I’ll be on Rock Ed Radio in Manila on Thursday, February 2 at 9 pm. Tune in to Jam 88.3 fm on Manila radio. Elsewhere you can watch the ustream on the jam883.fm website. (That’s 5 am in California, 8 am Eastern, and all the smart people who live in between those two time zones can figure it out.)

Gang Badoy, who interviewed me for the Esquire Philippines article, hosts the show. She said she’s expecting phone-in questions from listeners here in Metro Manila, but if you’re planning on watching online and want to ask me any questions about sex, porn, art, anything except how to find parking in metropolitan areas, I suppose you could tweet me @maylingsu. I’ll check my feed at some point during the 2-hour show (like when we run out of things to talk about or suddenly hit dead air).

Rock ‘n, Rock ‘n Roll Radio, let’s go!

True, pornographers are hardly ordinary people. We tend to have a voluptuous interest in sexual expression, one that exceeds the confines of our bedrooms. But we, pornographers, are simple folk. We are triggered by our basest instincts, the desire for pleasure in its most immediate form. We are no different from a pastry chef or a sommelier. We are enthusiastic about our pleasure, and wish to make sharing it our means of livelihood.

Sexual repression in society complicates things a lot, doesn’t it? Add guilt to the equation and pornography becomes the irresistible forbidden fruit that brings a naughty charge up an otherwise normal expression of humanity. Censorship and criminalization takes it even further: sex becomes politicized. Pornographers become revolutionaries.

Take a look at what’s going on in China. I wonder what will happen there this coming year.

China arrests 5,000 for internet pornography offences

China arrested more than 5,000 people in 2009 in a drive to purge the internet of pornography and other “harmful information”.

The ministry of public security said 5,394 people had been arrested and that over 9,000 websites had been deleted for having pornographic content. The ministry did not say how many people had subsequently been put on trial.

The authorities released the figures with a warning that its policing of the internet would intensify in 2010 in order to preserve “state security”.

China maintains strict censorship of the internet in order to make sure that unhealthy content, including criticism of the Communist Party, does not reach a wide audience.

Websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all blocked and Google has received a public warning for not censoring itself more thoroughly.

With over 350 million internet users, the government worries that any small cracks in its authority could quickly spiral out of control. In the first six months of 2009, an average of 221,000 Chinese a day started using the internet for the first time, or 153 new users a minute. Read more…

I’m not going to write about the reasons why an overpopulated and poverty-stricken populace should have easy access to sex education and birth control. I’m going to examine the tradition that prompts the Roman Catholic Church to maintain its stand against sexual liberty and the exercise of power over our own bodies.

The Old Testament details a widespread massacre of Sumerians, Babylonians, Canaanites, and all who chose to worship the goddess Ishtar/Astarte, a deity practicing sacred sexual customs in their temples. In the matriarchal culture of ancient Sumer, Babylon and Canaan, there was little to no concern over paternity. A child is his/her mother’s alone, and inherited property according to her will.

In order to establish a patrilineal culture in the land of milk and honey (a euphemism for overflowing breasts and sweet pussy, no?), the Hebrews forced each woman to submit to only one man. Absolute control of a woman’s sexuality was the only way a man can guarantee that only his rightful heirs receive their paternal inheritance. Pre-marital virginity and fidelity while married ensured that there weren’t any illegitimate children being born to a woman. Controlling the distribution of property and land meant controlling women’s sexuality.

While a man could have as many wives as he could afford to have, an adulterous woman was stoned to death. A bride who arrived with a broken hymen was returned to her family a disgrace, incapable of marriage and therefore worthless. Illegitimate children were disenfranchised.

Over and over in history – the Spanish Inquisition, the witch burnings, the crusades – patriarchs used violence and force until they owned the land and the world conformed to the Judeo-Christian tradition of monogamy and sexual repression.

When the Spanish conquistadores first came to the lush islands now called Philippines, they found tattooed, pierced, barely clothed and sexually adventurous people. Pre-colonial sexual practices were made criminal so the Spanish government could seize land. Native women who bared their breasts in public were punished with 50 lashes across their backs. After 500 years of Spanish colonization, we evolved into blushing mestizos/mestizas, protectors of the patriarchal status quo and torchbearers of the Roman Catholic tradition of sexual guilt.

Now in 21st century Philippines, women can own property and land. We marry whom we choose, or choose not to marry. Extramarital relationships are common. It’s not the end of the world if a woman isn’t a virgin when she walks down the aisle at her wedding, or if she conceives a child out of wedlock.

