The Philippine Online Chronicles

Before I discovered that I was a woman-loving-woman, during my sexuality's formative years, I think I was exposed to gay men more than lesbians. Being a film major and a media practitioner centering on the entertainment sector, I was already exposed to the gaycentric nuances of Manila showbiz. This is where I got exposed to the colorful gay lingo which became part of my daily jargon up to now. And this is where I was also exposed to several complexities of being gay in Manila.

By complexities, I mean discovering how gay men negotiate with other people in order to have sex. I have a myriad of gay friends; some are a bit effeminate while some are butch or what they term as straight-acting (or pa-mhin in local gay lingo). I eventually found out that—like other people out there—they all have different approaches to sexual negotiations or relationships, but there is also something distinct to their culture: cruising. While I know some gay men prefer going out on fixed dates or having monogamous serial relationships, there are those who also prefer to just have one night stands and casual sex without obligations. And they fulfill that need by going out to noted places to do this cruising thing– meaning to check out someone and hook up with them.

So gay men are no different from other people who want the same thing out of relationships or people, right? Some would conclude that, yes. But I beg to differ. As a lesbian who discovered her affinity for women during the late 1990s, how I wished that we women-loving-women also had that kind of cruising culture. But alas, I think most lesbians I came in contact with were either looking for a steady girlfriend or a long-term monogamous relationship. Those who don’t really like having a commitment are sometimes left outside the margins of the marginalized. Ironic, isn’t it? So those who chose to remain single just mingled– with gay guys, sometimes. Like me.

As a lesbian in the late 1990s, I hung out with many gay men who were either my friends from college/graduate school or the arts/entertainment circles I revolved in.

Our primary destination at the time, of course, was Manila, specifically the bars within the Orosa-Nakpil street area of bohemian Malate. Sometimes, I was the only lesbian with a bunch of gay men who entered the claustrophobic dance bars catering mostly to men, like the defunct Joy or Mint along Orosa street. But what the hey, they still let me in. Sometimes, some gay friends would prefer if we just hung out in certain "chill" bars like my favorite Verve Room along Nakpil street. Or sometimes, like other Malate habitués, we would just hold a beer in our hands and walk the streets and stop whenever we feel like it, anywhere there, in front of different bars. Malate was that laidback back then, really.

And it was here in Malate where I garnered several Gay Cruising 101 lessons courtesy of my friends. As a writer, I always liked to observe people and their behavior so this lesson was just perfect for me.

One night, a bunch of us was inside my car, driving along Pedro Gil street, when my Gay Writer Friend told me to stop because he had to get off. Everybody jeered.

“What just happened?” I asked, feeling clueless, as I tried to maneuver the car.

“Um, meet ko na lang kayo later… Okay bye!” As soon as the car stopped, he rushed off.

Looking at my rearview mirror, I noticed that Gay Writer Friend approached a straight-looking guy standing in the corner near Hap Chan eatery. And I suddenly got it.

“Winner sa pag-spot ng menchu ang lola mo!” another gay writer friend said.

I didn’t know if there was some money involved in that transaction, but since that was Malate, my friends said that was merely cruising– men hitting on men in the hopes of having a night of pleasure without pay. I have to emphasize the "pay" bit because it’s always the misconception that gay guys always pay for sex. In certain cruising transactions as I found out, men don’t need money; they need charm, the looks, maybe some bulge where it matters, stuff like that. Or so my friends told me. Or at least this is true for this specific gay populace I went out with. We should not generalize.

Cruising got me thinking about how that never happened in lesbian circles back then. Two strangers who have never met could hook up and wham! Simple. Gay guys do that all the time; why can’t lesbians? That intrigued me.

How does it work for lesbians? Here in the Philippines, it seems that it’s hard to detect if there are specific spaces where lesbians could hang out and be identified as lesbians in order for pick-ups to happen. During the early 2000s, there was at least a couple of specific places where women-loving women could go and hang out. But even in there, one night stand hook-ups rarely took place. Why is that? We can quote all sorts of stereotypical notions that girls are different than boys, and lesbians are still girls and gay guys are still boys no matter their preference. But perhaps it’s our culture of lesbian mating here.

From what my friends and I have observed, it seems that women who want to hook up with other women need to at least get to know their “prospect” first. It can’t happen like how it does with gay guys; wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. What’s worse with this situation is that potential dates need to be “referred” by other women first before dates. And once women have had sex, emotional hell breaks loose. Unlike with some gay men—who can just have these one night stands easily and dismiss the event as soon as it’s over—we women tend to develop some kind of attachment to the person we have sex with, in the hopes of turning that chance encounter into a relationship. Yes, homonormativity calling, again.

And this is where I sometimes wonder about such things, about how gay men seem to have easier access to casual sexual encounters than LBTQ women. Sure, I’ve met fellow women-loving-women who also have casual sex and who don’t have any problems with that. However, those women are very few, and very hard to find. At least during that early in my so-called Manila dyke life. Yes, I don’t want to generalize about that, either.

But times have surely changed. Lesbians today seem to have it easier when it comes to meeting new people, unlike a decade ago. Exclusive dance parties have been multiplying like crazy in the past five years, but they mostly cater to the twentysomething (or younger) generations. Social networking sites have helped in this aspect a lot as well, with the proliferation of sites like Friendster, Downelink and now Facebook. But it doesn’t seem like a lot of women meet up just to hook up. A friend once observed that the Filipino LBTQ culture is not really a “cruising” culture unlike our foreign (or mostly western) counterparts. I guess that’s bad news for queer women who do not want to subscribe to such homonormative set-ups here. Woe to us.

What’s a queer girl got to do now, then? I don’t know. Either one feels that she is in the wrong country to be queer so she should leave, or she just has to settle with what the queer culture here has to offer. Not much of a choice, really, but if anyone out there has clues to live by, then share your thoughts with the rest of us, please. I know some might also think that this is such a shallow and pretentious concern, but if we truly want to respect the diversity of our rainbow lives, then people should understand that such concerns are also real for some of us living in this space.

Photos by the author, courtesy of leaflens.blogspot.com. Some rights reserved.