RACHEL A.G. REYES

IN the process of compiling dictionaries, confession manuals and codes of etiquette in the Philippines, Spanish Catholic colonial missionaries in the 17th century had to mention the aspects of indigenous sexuality they found distasteful and the sex actions they wanted to suppress. Their works, as the Filipino cultural historian Resil Mojares has remarked, point to the existence of a rich, highly developed native vocabulary relating to the body and its sensuality, a “body dialect” that the “missionaries found disquieting and threatening, suspicious of what libidinal devilish impulses may lie within.” The natives, they believed, had a “surplus of physical expressiveness”. By attaching condemnation to the meanings of words to do with sex, the religious translators asserted both their own superiority as moral arbiters and the broader civilizing claims of Hispanic colonial authority.

Premium + Digital Edition

Ad-free access


P 80 per month
(billed annually at P 960)
  • Unlimited ad-free access to website articles
  • Limited offer: Subscribe today and get digital edition access for free (accessible with up to 3 devices)

TRY FREE FOR 14 DAYS
See details
See details