Have you ever felt like having an open discussion about intimacy and sex has been off the table?
“Ano ba ‘yan! Takpan n’yo mata ninyo.” (“What’s that! Cover your eyes.”) Our mom irritably said as we all watched the television.
My siblings and I were always told to close our eyes whenever an intimate scene was on our TV screen when we were young. I always wonder why I should. But none of us dared to ask why.
As I reached my teenage years, I became too curious. But since I was scared and shy to ask my parents or any close adults I knew about sex, knowing how they would react to it, I chose to observe and read. And just let things be. Hence, I popped the cherry at 24. And it’s by choice.
When I first had the chance to explore and travel outside of my home country, the Philippines, I was taken aback by the cultural differences I experienced, mainly regarding how the people in the West approached issues related to sexuality and social liberation. While I had grown up in a more conservative and traditional society where these topics were often avoided or not discussed openly, my travels taught me that things were quite different in other parts of the world.
In fact, I found that people in Western countries seemed to be much more liberal and…
