religious events such as baptisms and weddings. The Church also presents celibacy, especially in religious life, as a higher spiritual path.

In traditional society, women were often taught to be modest and reserved, while also attracting a future husband through careful social behavior. Courtship could be a long and sometimes costly process for men, who were expected to prove their commitment and ability to provide. A woman’s virginity was often seen as something valuable in this process, which could shape how relationships developed before marriage.

At the same time, practices varied across different communities. Some indigenous groups allowed young people to explore relationships starting at puberty, viewing it as a natural stage of life. However, in mainstream society, virginity before marriage remained an important expectation.

After 1898, American influence introduced Protestant Christianity to the Philippines. While Protestant groups also follow general Christian teachings on sexuality, some local churches developed their own traditions. Examples include the Philippine Independent Church, founded in 1902, and the Iglesia ni Cristo. These churches share similar moral views but also include rules shaped by their Filipino founders.

Sex in Philippine Literature

Ian Rosales Casocot wrote in CNN: Eroticism — and frankly, sex — has had a troubled history in Philippine publishing indeed. In 1955, Leopoldo Y. Yabes, writing in his preface to his second collection of Filipino short stories in English, acknowledged the matter when he recalled prior criticism dismaying that “there is no sex in the Filipino love story.” [Source:Ian Rosales Casocot, CNN, April 26, 2017]

But there has been some. Nick Joaquin penned some stories — “The Summer Solstice” towering above all — that were not ashamed at exploring desire and wanton acts bordering sweet depravity. And yet no Filipino has really made a name for his or herself in the genre — no Anaïs Nin or Henry Miller among us — and nor has there ever been a novel or a short story collection that courted the censor’s ire, damned by local moralists, and read under a blanket with a flashlight in bed, the way we had with “The Carpetbaggers” or “Portnoy’s Complaint.”

Indeed, most early attempts at depicting sexuality in Philippine literature have been done in the mode of ecstatically wrought metaphor and playful restraint— and perhaps understandably so, given the usual conservatism we ascribe to Filipino society, especially before the 1950s. Perhaps learning from Angela Manalang Gloria’s troubles with “Revolt to Hymen” and Jose Garcia Villa’s similar battles with “Man Songs,” the restraint — and the “quivering” lyricism — was what got the Filipino writer to explore carnality in literature without much backlash.

This is beautifully illustrated by Manuel Arguilla’s “Midsummer.” In this 1933 story, Arguilla gives us the embodiment of youthful Filipino ardor — Manong and Ading under the sultry summer sun in the countryside. Their frank regard for each other’s bodies is nimbly teased out in beautifully rendered paragraphs that “quiver” upon close reading: Here, we get a mention of Ading’s “single bodice instantly [clinging] to her bosom molding the twin hillocks of her breasts warmly brown through the wet cloth,” as well as Manong’s “two parallel ridges of rope-like muscle [in the small of his back sticking] out against [his] wet shirt.”

This is still, for me, the sexiest bit of fiction ever written in English by a Filipino writer — and the knowledge that Arguilla got away with it in 1933 is something to marvel at, especially given the controversy that visited Estrella Alfon two decades later when she published her short story “Fairy Tale for the City,” about a young man who is absolved of his sins by a Catholic priest. In 1955, the Catholic Women’s League took Alfon to court for writing pornography — and the CWL won. (The judge presiding over the case, however, paid the 300 peso fine leveled against Ms. Alfon to prevent her from going to jail.)

Jose Y. Dalisay has puzzled over this lack in one of his columns on the practice of writing: “…Let me observe the perplexing absence of sex […] from traditional fiction in English. Given our birth […] rates, you’d think there was a whole lot of shakin’ going on in these islands — but no, not if all you had to go by were our stories, at least recently, with some young writers invoking the F word every other sentence, as if to make up for some historical imbalance.”

