Forbidden firsts

It’s been often theorized that proliferation of sex films comes during times of social upheaval. During the height of EDSA II, the Rufa Mae Quinto vehicle Booba managed to become a box-office hit. The years that led up to the bombing of Plaza Miranda and ultimately the declaration of Martial Law by former President Ferdinand Marcos also saw the birth of a new genre in Philippine cinema – bomba. The term was the people’s cry when they referred to something "loud and explosive," expressed repeatedly during rallies with each speaker to goad them to scream scandalous accusations against the powers that be. In 1970, the movie-going public was treated to bomba au naturelle in the form of Merle Fernandez in Ruben Abalos’ Uhaw.

Sadly, the film is lost now and only a few really recall seeing it. Its lead star is forgotten, and is usually referred to as the sister of popular actor Rudy Fernandez. But it has made its stamp in Philippine cinema history as the first film to deal with the subject of sex without resort to camouflage or distraction. For a brief time in our history, it held the nation by its balls.

Film archivist Jo Atienza once remarked about the chastity of the classic films produced by studios such as LVN and Sampaguita. "The two leads would lean in towards each other and just before their lips would meet, they would both face the camera cheek-to-cheek," relates Atienza. However, the first screen kiss already happened in the silent era between Luis Tuazon and Elizabeth "Dimples" Cooper (who would purportedly become Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s mistress) in the film Tatlong Hambog directed by Jose Nepomuceno. It’s unclear when lips would actually lock in the sound era.

The first kiss between two men happened in the 1969 film Erik with George Estregan and Oscar Roncal. The characters – one straight and one gay – were taking drugs and under its influence they were corrupted into sexual deviance. In Gerry de Leon’s Curse of the Vampires or Kulay Dugo ang Gabi, featuring the first sequences implying cunnilingus and fellatio in Filipino cinema, such acts are committed by vampires in "lustful frenzy." To quote a line from the film’s entry in the Aurum Film Encyclopedia of Horror: "The film doesn’t distinguish between licit and illicit sex as marital, premarital and incestuous relations are all presented as equally sinful." At the time, sexual deviance was usually accepted only if it were treated as something abominable.

Nudity was also accepted if it were veiled under anthropological study. Gerry de Leon’s Ifugao had a shot of Gloria Sevilla’s backside. But the real bombshell came when Charito Solis disrobed in 1967 for the movie Igorota. Of that film, some stills are rumored to be floating around while independent filmmaker Lav Diaz claims that during his sojourn in the United States he was able to view footage from the film of Solis skinny-dipping in some river.

(The first female nude would have to be Mona Lisa in the 1948 Sunset Over Corregidor swimming naked in a stream but you only see a glimpse of her back.)

In recent years, the shock of seeing stars in the flesh have somewhat dulled given the circulation of grainy images of VJs wasted and nude on some stranger’s bed or a TV host pleasuring herself while her boyfriend films her. The plethora of porn "scandals" alone is enough competition. Are people bored with sex as they are with starting revolutions?

"Filipinos come quick," as Lenny Bruce put it in the first line of his autobiography, or maybe as quick as the "fighting fish" or "ff" – inserts put in by distributors in whatever film of explicit, hardcore pornography. Thus, the lifespan of a sexy star or a genre based on their exploitation comes in waves and wanes, discarded and offering only a surplus of actresses to playing bit roles in television. Sex sells – but for a limited time only. – With reports from TEDDY CO