Hot Topic: Sex and Asian Relationships

Listening to my endless playlist of Indie music, my mother somehow felt the need (completely out of the blue) to ask me whether or not my sister's relationship is going to last. I paused the music and shrugged. I asked her why. "Because they're already kind of living together and everything, it's not good if they break up," she responded. Even though that's not true. My sister is in a long distance relationship with a very cute German man, and by 'living together' she means they visit each other often for a week or two. But to her, that is equivalent to 'living together'. Then somehow, maybe it was something I said, she made this conversation turn into premarital sex and the value of women if they have had sex...all in the context of Asian (more specifically, Indonesian) people. 

Let's get to it:

During a weekly Bible study at the tender age of 14, a priest had come to give a talk, and he brought a cardboard box and some duct tape with him as well. He then pasted the duct tape on the cardboard box. Then he peeled it off. Then stuck it on again. Then peeled it off. Stuck it on again. He did this repeatedly until the duct tape could no longer stick to the box. He explained that this is what a girl's virginity is like. The first time will be the best, it will stick forever. But if you keep peeling it off and sticking it again, it's going to lose its value, because it's no longer a good duct tape.

I guess it's okay to compare women to duct tapes. But I was taught to believe that a woman's value will decrease exponentially if she were ever to have sex outside of marriage. 

You see, I was raised in an International school. I grew up watching Disney and Nickelodeon and Star World and E!. I know nothing about the Indonesian media and music industry. I would rather write in English than in Indonesian. My personality and worldview is a dangerous mix of Western and Asian ideals, and that scares my family shitless. Of course, my father and second sister are just as whitewashed (if not more), but I'm the only one brave enough to actually say the things I believe out loud.

"Yeah, it's okay when two people live together. If they're in a serious and committed relationship, and both are mature enough. Why not? That's when they find out if they are actually compatible with one another," I told my mother, after she asked me about my sister's presumed sexcapades. I don't know what she heard, but she looked like I just told her that I had an orgy with twelve African-American men and one Hispanic woman in an alley in Sacramento when I was 12.

When I say 'move in', I think about two people cooking, watching TV, coming home from work, greeting each other, and having dinner afterwards. But my mother thinks 'move in' means sex on a balcony and 69-ing the night away. 

I swear to you this is what she told me, translated to English:

"You can't live together! What happens if you two break up? You will be a used good. You'll be someone's leftover. The guy can go around pointing at you saying, 'yeah, I used that.' Then other guys will either stay away from you because you have a bad reputation, or they will only go out with you because they know you'll sleep with them."

Hold up, hold up, hold up. Did you just call me a used good? Did you just say that guys use me? Did you just refer to a girl as that instead of her? O you poor woman, raised in a man's world. Isn't sex a consensual and intimate activity between two people? Why is it always the girl that loses value and not the guy? 'Your value does not decrease based on someone's inability to see your worth'. Girls are sluts, but guys are players. A lock that can be opened with many keys is a shitty lock, but a key that can open any lock is a master key.

And I don't understand why rumors and conversations about my love life should impact my current relationship with the person I enjoy being with. So what if I'm a used good? Am I not more than what I have done with my boyfriend? Am I not my personality, but merely a collection of all the 'terrible' things I have done? Never mind the fact that I can play musical instruments, that I am good with children, that I have a distinction average in university, that I am kind, or funny, or all the good things that I know I am. No? Well, if you're going to judge me based on what I have done in the privacy of my room then I'm going to judge you based on your superficiality.

If I were ever to be a used good, and guys start to talk shit about me, and refuse to even get to know me based on hearsay, then fuck them. I do not want to be with guys who judge me based on rumors. I want someone who's heard a bunch of gossip about me, and see for himself. I want him to get to know me and make up his own opinion about who I am based on his own experience with me. 

So, mother, I don't know if my sister is going to last with her boyfriend. I don't know anything about the ins and outs of their relationship. Zilch. Nada. Nil. If they don't last, you shouldn't be concerned about her value, or what people say about her. Because people are akin to $100 bills. They can be transferred around from person to person, but that doesn't mean that it is not still $100.