"I Just Pray"
Wives of Filipino seafarers close their eyes to their husbands' casual
sex behavior while at sea.
From Inter Press Service
News Agency (IPS) Asia-Pacific
Philippines (IPS) - ''God's will be done,'' is the prayer Esper (not
her real name) utters each time she has sex with her husband, a seafarer
from the Philippines who has been in the trade for the last 22 years.
When he comes home for a two-to-three-month holiday after being away
at sea for months, Esper is not sure whether it is safe to be intimate
with him. At the back of her mind, she says, is the possibility that
her husband may have contracted a sexually-transmitted disease (STD)
or worse, HIV, from sexual relations in some overseas port.
''I always remind him to please come home to me safe, but I have no
way of knowing if he's been faithful to me,'' confesses the 43-year-old
Esper, who works as a liaison officer for a marine recruitment agency
in the Philippines.
She once tried telling her husband to have a medical check-up, but
he accused her of not trusting him. ''So I just closed my eyes and
prayed,'' she added.
Studies have shown that seafarers -- there are 500,000 registered
Filipino seafarers and one in every five seafarers in the world are
Filipino -- are among the migrant workers whose ''girl-in-every-port''
practice makes them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, and passing it on to their
partners.
''Faced with the daily risks of negotiating turbulent seas, sailing
for days or weeks on end, and being in a typically male-dominated
occupation, seafarers are known to indulge in social activities the
moment they dock, including drinking binges and casual or paid sex,''
activist Riza Ybanez says in a case study on the HIV vulnerability
of wives of seafarers.
''If seafarers are vulnerable to STDs and HIV, they can pass on such
vulnerability to their partners,'' adds the study undertaken for Kalayaan
(Freedom) and CARAM-Asia, non-government groups that work with migrant
labor.
Like Esper, Julie (not her real name) is aware that STDs and AIDS
can come knocking on her and her husband's door anytime. ''I trust
him,'' says Julie of her husband. ''But I tell him that if you really
cannot resist the temptation, please use a condom. If you can't stay
away, just have oral sex.''
Julie says her ''open and honest relationship'' with her husband allows
them to express their feelings without fear of rejection.
Not so with the majority of seafarers' wives interviewed by Ybanez.
Thirty-three women in her study said they feared contracting STDs
and HIV from their seafarer-husbands, but most ''still have not taken
proactive positive measures to protect themselves from their own vulnerabilities.''
Like Esper and Julie, those who manage to talk to their husbands only
give gentle reminders to engage in safe sex. Only a few insist on
a medical examination before sexual contact, citing the need to preserve
family harmony.
In an interview, Ybanez says many seamen's wives actually agree that
they need to be more assertive with their husbands, but add that doing
so is not easy.
''They are economically dependent on their husbands so there's a lot
of gratitude for taking care of them. The husbands are only home for
weeks so there's an attitude that if you nitpick, you'll just drive
them away,'' Ybanez observes. ''Also, Filipino wives in general are
not assertive.''
Sexist norms in society have likewise created an imbalance in relationships.
''We have a situation where on the one hand, the seafarers are exposed
to sexual adventures abroad and come home with a new world view on
sexual practices while on the other hand, their wives remain sexually
reserved back home,'' says Ybanez's study.
To cope with the possibility of their husbands' extramarital relations,
the study says, ''the wives do confront their husbands or drop hints
of their doubts, but always jokingly.''
Other women ''fish for signs in their conversations,'' says Ybanez.
Likewise, ''there are wives who refuse to think about their husband's
sexual activities abroad,'' she says, adding that some cling to the
belief that their husbands are different.
At the root of most seafarers' foray into the culture of casual sex
is the tolerance of male promiscuity.
''They (the wives) say that they miss their husbands so much that
they are eager to sexually connect with them notwithstanding the risks.
They say they think of the risks later, so STDs or HIV may be the
price to pay for their happiness,'' Ybanez study says.
Using condoms was also not popular among women surveyed by the study
-- some said it was unnatural, others said volunteering their use
was a sign of ''guilt or mistrust.''
Esper says the ''first and only one time'' she used a condom was when
her husband suggested using it. He had confessed to an indiscretion,
was not sure if he was still safe, and later asked her to accompany
him to a medical check-up.
Fortunately for Esper and her husband, he only had a urinary tract
infection. But she told him, ''We can't just ignore this. The next
time it could be worse.''
If her husband had indeed gotten HIV, Esper says she would be heartbroken,
but would still stand by him. ''Who else will understand him?'' she
concluded.
__________________________________
This article is reported by Marites Sison for IPS-Philippines. Republished
with permission from Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS) Asia-Pacific.
About Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS): IPS, the world's
leading provider of information on global issues, is backed by a network
of journalists in more than 100 countries. Its clients include more
than 3,000 media organizations and tens of thousands of civil society
groups, academics, and other users.
IPS focuses its news coverage on the events and global processes
affecting the economic, social and political development of peoples
and nations.
