NGOK AND CIUMAN DI ARNHEM
IN THE FEMINIST’S PERSPECTIVE
Marcel Glen Longdong
Feminism has given me lots of new ways to look at many aspects in life: the life itself, law, politics, social condition, sexuality, and literature. In the upcoming five pages, I will try to discuss the last two things, sexuality and literature. I will try to discuss a short story, entitled Ngok, written by Putu Wijaya, taken from Kumpulan Cerita Gallery of Kisses. First, I will briefly re-tell the story for you. Next, I will discuss the sexuality from feminist’s point of view that I find in the story, and last but not least, I will try to compare it with another short story from the book, Ciuman di Arnhem, written by Tommy F. Awuy, which I will also briefly re-tell. Both stories have different social and cultural background, so I will try to insert a little cultural and social discussion and later relate it to Ngok and feminism. So, in the fore pages, I will try to prove that social and cultural backgrounds affect women attitude towards sexuality.
The book, Gallery of Kisses, was actually a performance. It was successful, and was then decided to publish a collection of short stories about kissing. In the foreword, the publisher states that kissing is still taboo in Indonesia, in the eastern culture. On the other hand, it has become a kind of salute for the Western, like what happen in Ciuman di Arnhem. Ngok is an example for the eastern one as the story takes place in Indonesia. It is about a young girl, Ami, who one day cried in her room. Her cry invited her mother’s attention, who later tried to talk to her about it. Her mother thought that her daughter had lost her virginity. She never asked her directly about it, but asking her why she cried. Ami then just said yes to her mother. Of course, her mother was shocked. Shortly, the news spread to the entire family, her father and her sister, Ama, who then talked to Ami. In the end, Ami talked to her parents that having lost her virginity is not the reason why she cried. The real reason is because her boyfriend wanted to kiss her, not on the nose as what the parent used to do, or on lips like what lovers used to do, but on her vagina. The story ends with Ami leaving and her parents surprised with her words.
We can take several notes from this story. First, we see two different female characters in this story. First is the conservative one, represented by the mother, and the other is the “modern” one, represented by Ami. The division can be seen from each attitude towards sexuality, in this case, vagina. Ami is a struggling one. She admits in the book that she cried not because she was sad, but because she did not know how to struggle against the rules her mother had given her all the time (page 131-132). The rule is simple, that virginity should be kept still until your marriage. Eastern culture knows no sex before marriage. Conservative? To Ami, it is. She cried for it. She cried because she wanted to break the rules down for herself, but she had not found the way yet (page 132). Maybe this is what happened to our youth years before today. I think they have found a way(s) to break the rules. We can see many unwanted pregnancy around us now. The mother, on the other hand, is a conservative one. She probably grew up in 1970s when western culture was not as strong as it is now. This also affects her point of view about sexuality. Not only had she got surprised when she wrongly misinterpret her daughter’s yes, but also when Ami said that her boyfriend want to lick her vagina. Playing with that organ before marriage is probably not in the mother’s dictionary.
In this story, we can clearly see the conservative attitude the mother has towards virginity and sexuality, that she keeps it holy, sacred, and untouchable until the marriage. She tries to impose this rule on her daughter. Those are the feminine values the mother wants her daughter to follow. In the East, a mother should teach those behaviors to her daughter. On the other hand, one of her daughter wants to know and explore her personal organ more. This attitude can be seen when she thought about her boyfriend’s request. These two different attitudes represent different point of view of women from different time.
The mother wants Ami to be a polite girl. She guides Ami based on her youth experiences and gives her daughter the values she held in her youth days. A woman should keep her virginity until the marriage, or else people will look down on her. Those values, however, do not match Ami’s mind. The mother’s youth experience seems to be different with Ami’s. One proof is when they talk about kissing, they have different interpretation. The mother’s interpretation about kissing is nose to nose (page 132), but her daughter’s is much more than that. It is even more than just a French kiss; it is a kiss on the vagina. From this point, we can see that the mother expectation is not fulfilled by her daughter.
The other story, Ciuman di Arnhem, is very different. The story is about Prima, an Indonesian student who studied abroad at Arnhem. There, he found out that kissing has been something usual for the women; they even do it to greet people they have just seen. His upcoming days were even full of more surprises. Anne, a Holland student who were told to accompany him while he was in Arnhem, asked him to make love to her after she said that her boyfriend was about to come to Arnhem for a holiday and she loved him a lot. Anne answer was also surprising, that love has nothing to do with sex. The next, it was Marianne, another student, who asked him to make love to her. She was to act as the leading female role in Jullie and Jane, and in the play, there is a scene where both make love to each other. So, she asked Prima for sex in order to help her to get the emotion in Jullie and Jean performance. One day, Ms. Helene, the headmaster, called Prima and praised him for helping Marianne in the performance. She also said that Anne had told her their story. The story ended with Ms. Helene introducing her daughter to Prima. She said that her daughter came because Prima has brown skin and her daughter liked that kind of man. So, this thing was in Prima’s mind, that he might do the same with Ms. Helene’s daughter, the same thing he had done with the previous two.
