The Filipino society has lived through a culture of insecurity for centuries and this has affected the Filipino’s values regarding sex. This feeling of insecurity and uncertainty has made Filipinos realize that the only assurance of security available to him is that which if offered within and by his family.

The Filipino society has lived through a culture of insecurity for centuries and this has affected the Filipino’s values regarding sex. This feeling of insecurity and uncertainty has made Filipinos realize that the only assurance of security available to him is that which if offered within and by his family.

The Filipinos strive to expand the power of his family and in turn enhance their welfare through procreation. Many children would mean more people supporting the members of it as a whole. In the farming families in the provinces, more children means more hands to help in harvesting the crops. In a typical home, more children would mean more help to do the household chores. When it comes to family protection, the saying “blood is thicker than water”, runs true to Filipinos, the more family members, the more protection one gets against attacks. Most Filipino families are run like mafias where one is safe as long as they are members of the group and follows the head. They can count on the members to defend them against their enemies. Certainly an example of “strength in numbers”. The bigger the family, the better and the prouder their members are especially when there are family members who are accomplished in their own fields. This is also one reason why Western advocates of family planning have not been totally accepted by a lot of Filipinos.

Because of this, Filipino masculinity is equaled with a man’s ability to have children. Femininity, in turn, is equated with a woman’s capacity to bear them. To illustrate, a young man is usually asked in his early teens if he was already “binyag” (literally means baptized but idiomatically, it means initiated into sexual relations). If he is not, he suffers being teased because “he is not yet a man” since he has not yet been so initiated. Newly-wed Filipino males are also teased as impotent if their wives have not conceived a child a few months after marriage.

The woman is considered a full woman if she is able to bear a child. The woman who conceives soon after marriage is the object not only of the husband’s attention and compassion but of all the relatives, especially the family of the groom. On the other hand, a bride who does not conceive after a reasonable period of time is often teased that she would be returned to her parents.

Please read more about Filipino Machismo, Double Standard, Courtship and Mate selection as well as dating and wedding practices to get the whole picture.