THE LOVE LIFE OF THE BALINESE

It is my impression that sexual abnormality is not prevalent among the Balinese and if it exists at all among the common people is due purely to mercenary reasons. The people are naturally languid and affectionate; it is usual for people of the same sex to embrace each other, to hold hands, to huddle together for a nap at public places; and even old men are often seen walking down the road hand in hand. This has given outsiders the impression that Balinese boys are effeminate, although, on the other hand, I have been asked by a naive Balinese why it is that white men so often prefer boys to girls.

I could only deny his strange idea, but later I found the explanation when I observed the alarming number of mercenary homosexuals around the hotels at night. In general the idea of homosexuality is inconsequential to the Balinese, and a boy known as a professional homosexual eventually falls in love with a girl, marries her, and becomes normal. There are in Bali curious individuals called bentji, interpreted by the Balinese as " hermaphrodites " - a condition which is characteristic of gods, but bad and ridiculous among humans.

The bentji are men who are abnormally asexual from birth (impotent, according to the Balinese) , who act and dress like women and perform the work of women. In Den Pasar there was one of these pitiable creatures, a man who dressed like a girl and talked in falsetto, selling food at a public stand in the main street. It was a great joke of the village boys to sit by the bentji and make him offers of marriage. He answered coyly and even seemed to enjoy the puns.

Prostitution had not, until recent years, flourished in Bali, but there are in the Balinese language terms that differentiate between a woman who prostitutes herself for pleasure (demangan, djalir) and a mercenary prostitute (nyudal, navang) , a type that is rapidly increasing in the centres where there are foreigners. Bestiality (salah karma) is a dreadful crime against the spiritual health of the community and is supposed to make the country " sick " (panas) with epidemics, loss of crops, and so forth.

In former times both animal and offender were thrown into the ocean; today the animal is generally drowned and the man exiled or put in jail. In any case a great ceremony of purification with animal sacrifices (metjaru) is necessary to cleanse the land. Bestiality is so horrifying to the Balinese that they can only explain it as bewitchment on the part of the man, to Whom the animal appears as a beautiful woman.

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