Boyz Boyz Boyz

Love MIA and her wicked style!

Can't sleep.  I'll write instead.  Is that ok with you reader?  As you can tell from the title, tonight's subject is all about people who own penises and identify as male.  Yuppers, boyz!  How the hell is this relevant to Cuba you ask.  Well....from the CIA World Factbook (jajajajaja!  CIA + Cuba = fun times:NOT), Cuba's sex ratio demographics breaks down into:

at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female

0-14 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

15-24 years: 1.05 male(s)/female

25-54 years: 1.01 male(s)/female

55-64 years: 0.91 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.82 male(s)/female

total population: 0.99 male(s)/female (2013 est.)

This pretty much tells us that if Cuba were to throw a prom (conservative prom, mind you) for everyone in the country, mas o menos, every girl could get a male date to accompany her. I have dibs on Fidel (even though he is a ruthless, oppressive dictator, and a megalomaniac, he'd be interesting to talk to).  Who would you go to prom with? 

As a young woman who is passionate about learning a bit about everything on this planet, I have many curiosities, questions, worries, and there are many things I do not understand about this world/ponder about late at night.  My top three include:

1. the meaning of life

2. Who let the dogs out?...Will we ever know seriously who did it or why?
3. The opposite sex and how to understand them. 

My Darling Poet: WW 

Back to Cuba

Here on the island, there are all types of guys like there are elsewhere.  There are a lot of genuinely sweet, friendly guys but also a crap ton of creepy, annoying, overly aggressive guys (product of the Machismo culture~ overly sexually aggressive, high testosterone brand of sexism).  And it appears that most of the guys I've run into—and a lot of my female friends as well—have been proud members of the former group.

They whistle, drool, and bark anytime a young woman walks past them, especially if this young woman happens to have been born into a pale body covered with blond or light colored hair.  There's a name for them: PIROPO!

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B: 

Note: Cuba's piropos are persistent motherfuckers just like this this guy.  

I realize now that the way piropos in this country behave when they see my white female friends walking past them and they way they behave when they see me, a dark skinned black girl walking past is essentially the same.   The attitudes behind their behaviors are sexist ones.  As women, we are objectified.  Ridiculed if we do not look like the models on the magazine covers (models in an industry supposedly for women but highly influenced by the opinions of men—lol oh the irony!*).  Yet if we’re too physically attractive, our intellectual capacity is questioned. Clearly, having a vagina sucks for the most part and although I really can’t say that it sucks more or less here in this clearly Machismo culture, I can say that it sucks in a different kind of way.  But at least I can always wear a dress without society judging me...

*FYI: super interesting NYT article about male influence in fashion industry (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/fashion/thursdaystyles/08FASHION.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) 

Luckily for me, for the most part, my interactions with piropos has only resulted in major annoyance and minor discomfort.  On the first week or so I was in the country, this gap toothed idiot I met in a paladar kept greeting me on the street.  

"Acuerdas de mi?" he would ask at first in Spanish and believing I couldn't speak Spanish upon my silence and confused look, in English "Remember me?" Over and over and over and over again like a broken record.  Honestly, I must have bumped into this guy like 5 times.  Always, I would ignore him cus I was almost always rushing to get somewhere but one day, I was in a really bad mood and I snapped: 

"Mira, dejame en paz!," I shouted at him in front of his friends.  He looked really sad and I felt horrible afterward because even though he was soooooooooo annoying, I found it entertaining that I always bumped into this guy randomly and he would always say the same thing.
Coincidentally, the last week or so I was in Cuba, I bumped into him as well.  He can follow me to the pits of hell but always, I'll ignore his silly looking face.  Well at least he didn't call me "linda".  Most unoriginal piropos do this.  Its been odd the last couple of days walking around in public in New Jersey where thus far, I have gotten no comments pertaining to my physical characteristics.  Actually, I decided to leave the house with my dad and my sister today.  My cousin braided my hair in the stupidest style ever and I put on engine red bright lipstick and wore hot pink tights, shorts, and boots (Fashion police, arrest me now!).  Funny enough, not a comment from anyone.  I love that about America suburban NJ culture.  You can parade the streets looking like a moron and people will just look at you (judging away in their minds and laughing at you behind your back) but no one  most people don't have the guts/care enough to say a thing to your face.  In Cuba or in Ghana, someone would most definitely come up and freely start a conversation with you about what on earth caused you to leave the house looking like a hot mess.  

