Wickedly Twitched:
Virginity Deliriums and the Wretched Gossip Society
By: Aaron Ligon Restua
Alert: I am 22 and at least, technically speaking, I’m a virgin. I am not so sure though if after five years from now I will still be or I will still be proud to claim so. Besides, most guys at my current age would claim in a straightforward manner that they are not anymore virgins even if some of them actually are. Much less would someone claim at the age of 30 that he hasn’t engaged in any erotic experience straight or not-so-straight. Our society has moved in such a way that it has incredulously injected in our consciousness that guys like me should compile a collection of sexual experiences and as others would say, “It just proves that we are, indeed, guys, to have tasted not just one but the many.” It is as if it’s the passport to the cultural notion of manhood. The idea of the 40-year old virgin has apparently been trashed-out in our consciousness as the gateway towards one’s doomed future. Most of our thinking would suggest that if I don’t want to be the subject of my drinking barkada’s laughter and amusement, then it’s now time to take a bedmate, strip-off my clothes and give in to my carnal nature.
Inspiration: It was not long ago when I chanced upon the facebook account of no other than Ms. Pat Evangelista. I’ve read from there that she is looking for a good-looking virgin guy aged 25-30 not to be her bedmate but I suppose, as a subject for a book she is currently writing. It should not be the case that the guy is a homo or someone caught under the ties of his white robes of celibacy or chastity. Besides, he should have chosen to retain his virginity out of principle or some odd reasons but not the possible fact that no one wants to sleep with him because of his very low facial value, poor hygiene or mental or physical incapacity. In short, he should be this near-to -perfect type of guy that will easily get the environment filled with high level of pheromones when girls and gays see him hanging around. Yes, he is supposed to be the one who tamed his level of libido for what he believes in, not religiously but ideally. It may be the case that he wants to preserve his virginity for his life-time partner or because of very peculiar reasons, he doesn’t want to do the deed yet. Sounds interesting, right? It’s as if very few if not actually none would qualify to the said criterion.
Conflict: It is quite amusing how the society turned on the discrepancy in tolerating men not to be extroverts about their feelings except about their sexual discipline and in training women to show their emotions while at the same time dismissing their sexual caprice as flirtatious. We raise our brows and scream disappointments in hearing girls impregnated at an early age or out of wedlock while the men’s world celebrates male promiscuity. And if someone from our own ranks detests such out of principle, he’ll easily see himself sandwiched amidst gossips of his possible gayhood or worse, sainthood. I have a number of friends who never rests in having girlfriends after girlfriends while it has been tabooed among the females to have another boyfriend immediately after break-ups, hence, the dawn of the three-month rule. If we have been doing the right thing to do, be the judge! We are continuously dismissing our subjectivity, convictions and belief to a trans-cultural bias on male-female inequality.
Gossips: Break-ups, Blind-Items, Scandals, Round-a-Clock Updates: these and many more has been the center of excellence when it comes to determining what’s hot and what’s not. Most people in our society have seemed to devaluate their own line of thinking away from academic pursuits and towards the open-booked life of Kris Aquino. It’s as if the life of Baby James would determine the future of this restless society. It’s as if our cultural horizon will be honed by the sudden transformation of a Padilla into a Gandang-hari. While most people are attaching the points of their noses on their TV screens to watch their favorite primetime teleseryes and to watch-out what will the next conflict be in a top-rating reality show, most of them are also aborting themselves away from basic public concerns.
Compendium: Such occurrence is what Henri Giroux terms as the interchange between the public and the private realms and taking the argument further, we’ll see the apparent superstructure in connection to its base. It’s a way to pacify our most pressing concerns. It’s a way to tell our poor fellows to be like the teleserye protagonists, poor and marginalized at first and giving them false hopes that at the end, they will claim what they deserve. The sudden change in our news programs giving more time slots for showbiz news than what it actually had 10 years ago is quite pressing. It’s as if it has been a face-point alternative not to mind much the corrupt administration of an Arroyo or other societal demons but to be swayed by the Wowowee-Eat-Bulaga rivalry. The introduction of a showbiz-gossip show at primetime is another insult to our rationality. It is as if the TV networks are saying that these are the type of news and programs a thinking being deserves. I can’t blame them because these are the types of shows that pays much to their ratings and consequently, increasing treasury. But haven’t anyone reckoned that it seems too much to bear. It’s odd. We cannot deny the fact that in this era, among the things that are honing the society’s consciousness is mass media. It bears the duty to awaken and educate the people out of their slumber and apathy. If it merely presents the trash, how can we possibly get into the core of real issues?
Convergence: I have just presented how the past and the present fuses to make our consciousness stunted. Tradition could be so enslaving that it is, at times, distorting our notion of equality regardless of gender. It may also void us away from our personal beliefs and convictions even with regards to sexuality. Novelty also possesses its shares of woes. It crushes the public to be alienated away from the people’s consciousness while it presents the lives of showbiz people to be a gossip alternative. In either way, the society remains a restless wanderer believing that it possesses its own identity when in fact it remains hanging, waiting for the last surging greedy winds to let it fall down to the abyss.
Melancholy: I just want to take this opportunity to thank those who are patiently reading my insane articles. I hope you have extracted some sane lessons between their lines. Forgive me if at times, I’m causing bloodshed underneath your noses. And since I suppose that this will be my last for Gasera, you may catch me up at heiroftheoverman.blogspot.com or e-mail me at aaronrestua@yahoo.com. To God (Whoever He is), Dean Gandeza and the faculty, Ma’am Chamos and the staff, my still anonymous Bella Swan and the rest of CHS people especially those who have touched my life in every way possible, you have been my writing inspiration. This will never be good bye but a celebration for a brighter tomorrow. Keep thinking. It’s our only way to know that we are at this point in time, still dangerously ignorant.
