The Illegal Wife: Psychology of the Kabit

When I do counseling for betrayed women, the common sentiment they express about their husbands is this:  “Mas matatanggap ko pa na nagsakabilang buhay ang asawa ko kaysa sa nagsakabilang bahay siya. (It would have been easier for me to accept that my husband died than for him to have an affair.)

Tales of infidelity evoke a lot of emotions in us.  For the wife, we feel pity.  For the husband, we feel anger.  And for the mistress, we feel loathing and despise.  The mistress gets instantly branded as a wrecking ball, and gets blamed for being a home-wrecker.  Never mind if conflict was already brewing between the couple even before she stepped in.  By whatever name we call her, be it kabit, kerida, kalaguyo, or kulasisi, all fingers point to her as the kontrabida to the marital relationship.

As a psychotherapist, it’s not only betrayed spouses that I get to interview, mistresses too seek out counseling sessions for themselves.  From them, I’ve learned that not all mistresses are alike.  In fact, they could be categorized into the following types:

• The Accidental Mistress:  This lady innocently falls in love with a man whom she honestly did not know was married.  When she did find out about his marital status, it was too late.  Their lives had already become tightly intertwined, making it difficult for her to ship out.
• The “Like Mother-Like Daughter” Mistress:  This lady either had a mother who was also a mistress, or whose mother was the legal wife married to an unfaithful husband.  By being a mistress, she ended up having a relationship similar to that of her parents’.
• The “Father Figure-Daughter Figure” Mistress:  This lady seeks out an older man who acts like a “father figure” to her. 

• The “Fu*k Buddy” Mistress:  This lady is only after the sexual fun she can get.  She may not care too much whether her guy is married or not.  "Fubus" just want a sexual playmate.
• The “Desperate-for-Any-Relationship” Mistress:   This lady has decided that she’s up for grabs with anyone who’s willing to take her, even if the guy happens to be married.  Her motto is “Any one is better than none.” 
• The Professional Mistress:  This lady may be the mistress of one married man, or the mistress of many married men.  She neither expects commitment from men nor wants to be committed to them.  She values her independence and freedom, and abhors being tied down by the obligations of a relationship.  She is like a perpetual and regular “date” who simply enjoys the best of what married men can offer her.   

• The “Wife Competitor” Mistress:  This lady wants to prove to the wife that she is the more desirable woman.  Her primary goal is to make the married guy get an annullment so they can get married.   

• The “Filling-in-the-Wife’s-Weaknesses” Mistress:  This lady has traits, qualities, or skills which the married guy looks for in a girl but which his wife lacks. 
• The “Trophy Girlfriend” Mistress:  This lady is someone to show off and make other guys drool with envy.  The trophy girlfriend is usually treated like a princess.

• The “User” Mistress:  This lady exploits the married man for his financial and material resources.
• The “Should-Have-Been-the-Real-Wife” Mistress:  This lady is the woman whom the guy really wanted to marry, but for some reason, he ended up with another woman instead. 

If there was one advice I could give to women on the verge of entering an illicit affair, it would be a resounding “Don’t!”  As much as there are joys and perks to being a mistress, it also means being entangled in a sticky web of lies, secrecy, and emotional hurts.  Because the mistress is in a relationship with a cheater, she will never receive the full assurance that she won’t be cheated on herself.  As for those who are already immersed in an illicit affair, you might need counseling sessions to preserve your sanity. 

Is Getting a “Happy Ending” Cheating?

We all love happy endings, don’t we? Kids get their share of happy endings from fairy tales, while women, they get them from romantic books and movies. 

Some men however have a different connotation of what a “happy ending” is. For them, a happy ending is the sexual service offered by a masseuse (or masseur) after a massage. It’s the type of “happy ending” which they get at a ‘spakol,” which is the Pinoy slang for a spa that offers “jakol (i.e., masturbation).” The sexual service though is not limited to a hand job. The happy ending may also include a blow job or any sexual play which falls short of actual sexual intercourse.

“Happy endings” are also called “extra service.” But if you think about it, happy endings can hardly be called “extra” because it is specifically the sexual service which customers seek out. The massage is really what is "extra” because it merely serves as a prelude or warm-up to the sexual event.

Masseuses and masseurs offer happy endings because for them, it literally and figuratively is a “quickie” way to augment their pitifully meager income. For one, happy endings are a sexual service of high demand among men. Secondly, happy endings are a lucrative service since they cost as much or even much more than the massage itself.

Despite the sexual service they provide, these masseuses and masseurs do not consider themselves as prostitutes. Unlike prostitutes who have no qualms about sexual penetration, these masseuses and masseurs have a streak of morality which makes them draw limits to the sexual services they provide. They refuse to go “all the way” with customers, limiting themselves to “lending a hand” (and/or their mouth) to help their customers get the “release” that they came for.

Expectedly, when a woman discovers that her husband or boyfriend has been going to a spakol, she feels betrayed, disillusioned, angry, and devastated. She cannot understand why her man needs to be masturbated by someone else when she could have done it to him herself. The woman nags her partner to no end, asking for micro-details about his encounters even if she knows that the information will devastate her.  She feels confused because she wants to forgive him, but feels that she can never trust him again. What a mix of emotions the lady goes through! 