So the worst experiences I had with the piropas where two instances when two random guys masturbated in my presence (once when I was all by my lonesome sitting in a movie theater and the other also in a movie theater with some girl friends from Germany).  This is actually a common thing that has happened to a lot of women both Cuban and foreign.  Dark movie theaters, along el Malecon in the wee hours of the morning, and just on the street during early mornings or late at night are just some places where these twisted assholes feel its acceptable to just whip out their dicks.  Clarification: Yeah....public masturbation = not cool.  Why the police don't arrest/fine them?  No clue.  

Carta a un piropo: Letter to a Piropo aka My Diatribe

Querido Piropo,

 Te odio, coño.  Cada vez yo camino por estas calles, tus ojos me siguen.  "Linda, linda, linda" me gritas como si eso fuera mi nombre.  Mira, no tengo un novio pero no estoy desesperada tanpoco, ok? No te querio.  Porfavor, no me toca ( en serio, sueltame!) y busca un trabajo o haga algo con tu vida. Entiendes?  Bueno, chao por siempre!  

Maluca-El Tigeraso: Love the scene where all the guys are all over he and she's like: "Dudes, chill." 

Of course this isn't to say that every Cuban guy is a piropo because I would say that the great majority aren't.  Trust me, if piropos ruled the country, it would be unbearable and no one would ever have sex because with pick up lines like the one's I've heard I'm 99.9% sure that piropos don't get any.  I once had a conversation with someone (a Cuban artist) about his country's machismo culture and he explained to me that all the Spanish and African blood running through the veins of Cuban men makes them go crazy for sex.  Ummmmm, probs not a scientifically provable hypothesis and something that I really don't buy.  Everyone likes sex-not just Cuban guys.  Heck, if sex were to go to any high school, I'm sure he/she would be the most popular kid ever!  He/she would win a Nobel Peace Prize as the the diplomat that made peace between the geeks and the jocks, blacks and whites, Muslims and Jews, and Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donald.  As human beings (we can deny it as much as we want), but sin duda, we are sexual beings...unless you identify as asexual. Its just natural cus without sex, we wouldn't exist as a species. My beef isn't with sex but rather, the absurdly annoying/unjust objectification of women as a result of PATRIARCHY that manifests itself here on this island and outside its borders.  Like seriously, dude, stop hitting on me.  Don't touch me.  And when it comes to sex, no means no in whatever language, in whatever instance, in whatever state of mind I may be in, and regardless of what I am or not wearing. Comprendes?   K, chao for now!  

-Paz, amor y felicidades!

Besitos!!! <3 (por todo el mundo excepto los piropos!!!)  :-P 

Also, I feel bad that I haven't been putting up more pics from my trip.  I promised you a tumblr page and a tumblr page I shall deliver but as of right now, my computer (where most of my pics are stored) refuses to cooperate.  Whyyyyyyy??!! (*crying into the heavens).  But don't you worry that pretty little head of your's, I'll fix it, gosh darn it!  XD  But in the mean time, here are a bunch of rando pictures I took with my phone which albeit, not products of my sweet ass Cannon T2I will suffice for now.  

From Carlos Tercero: a mall bursting with Capitalist activities

From the May Day Rally where people held a bunch of signs praising Socialism and declaring that it will live 4eva! 

On the wall of a building next to a movie theater. Translation: "Now, without my eyes, I can't cry." jajajaja!

Translation: "If I were Columbus, I would sail day and night to reach the depths of your heart." : Piropos, take note, cleaver pick up line! 

Building in Vedado 

Awesome Che graffiti 

Examples of the wood carvings done by my artist friend.  They are incredibly massive pieces of work like 3-5 feet and touch on nature, humanity and our destruction of our environment and as a consequence, our own beings.  So amazing!

Chillin with my babe!