The Roman Catholic Church states that promoting artificial birth control and sex education would lead to loose morals, a laughable sign they are out of touch with being human. It’s as if they are aliens from outer space.

Sex cannot be stopped. Poverty, war and disease have not stopped people from wanting to connect in that deepest of ways. If you had sex, you would understand why it is the true religion. If you had your own kids, you would understand what it’s like to be entrusted with the life-consuming task of parenthood. Bishops know nothing about either, and have no authority to speak on the subject.

As a mother who has a lot of varied experience having sex, I can say that having easy access to artificial birth control is not a panacea to poverty and overpopulation. Many children are conceived on the pill, and condoms do break. Furthermore, birth control pills have possible side-effects which include blood clots, stroke, heart attack and cancer. Latex condoms could trigger allergies and spermicidal condoms may cause a host of infections, including ironically, increased susceptibility to HIV. Honestly, I’m not keen on the medicalization of sex. I regard all products with suspicion and would sooner choose natural over artificial.

What I believe is most important about the Reproductive Health Bill is sex education. I am hoping when (not if, because I know this will happen sooner or later) this bill passes, that a balanced set of information is presented to the masses so that people can make informed decisions about their bodies and their families.

Until the Reproductive Health Bill passes, I think Filipinos should learn how to have sex without having intercourse. I would personally volunteer to create audio-visual materials toward this sort of education. I’m pretty sure the Roman Catholic Church is against it. It must be good! Oral and anal sex for the win!!!

Coincidentally, I received an email from a young woman from University of the Philippines working on her Masters thesis on the subject of Feminist Pornography. It amused me that she thought at first I was an urban legend. “And finding you, an educated woman of means, doing it as a deliberate and informed choice is certainly a cause for much interest,” she wrote.

I thought I’d share her questions, and my answers:

1. What are your beliefs regarding pornography?

Porn is as important to society as sex is important to the human experience. I believe pornography is a celebration of life, procreation, love. Why is depicting sex on film so taboo? Larry Flynt brought up this argument: Sex between consenting adults is legal. Yet depicting sex on film is illegal. On the contrary, murder is illegal. Yet depicting murder on film is legal.

2. Some feminists have criticized pornography for making money out of women’s bodies, but now there are women who make pornographic films “to show sexuality through a female’s perspective.” What are your (personal) reasons for making and doing pornography?

Anyone who enters a career, whether it’s in the sex industry or otherwise, thinks about whether it’s a viable way to make a living. We all have to make money. We all choose something about us, a talent, skill, or knowledge to market as a commodity. I started out as an actress/singer performing on stage and TV. When I got married, my husband and I played around on cameras as crazy newlyweds and got giddy posting stuff online. We really enjoyed it!

Performing sex for an audience came naturally to me. I was good at it, and willing to learn more “stunts.” I enjoy sex in many ways. I think everyone dreams of being employed in a job that one enjoys.

The main advantage to making my own porn at home versus being employed in legit shows is that I call the shots. I decide who I have sex with, when and how. Time is the biggest advantage. I’m sure you know that doing shows on stage and TV takes up so much time! I get to be a stay-at-home mom and raise my own child. It’s a challenge scheduling work around when my kid is at school, but at least I’m in control of my schedule.

I think feminists who criticize porn for “making money out of women’s bodies” have good intentions, but their criticism is not targeted correctly. It’s not porn that is the problem, it’s slavery in any form – it could be a domestic helper that is not being paid just wages, just as much as it could be a sex worker. If a woman decides to make money using her body, whether it’s for sex, or household chores, or performance, or athletics, that is her choice and she deserves respect. Respect means that she gets compensated well and treated well as a person.

3. In your entry, Give Up Porn? Dated October 12, 2007, you corrected several assumptions regarding pornography. Can you cite other examples of how you have been stereotyped or criticized for what you do, and how you reacted to it?

When I first started people assumed that because I have a porn site, I was willing to have sex with anyone. Some people think all I do is spread my legs. People forget that running a successful porn site requires technical skills and marketing savvy. Check Angry Woman (another one of my blog entries) for a little more about this.

The most criticism I get is from my menstruation site – On My Period – I like criticism. It means I get people’s attention, make them stop and think, polarize them into having an opinion… do I like this or not, and why? Most of the positive critiques I’ve gotten are well-thought-out. Most of the negative criticism have been knee-jerk reactions of disgust. At first I’m a little hurt, but I remind myself that my work is just a mirror. People will project their own feelings and ideas into my sites. People’s perceptions reveal more about themselves than it is about the subject.