Guys' minds however are wired differently.  And thus, they have a different perception of their spakol experience:

• Guys tend to think that getting a happy ending is not infidelity because there is no emotional intimacy involved. He does not “make love’ with the masseuse. Theirs is merely a functional relationship between “masseuse-slash-professional masturbator” and male customer. 
• Guys reason out that a happy ending is the much safer alternative of getting sexual release than having sex with a prostitute. 
• Guys also consider happy endings to be in the same category as masturbation and watching pornography. For them, these are normal sexual activities which most males do in privacy and in secrecy. Many guys therefore don’t feel guilty about getting happy endings because it simply is a ‘guy thing.’ 
• Getting a happy ending has little or nothing to do with whether he is sexually satisfied with his partner or not. Even if the guy has satisfying and regular sex with his parter, he may still seek out happy endings for the mere fun, relaxation, and pleasure of it. 
• And lastly, it's not that guys want to lie about getting happy endings.  It's just that they don't feel obliged to report it to anyone else.   For one, they know that their wife or partner is not going to understand. And secondly, they want to avoid the hysterical reaction over what guys would just consider a menial thing. 

So, to answer the question as to whether getting a happy ending is cheating or not, the answer depends on what the couple expects of each other. Cheating can only occur when there is an expectation or agreement for the couple to be sexually exclusive to each other, but that expectation or agreement gets violated. Simply put, if the woman doesn’t mind that her guy gets happy endings, then it isn’t cheating.

   

The Psychology of Bolitas: When Having Two Balls Is Not Enough

As a psychiatrist who deals with sex-related problems, I meet more and more wives in the counselling room who complain about their husband’s penis. No, it’s not about size that they complain about. These wives are annoyed that their husbands have studded the stem of their penis with tiny solid balls- the so-called “bolitas.” For them, the presence of bolitas is a sign that their husbands are playing around.

The surgical procedure for inserting bolitas is a form of body modification known as “genital beading” or "pearling."  Tiny balls made of plastic, metal, glass, wood, fiberglass, or stone are surgically implanted underneath the penile skin to create a “bumpy” or nodule-infested penis. Steel ball-bearings make for good bolitas, but thanks to Pinoy resourcefulness, even rosary beads are used. The bolitas create friction against the vaginal canal during sexual intercourse, and it is this friction which is believed to drive women into a delirious state of sexual ecstasy. 

Historically, ancient Pinoy islanders were known to wear embedded ornaments on their penis. Magellan’s chronicler Antonio Pigafetta noted that "... both young and old males pierce their penises with a gold or tin rod the size of a goose quill, its ends shaped like the head of a nail." (Wikipedia) 

Before the bolitas became popular, Pinoy males used what is known as "pilik-mata ng kambing" as a vaginal tickler. The goat’s eyelids (with the eyelashes still attached) would be worn like a band around the penis during sexual intercourse thereby tickling the woman’s private parts. 

Among Pinoys, it is our seafarers who are notorious for having bolitas. Pinoys however are not the only guys who wear bolitas. Thais, for instance, call their little penile balls “fang muk.” Koreans call them “chagan balls.” Japanese call them “tancho balls. And as for American men, they call the bolitas by cute names such as “penis marbles” and “love pearls.” 

The psychological reasons for Pinoy men to stud their penis with bolitas are many: 

• Pinoy men who feel insecure about their penile length compensate by using their bolitas-laden penis to make their partner sexually happy. 
• Having bolitas makes Pinoy seamen popular among prostitutes. 
• Surrounding the penis with many bolitas fattens up a thin penis. 
• Having bolitas builds a sense of pakikisama with other Pinoy men who have a nodule-filled penis. 

The bottom line is that the bolitas serves as a sexual confidence-builder and ego-booster. Having bolitas however is not always free of complications: 

• Some men experience penile pain which worsens when the penis elongates during an erection. 
• Some men feel embarrassed during medical examinations or in going naked in public shower rooms. 
• For men with bolitas who develop erectile dysfunction, sterility, or cancer, they blame it on their bolitas. 
• Wives feel angry and disrespected since they associate their husband’s bolitas with infidelity and sexual promiscuity. 
• Some men worry that their wives will become sex addicts from the intense pleasure they derive from the bolitas, making them seek sexual encounters with other men. 
• Lastly, some men complain of sexual fatigue since they claim that their sexual partners want to have sex with them non-stop, all the time. 

Whatever guys say, believe, or experience about bolitas, the last word should come from the women who experience it. Their reviews? 

• Some women feel no difference between a normal penis and a penis studded with bolitas. 
• While some women feel no difference, they do notice the improvement in their partner’s self-confidence and sexual vigor after their bolitas surgery. 
• Many women hate their husband’s bolitas because it causes painful sex, vaginal wounds, bleeding, and infection. 
• Some women love it. 

For many women, whether they experience pleasure from the bolitas or not, the issue of greater concern is their husbands’ fidelity since they know that their husbands’ bolitas were intended to pleasure other women as well.