In 2001, Virgilio Aviado, Ben Cabrera, and Alfred Yuson edited “Eros Pinoy: An Anthology of Contemporary Erotica in Philippine Art and Poetry,” which gathered works from literary and visual artists, all in celebration of the erotic. This was dubbed as “the first ever anthology of poetry and visual art on the theme of erotica, boasting of over 80 artworks and over 70 poems on love and passion from 101 well-known Filipinos, including National Artists Edith Tiempo and Francisco Arcellana for Literature, and Napoleon Abueva, Arturo Luz, Ang Kiukok, and J. Elizalde Navarro for Art.”

And in more recent years, we’ve had Adam David’s graphic story “The Long Weekend,” Siege Malvar’s “Wasakang Wasak,” Eros Atalia’s “Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me” — and even a one-off Ladies’ Confession Special from FHM Philippines that gathered the explicit short stories of Marguerite Alcarazen de Leon, Karl R. De Mesa, Joseph Nacino, Carljoe Javier, Anna Felicia Sanchez, Lourd Ernest de Veyra, Andrew Paredes, Ramil Digal Gulle, and Norman Wilwayco in 2012.

Women Writing About Sex in the Philippines

Kerima Polotan wrote an essay entitled “Love in Philippine Fiction” in which she discusses sex and eroticism in Philippines literature and talks about women in particular in this genre. Ian Rosales Casocot wrote in CNN: Polotan starts with Loreto Paras Sulit’s “Laarni — A Dream,” a much-anthologized story which “ended with the hero’s spear quivering in the stairway, Laarni quivering in the house, the [reader] quivering in his seat, while everyone perished beautifully to the immortal words: ‘Thrust your spear and shall not thrust in vain.’” The symbolism is not very subtle, but for the longest time this has been the extent, amusing and quaint as it may strike us now, with which sexuality has been tackled in Philippine fiction in English. [Source: Ian Rosales Casocot. CNN, April 26, 2017]

In the rarified world of literature, Anvil Publishing came out with “Forbidden Fruit: Women Write the Erotic,” edited by Tina Cuyugan in 1992. It became a landmark anthology of erotic fiction and poetry by some of the most acclaimed contemporary Filipina writers, including Lualhati Bautista, Cecilia Manguerra Branard, Joi Barrios, Susan Lara, Ophelia Dimalanta, Marjorie Evasco, Ma. Fatima Lim, Jessica Hagedorn, Marra PL Lanot, and Benilda Santos. The book was designed to give women a new voice regarding their perceptions of the erotic, and to “reveal their delights and desires.”

In her foreword to the book, clinical psychologist Margarita Go-Singco Holmes, who has pioneered in sexual counseling in the Philippines, hailed the works as “an extraordinary act of sharing.” She wrote: “To reflect upon experience is necessary to human growth,” and the authors have thus proven themselves “truly free spirits” in publicly reflecting on private matters such as sexuality and sensuality.

And in her introduction, Cuyugan admitted to the steep editorial considerations the project — the first of its kind in Philippine publishing — demanded: “Many [of the contributors] wondered about the effect on their husbands, fathers, and children. Some worried that their works were too erotic, or not erotic enough. Others were concerned by public reaction and possible misreading of their work.” One contributor, Joi Barrios, admitted that being part of the anthology was “like washing dirty linen in public: it makes you feel guilty.”

History of Pornography in the Philippines

Pornography arrived in the Philippines only in 1946 in the form of pornographic magazines imported from the United States. Ian Rosales Casocot wrote for CNN: During the 1960s, pornography became accessible to affluent older men — and women — with 8mm film projectors, and during the 1980s through videocassettes; all illegal and clandestinely distributed in local video rental shops and newsstands.[Source: Ian Rosales Casocot, CNN, April 26, 2017]

By then, Filipinos learned to produce locally produced fare, and in popular culture, the brazenness of the production got a kind of mainstream acceptance with many soft-core movies that started to appear in the 1970s, beginning with “Uhaw,” which jumpstarted several waves of similar films, including bomba, pene (as in “penetration,” with films complete with scenes featuring actual coitus), ST (or “sex-trip films”), and finally TF (or “titillating films”).