4. How do you feel about being objectified, as a woman, and as a Filipina?

As I wrote above, we all objectify ourselves to make a living. By that I mean, we look at ourselves in an objective way, make a list of strengths and weaknesses, and if we’re smart, we capitalize on our strengths to create a good life for ourselves and the people we love. There is nothing more empowering than accepting who we are and making the most of it.

5. What advise would you give to the modern day Filipina?

Be proud. Be real. We are amazing!

I found this photo on Old Philippines. First thought, how lovely! But what are they wearing???

I don’t believe those silly leaves covering the girls’ crotches are authentic. Filipinos have a rich history of fabric weaving. Other photos in the same album show the amazing tribal fashions of the time. Each tribe was known to the others for the patterns they wore. Another photo I posted years ago showed three girls wearing tapis around their hips. I imagine the colors and the patterns on those tapis were just as intricate as their headdresses.

Those leaves must be the photographer’s idea of depicting the “style prevalent in the days of Eve,” throwing a Judeo-Christian reference to the proverbial fig leaf of shame.

I love the girl on the left. She stands proudly, looks at the camera unabashedly. This is the Filipina image I like. Not the chaste Maria Clara in shapeless baro’t saya created by 500 years of Spanish colonization. I revere the malaya (liberated) people who wore their tribal dress and nudity with pride. Mabuhay!

We had a party at home. Friends came to play music. Downstairs, instruments were plugged into amps, the guys started jamming. Upstairs in the kitchen, Sam helped me do dishes.

I played the video for Jay. Sam was doing dishes, I was behind the camera, undoing his jeans, pulling his hard-on out of his pants and putting it in my mouth. I handed the camera to Sam so I could concentrate on swallowing his cock. I watched him watch me push it back and forth into my throat.

We heard a skirmish from downstairs. It sounded like someone was going up the stairs to where we were. We stopped everything. After making sure everything was all right downstairs, I went back up to finish the dishes.

Sam had already done them all so I started getting food ready. While I worked, Sam put his hands under my skirt. We rolled the camera again, this time he pushed his hard cock inside my pussy and fucked me against the sink as downstairs Jay wailed with the swell of the music.

I gripped Jay’s hard cock while he watched the video, which ended abruptly when guests knocked on our door. I could tell Jay had mixed feelings.

I had gotten drunk that night at the party. I wanted to be the drunk girl Jay fantasizes about. That one girl who still hangs around after everyone has left the party and is waiting to be taken advantage of. But I drank too much. I passed out cold. I woke up at three in the morning still wearing my party dress, and jumped Jay’s sleepy bones. By that time, though, the giddy excitement was gone.

I had a knot in my stomach. I had failed to share with Jay the excitement I felt with Sam while the moment was still hot.

The morning after the party I was hung over. I took a shower, ate a banana, took some Vitamin B to help nurse my hangover. The house was still asleep, so I laid on the couch reading “When God Was A Woman” by Merlin Stone. There were two chapters of great interest to me that morning, Chapter 7, “The Sacred Sexual Customs,” and Chapter 9, “And the Men of the City Shall Stone Her with Stones.”

The book describes an ancient matriarchal culture centered around a temple devoted to sacred sex, orgiastic free flowing sex with no strings attached. Through snippets from the Old Testament, the author tells the story of how the patriarchs violently slaughtered all who worshiped at the altar of sacred sex, in order to establish a patrilineal culture, one in which a woman’s virginity before marriage and her fidelity as a wife was imperative under penalty of death.

“I feel so guilty,” I told Jay. “No matter how far away I’ve gone from my Catholic upbringing, I still have inside me this fear in my gut of being stoned to death. I’m an adulteress. I’m a sinner.”

My man answered me, “Did you know that the word ‘sinner’ really means someone who worships the moon? Sin is a Sumerian Moon God.”

My head cleared. Words are powerful. Used as a weapon words can stone a woman to death from thousands of years away. Used as a balm words can heal a body and soul.

I love this man. How I found him all the way from the other side of the world can only be a blessing from the Gods and Goddesses of Love. Everyday he reminds me of what is truly sacred in our lives.

Jay planted a garden into a hollow tree stump today. From the deck above I saw the crescent moon shape of the new plants in the potting soil he laid. There were tiny blue flowers and blue crystal marbles catching the sunlight.

