A growing sexual protectionism
For many years, CNMI-based men had it great. With the rapid influx of the nonresident worker population and the accompanying growth in the local economy, opportunity ran quite rampant–in more ways than one.
For the first time in CNMI history, local men had a wide variety of women to choose from. No longer were we confined to Marikita or Maria, who probably were our distant relatives in some way, if you went back far enough through the family tree. From the late 1980s onward, lovely young Asian lasses– Filipinas, Chinese, Thais,
Russians–showed up on our fair shores, eager to find work and build a better family life for themselves.
Our jaundiced detractors will claim that they have been the targets of systematic exploitation and forced prostitution, but we all know better: some of them–the smarter ones–have done their own share of male financial exploitation; others have married and lived happily ever after. Few have really been exploited.
Indeed, most Chamorro women would probably clam that they have been the real victims of alien exploitation, because, as more and more lovely young Asian women flowed into our islands, the more and more their local husbands tended to go astray.
I mean, here were these lovely young, humble creatures with traditional Asian values, totally untainted by liberal American feminist indoctrination or the indigenous matriarchal traditions. Most of them were just happy to find a good man to take care of them, and to reciprocate with the kind of sublime reverence and tender affections not seen in American womanhood since Gloria Steinhem and her ilk first came to prominence.
But there was another added bonus as well: sex–and lot’s of it. As my retired Army friend put it, “In most of Asia, there is no all-pervading Western-Christian notion of guilt or original sin. When I was an Occupation soldier in General MacArthur’s Japan, I had a grand time. Back in the states during the fifties, you would have had to get drunk first before anything happened . . . then afterwards would come the onset of enormous Christian guilt.”
Of course, not too long ago in the Catholic Chamorro tradition, a young lady would be severely reprimanded for even the slightest appearance of impropriety. But as CNMI demographics radically changed, and more social upheaval emerged, the younger generations of local women have no doubt grown less chaste, undoubtedly in part because of the wide-open, free market competition posed by their un-guilt-ridden alien counterparts.
Which naturally brings us to more protectionist legislation–e.g., Dino Jones’ adultery control bill. The old reactionaries want to limit our romantic choices by throwing out the no-good, corrupting influence of these horrible aliens who have led us down the path to temptation (both sexual and financial).
Don’t let them. Keep freedom and free enterprise alive. Otherwise, I won’t be able to get a date. For some strange reason, local women have never taken a liking to me. Go figure.