By 2006, the underground Philippine porn industry had become a $1 billion industry, putting the Philippines in eighth place in the worldwide black market for porn, in a tie with Canada and Taiwan. Erotic publications also flourished and died away in a strange but expected paroxysm of interest and disinterest, perhaps pulsating in tandem with the national Catholic guilt. There have been Tik-Tik and Sakdal, among the many magazines that catered to titillation, and finally in 2008, a Filipino edition of Playboy was launched, after similar magazines — FHM, for example — became popular.

In the steamier side of things, inclusion must be made of the defunct but wildly popular sex columns of Xerex Xaviera (filmmaker and writer Jim Libiran in real life), which used to occupy prominent space in the tabloid Abante Tonite. There are also the overheated e-books of Rose Cuzzion, author of such tomes as “Philippines: Raw Honest Sex,” “Happy Ending,” and “Philippine Girl.”

Philippines Gets Its Own Playboy in 2008, But No Nudes

The last Playboy Club, in Manila, was closed in 1991. In 2008, the Philippines got its own version of Playboy magazine. AFP reported: “The Philippines will get its own edition of Playboy magazine - only without the nudity that made the US version famous, the editor-in-chief of the local edition said. The Philippine edition will be launched on April 2 as a 'mature lifestyle magazine,' said veteran journalist Beting Laygo Dolor. While the magazine will offer pictorials of beautiful women, it will not include nudity. 'It will be tamer than the US edition but not as tame as the Indonesian edition,' Mr Lagyo Dolor said in a television interview. [Source: AFP, March 27, 2008 :::]

“He said it would be aimed at a more mature, affluent readership than 'lad magazines' such as FHM and Maxim which already have Philippine editions. It will be the 25th international edition of the US-based magazine which was launched more than 50 years ago. :The local edition will have serious articles and fiction by some of the country's best-known writers but will also include such staples as a 'playmate of the month,' Mr Lagyo Dolor said Movies and publications showing nudity have run into strong opposition in the conservative, largely Roman Catholic Philippines with watchdog groups sometimes filing criminal charges against those who distribute such materials.” :::

Filipino Couples Set World Kissing Record

In 2007, Fox News reported: “More than 6,000 Philippine couples kissed simultaneously in a Manila parking lot at midnight Saturday, and organizers of what was called the "Lovapalooza" event said they had set a world record. "More than 6,000 this time, we broke the record," shouted Howard Benson, one of the organizers, as fireworks went off and confetti and heart-shaped red balloons filled the air. [Source: Fox News, February 11, 2007 |::|]

“A total of 6,124 couples kissed simultaneously for at least 10 seconds in a parking lot outside a Manila shopping mall, said Albert Almendralejo, producer of Lovapalooza. A team of independent auditors were present to verify the number of people taking part in the event. The current record is held by 5,875 couples kissing at an event organized at the Elisabeth Bridge in Budapest, Hungary on June 25, 2005. |::|

“The thousands of mostly young men and women had gathered in the early evening at the mall on Manila Bay and had danced and listened to music until midnight. After a countdown broadcast on loudspeakers posted all around the area, they kissed exactly at midnight. "It has brought us closer together, we are proud of breaking the record," said Jade Lynn Grados, a young woman who, like her boyfriend, was dressed in a red shirt for the event.” |::|

In 2009, at the beginning of the swine flu epidemic, AFP reported: “Health authorities here on Monday urged people to avoid hugging and kissing at public gatherings due to worries about a possible global pandemic of the deadly swine flu virus. The head of the Philippine health department's national epidemiology centre, Eric Tayag, said it was increasing monitoring of arrivals at airports and urged people to limit physical contact in public. "Avoid touching, kissing, and hugging," Tayag said. [Source: Agence France-Presse, April 27, 2009]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: “Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; “Culture Shock!: Philippines” by Alfredo Roces and Grace Roces, Marshall Cavendish International, 2010; Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Geographic, Live Science, Philippines Department of Tourism, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Library of Congress, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.

Last updated March 2026