Cock-a-doodle-do
Trip Start
Apr 22, 2008
1
7
26
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Thimpu,
Bhutan
Friday, May 9, 2008
So lets step back and take a look at the sexual culture of Bhutan. Tantric Buddhism has strong influences here and one of the countries favorite folk heros is a man called Drukpa Kuenly "The Divine Madman". He bucked Buddhist traditions and used shocking words and actions to challenge peoples stuffy views of religion. There are countelss stories about this man's "activities" but I'll only recount two fo them here.
Drukpa Kuenly went to a Rimpoche (enlightened person) and received a blessed string for good luck. Most Buddhists put these strings around their neck or wrists. Not knowing what to do with it but wanting good luck he decided to tie the string around his penis. The sanctity of this guy then stemmed from his ability to turn his penis into any shape and become any weapon. Most notably, evil spirits would typically come to Earth as demonesses. Drukpa Kuenly would subdue them with his penis by turning it into a thunderbolt and ramming them with it. The lingham that adorn the houses of Bhutan stem from these stories and are believed to protect the homes and, unsurprisingly, bring fertility to the house.
Aside: Some of you are probably scratching your heads in disbelief. Believe me, I was doing the same, but after seeing countless penises with strings tied around them all across the country (in paintings on houses people...lets not be rude) I had no choice but to start to believe that these stories are actually part of the national heritage.
Not all of the stories about The Divine Madman involve him slaying demonsesses with his penis, but they are usually pretty crass. Another favorite story involves his mother trying to convince him to find a wife. She was a woman who had a lot of sin. The real reason she wanted a daughter in law was for someone to help her around the house and with chores and in the fields. After much nagging Kuenly agreed to her wishes and went to town to bring back a wife. He found a 100 year old lady who was hideous, hunch backed and too feeble to do anything. He put her on his back (because she couldn't walk) and brought her home to meet his mom. The mother was furious and told him that any wife duties could be done by her better than by the woman he brought home. With that Kuenly agreed to bring the old woman back. Later that night he went to his mothers bed and told her that she needed to fulfil all the roles of a wife, as she had promised, and sleep with him. She was horrified by the suggestion and told him that he was insane stating that nothing of the sort would take place. She yelled at him asking "What kind of son would make such a request of his mother". He continued to press her on the subject keeping her up all night until at dawn, exhausted, she succumbs to his onslaught and agrees to sleep with him under the condition that he doesn't tell anyone about the deed. She was so exhausted that when she woke the next day she did not realise the Kuenly had slipped out without her knowing and that they never slept together. Nevertheless, Kuenly gathered the town together and told them how awful his mother was to agree to sleeping with her son the night before, humiliating her infront of everyone.
Again your thinking, how the hell is this a story about a revered figure in Bhutan? Well here comes the moral of the story. Well it turns out that because of Kuenley's powers he knew that his mother, who had led a life of sin, was going to die soon. The shame brought up on her by this public proclamation purified her sinful soul and saved her from death. She then moved on to become a deeply religious woman and lived to be greater than 100 years old.
There are countless quirky stories about this guy, most of them relating to his penis, but all of them having a good message. Its like he is the patron saint for frat boys. It also highlights how pervasive sex is over here. Another examples is a tantric festival in east Bhutan called Gomakora that will again force you to check your western notions of appropriatre sexual behavior at the door. The naughty part of this four day festival begins at sundown and ends at sunrise. The women and men of the area gather and if a man grabs a woman's hand then the woman has no choice but to go off in the bushes and sleep with him. This is the case regardless of whether the woman is single or married. As long as no man is holding her hand then she is available for the taking. Couples fornicate and then the man gives the woman a small relic and the two return to where they pairing off occurs. The coupling continues and the more people the woman sleeps with the more of a goddess reputation she develops. She is said to have more MERIT based on the number of people that she sleeps with. Yup, not a slut as the culture in the US would dub her. And the cherry on the top of this festival? Its held in a monastery.
And you don't have to wait for this yearly festival to get your rocks off. Fortunately there is another practice, mostly in rural areas, that you can take part in any time of year. Hooray. Its called Night Hunting but it doesn't inovle killing animals. Based on what I've already recounted your minds are surely coming up with dirty things that the term Night Hunting could describe. Go on, try and guess. Whatever you come up with it won't hold a candle to the actual practice. In the middle of the night a guy sneaks out of the house and sneaks into a girls house. In the country most families sleep in one room (the kitchen) on mats near the fire to keep warm, or at the very least in adjoining rooms. They guy sneaks into the house, creeps up to the girl without distrubing anyone, and they fool around. He then, equally as gingerly, sneaks out without waking the family. Now get this, if the woman gets pregnant and has a bastard child the family is not only OK with it but happy that there is an addition to the family that will be able to help in the field or herding yaks. And here is the doozey: if the guy manages to sleep with the girl on 3 consecutive nigths then he and the woman are considered married. Yup, married.
With all of this sex you may be thinking "how on Earth are there only 600,000 people in the country? Surely there must be widespread use of contraception." Well, if you said that there are a lot of condoms used in Bhutan than you would be correct; however, if you said those condoms were used during intercourse you would be sorely mistaken. There was an eye opening article in the Bhutan Times while I was here that would make any marketing director from Durex or Trojan weep with excitement at a completely underdeveloped market. The highlights for your viewing pleasure are as follows:
-"Some years ago weavers in the east discovered that the condom was an effective tool to stop fluff coming out of the yarn. They drape the condom over a wooden pole which is then used to rub the yarn and contain the fluff. 'Using a condom while weaving kiras makes the yarn smooth and free from entanglement', said a Bhutanese weaver tht requested anonymity."
-"Small businesses that produce bats and other sports equipment use the lubricant of the condom for waterproofing and the smooth and shiny finish"
-"On a larger scale, quantities of condoms are mixed with tar and concrete in hotmix to produce quality reinforcement for roads"
-"And then there are those that love to use the condom as a balloon. Students and even grown ups use the free condoms to tease people"
-"Tshering, a private frim employee, said during her high school days she teased her male and female friends by scribbling dirty messages on condoms. 'Because its free I still play with it, but I don't use it with my husband because I detest using them' she said.
I'm going to make millions reinforcing roads in the US, just you watch.
Comments
LR
So now I know what Lionel was referring to when he sang the words, 'You're once, twice, three times....a lady!'