Tonight, after I got him hard I asked him to take me outside. I only had a flimsy nightdress on, he had just come out of the shower and was wearing a thick warm bathrobe. The night air was cool but there was no breeze. A perfect summer evening.

I laid on my back on the picnic table, legs wide open for his cock. I watched him above me, constellations twinkling behind him. I thought of all the Gods and Goddesses frolicking in the night sky, kissing and licking and sucking and fucking and shuddering and cumming and laughing and hugging and loving and birthing and smiting and forgiving and starting all over again from kissing.

He pulled me off the table and down to suck his cock. He covered me with his warm robe, and I swallowed his cock in the snug darkness. He bucked hard and I gagged. He bucked harder then lifted me up to fuck me from behind, pulling my nightdress off my shoulders.

“I like seeing your tits,” he whispered. “They’re so pointy outdoors.”

We fucked and fucked dirty. He pushed his cock into my ass, my pussy, my mouth interchangeably and told me how happy he is to have a wife who gives herself fully to him. I told him I let him do anything he wants to me because I trust him fully.

“You dirty whore,” he called to me while he rammed his rock hard cock into me.

“I like being your dirty whore,” I am starting to like that name. I’m claiming these words as mine now: whore, adulteress, sinner… I take them as words of power and freedom. Love has set me free.

“She?” Jay interrupted. I stopped reading. The patriarchs don’t refer to the feminine by accident. Is it just a politically correct translation?

There was a footnote that referenced the Book of Sirach Chapter 15 Verses 1 to 8:

“He who fears the Lord will do this;
he who is practiced in the law will come to wisdom.
Motherlike she will meet him,
like a young bride she will embrace him,
Nourish him with the bread of understanding,
and give him the water of learning to drink.
He will lean upon her and not fall,
he will trust in her and not be put to shame.
She will exalt him above his fellows;
in the assembly she will make him eloquent.
Joy and gladness he will find,
an everlasting name inherit.
Worthless men will not attain to her
haughty men will not behold her.
Far from the impious is she,
not to be spoken of by liars.”

The Book of Sirach is not included in the Hebrew Bible after the first century A.D. It is also not accepted by the Protestants. It is, however, considered divinely inspired by the Catholic Church.

Wisdom is a she.

The Book of Proverbs also refer to Wisdom as feminine. Chapter 3 Verses 13 to 18:

“Happy the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding!
For her profit is better than profit in silver,
and better than gold is her revenue;
She is more precious than corals,
and none of your choice possessions can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand,
in her left are riches and honor;
Her ways are pleasant ways,
and all her paths are peace;
She is a tree of life to those who grasp her,
and he is happy who holds her fast.”

The Goddess of Wisdom is called Athena by the ancient Greeks, Sophia by the ancient Romans (from which the word Philosophy was derived: “love of wisdom”).

The Goddess Ninki, half-sister to Enki, the Sumerian God of Wisdom, was said to have given birth to Adam, according to ancient Sumerian tablets, likely the source of the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis. She was known as Ishtar to the ancient Babylonians.

There are references to the Star Fire, the Goddess menstrual blood, as the source of wisdom and long life of the early patriarchs.

Blood, anyone?

If anyone wants me this week, I’ll be in the kitchen.

Thanksgiving Dinner has only been a 4 year tradition for me. Prior to meeting Jay, Thanksgiving Dinner used to be just another day off from work and oodles of noodles and pork with my family. When I met Jay I started to understand that Thanksgiving Dinner is a celebration of the friendship between white people and the natives of America. Let’s rephrase that. Thanksgiving celebrates the survival of the natives, despite the horrible things that have been done to them in the name of imperialism. It became a celebration of Jay himself, who descended from Dutch, Irish and Blackfoot ancestors. Rocky that relationship may be between the natives and the Euro-Americans, the brief moment of union between the two still brought about the creation of a truly amazing person, and in the big picture an America that is colorful.

Four years ago, I started cooking Thanksgiving Dinner. After having gone to Jay’s family dinners for many years, I learned what makes a traditional Thanksgiving meal. After I gave birth to my baby four years ago, I wanted to thank all the wonderful people who helped me through what was the most challenging and life-changing event in my life. I am the mother of a truly colorful child whose ancestors are Blackfoot, Dutch, Filipino, Irish, Spanish and everything else in between.

So I cook. And I thank. And I eat!!!