Sexuality in the Philippines

There are provisions and policies in the constitution of the Philippines which promulgates that the sexual act should happen only within the framework of married life between a man and woman, because this personal human expression is solidly connected to the family unit and to society as a whole.

[2] As a predominantly Christian country, the Philippines considers that the only sexual behavior morally and legally acceptable and appropriate is heterosexual intercourse within a monogamous marriage, with the exception of polygamous marriage as practiced by some Filipino minority groups and by Muslim communities in the Mindanao, southern, and southwestern regions of the Philippines, as long as the men of these population are financially capable of supporting their multiple wives.

Among the views of the Catholic Church include that premarital sex and masturbation are immoral behaviors, and that homosexuality – similar to the form of Catholicism introduced by the Spanish missionaries – is an abnormal human conduct.

[3] Before the arrival of the first group of Spaniards in the Philippine islands on the shores of Cebu, under the leadership of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, the ancient native Filipinos already had their own sexual and relationship practices.

According to Antonio Pigafetta and Friar Juan de Plasencia, as explained by Stanley Karnow in his book, In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines and in The Body Book by Fe Maria C. Arriola, apart from penile piercing through the use of rods made of tin or gold with dimension similar to a goose-quill which may or may not have pointed spurs, the men were also using other penile adornments such as the sagra and an item known in Tagalog as pilik-mata ng kambing or "goat's eyelashes".

[5] In addition to this, about one thousand years ago, the Filipino Ifugao people of northern central Philippines already had well-established values regarding marriage and sexuality.

[3] Filipino historian Ambeth R. Ocampo described that during 19th-century Philippines the sexually attractive female body parts of the time were the "bare arms, a good neck or nape" and "tiny rosy feet".

This is exemplified by Ocampo's chosen passages from Soledad Lacson-Locsin's unabridged English-language translation of the 25th Chapter of Jose Rizal's Spanish-language novel, the Noli Me Tangere:[6] As a part of the process of converting ancient native Filipinos into Catholicism, the Spaniard missionaries forbade the use of penile instruments, and promoted Christian ideas of the wife's fidelity to her husband, premarital virginity, the notion of a woman's role as a "nurturing mother", and the reverence of the Virgin Mary.

[7] High school students received elementary and basic-level of biological information and family planning, with emphasis that separation and divorce are illegal in the Philippines.

Zablan, a demography professor from the Population Institute of the University of the Philippines, in relation to the views on sexuality by 11,000 Filipino youth whose ages ranged from 15 to 24 years old.

In connection with this, Zabala's study also revealed that there is a trend for refined and professional males to become relaxed and comfortable with copulation, with seduction and sexual stimulation, and with alternating active and passive social roles.