In the story, we can clearly see the cultural gap between Eastern and Western culture. There, kissing and sex are something common. As long as two people like each other, they can have sex. This is what happened to Prima and Anne and Marianne. They had just met that time, yet they had done it. In both cases, it was the girls who were more aggressive. This means, it is not something awkward for the girls. On the other hand, Prima was surprised when Anne asked him. He could not understand. She was just talking about her beloved boyfriend, and the next minute, she had asked him to make love. There, Prima learnt that sex and love have been two different things for Anne. Here, we see two differences: the coming-from-western-culture woman is used to sex and the coming-from-eastern-culture man is nervous when a girl asked him to make love. The effect, the next time another girl asked him to do the same, he was surprised anymore.
From this story, we can see how feminine values shifted. In our culture, represented by Ngok, woman is objectified. Ami’s boyfriend asked her whether he could “kiss” her or not. The male is the aggressive one, while the female is passive. Eastern people also appreciate vagina so high that women should leave it untouched until the husband does it. In the Western, the women have become more aggressive. Vagina is appreciated too, but in a different way. They appreciate their vital organ that they want to know about it. To know it, they explore it instead of “keeping it under their underwear”. Anne and Marianne are both educated women. They are both theatre school students, and in Europe, unlike in Indonesia, theatre school is prestigious. Thus, we can expect them as educated and adopt high Western feminine values.
From these two stories, we can write about the relationship between feminism, culture, and sexuality. Feminism taught women to explore themselves, to explore their organs, to explore their sexuality. They refuse the statement that women need men to get sexual pleasure. Not only in the East, but also in the West, some women do not recognize their own body. In Indonesia, situation might turn to very awkward whenever we talk about vagina. This is because Indonesia girls or young women are not common to this kind of education. How many high schools give their students sex education? Lest, schools also consider it taboo, consider it the task of the parents. While in the family, parents also consider talking about sex taboo, so the youngsters get sex “education” from friends or maybe movies. More or less, this affects the new generation in Indonesia.
This discussion cannot be separated with the social expectation. In Ciuman di Arnhem, we can see the expectation from Prima, which also represents Indonesian culture. He expects a woman to appreciate love, loyalty, and virginity. Love and loyalty might be the most confusing things when Anne asked him to make love. She loved her boyfriend and made love with another man. This is a contradiction that a woman should give her virginity, the most valuable thing she has, to the loved one, as has been long known in Indonesia. While in Holland, sex and love are different things. Here, we see different social perspective. Marianne, the next girl, even asked him for sex for a very different reason: to help her in the performance. We can see that the function of sex is perceived differently; the function shifted from simply procreation or recreation. In Indonesia, we read more, we spend more time with the text if we want to get deeper into our roles in a play, even the sexual ones. Prima was not surprised anymore that time.
In Ngok, we see the same expectation. The mother expected her daughter, Ami, to preserve her virginity until the marriage. That is why she cried a lot when she thought Ami had lost her virginity. Maybe, that is also why she laughed happily when Ami said that her boyfriend just want to kiss her. Kissing is still in the mother’s tolerance limit. However, when Ami said that her boyfriend wanted to kiss her on the vagina, the mother cried again. Doing things with vagina -kissing, licking, or anything- is not something acceptable in eastern culture. The mother expects Ami to be a “good” woman who preserves virginity. The expectation of the mother and Prima represent the expectation of Indonesian society that is influenced by eastern culture.
As I have written a lot before, culture determines the attitude towards sex. In Ciuman di Arnhem, we can see a very clear gap between two cultures. The women were used to sex, while the man was not. One factor that differentiates them, that might probably affect their attitude is their cultural background. Before studying in Holland, Prima lived in Indonesia, and his environment’s culture taught him to consider sex as something taboo before the marriage. Anne and Marianne lived in Holland. This is a very free country; it is amongst the first countries that legitimate gay and lesbian marriage. It is no wonder if sex is something not uncommon for the girls. The gap happened in western country, so it is very usual and probable.
Eastern culture in Indonesia, however, has started to be affected by the western. In Ngok, we can see the generation gap. The mother, let’s say, live her young age in the late 70-80s. That time, western culture had not found its way to Indonesia as much as it has nowadays. Western movies with kissing and sex scene have become common here. Slowly, this affects the young generation who watches those movies. They get interested in it and start trying doing it. Ami is just one of many young women who are thinking to do it. That is how western culture gets in our society and affects our culture.
Maybe, sooner or later, our polite-eastern culture would be changed with the new one, the one coming from the West. There is no intention to determine which culture is better for sexuality feminism to grow up, but women, no matter what their cultural background are, need to explore themselves. If it seems taboo or wrong to do it, slowly but sure, the culture would change. The closest example is our own society, where the youngsters’ sexuality has been affected by the Western. Thus, we can see that social and cultural backgrounds will always affect women attitude towards their own sexuality.
