Gyal inna bungle

Daniel Thwaites, Contributor

Sometimes just a decent headline can indicate that it's going to be a good day. Well, I enjoyed The Gleaner's 'Men stick with Gal in a Bungle', which came above some interesting findings by the Family Planning Board.

I thought it paired pretty well with another one from back in May 2011: 'Jackets: Made in Jamaica', which was about the shockingly high percentage of us who turn out to have different fathers than the one we think is ours, whenever DNA tests are done.

I can't help but think that the two phenomena are related, and that we're putting on our jackets, and taking them off, to stick de gyal dem inna bungle.

So this recent study revealed that "Promiscuity among Jamaican males has remained high, with the average man having up to six different sexual partners each year." Now that is not so much news as confirmatory. Jamaicans are the most jookinest people in the world, and if there is anyone else out there doing it more, they certainly don't talk and sing about it as much as we do.

In this connection, it's worth remembering the commandment of Moses (Davis):

So man fi have nuff gyal and gyal inna bungle

Gyal from Rema, gyal from Jungle

Nuff gyal and none a dem nuh fi grumble,

All ghetto yute, unnu fi tek mi example!

The survey found that the "grumbling" is also stopping. It found "most of the women involved were aware that they were not the man's only partner".

Another interesting aspect of the article was the observation:

"Men traditionally would over-report because of the cultural norms ... , in comparison to the women, who would under-report because they want to portray that they are virginal and sexually pure."

We're all, it seems, a pack of liars.

Anyway, it seems to me that we shall have to develop a new set of social rules and a new etiquette for this emerging society, bearing in mind that we're probably pioneering new kinds of family and social arrangements, the likes of which could shock an anthropologist.

In terms of charting the new rules, be assured the effort is under way, and perhaps the most brilliant exponent is 'Wally Britishh'. Check YouTube for Wally in full professorial flight in her classics 'Main Chick/ Wifey', 'Side Chick 1 & 2', and 'Side man'. I suppose this is the survival guide and road map, as Wally teaches you to know where you stand and what is appropriate.

Regarding the anthropology of these arrangements, I'm trying to figure it out. I know 'polygyny' is where males have multiple 'wives', which, at least unofficially, is a frequent practice for us. And then there is 'polyandry', where women have multiple 'husbands', generally found in societies under extreme stress, like in the Himalayas, north Pacific islands, and Jamaica.

So what is the word for when males have multiple female partners, females have multiple male partners, all concurrently, and children have multiple possible fathers? Jamrock? Welcome to Jookrock!

ADDRESSING A REAL PROBLEM

Apparently, it really does take a village.

This is why, in my heart of hearts, I feel a smidgen of guilt for roughing up Senator Reid last week. It was his "mandatory rules" and China One-Child policy that set people (me) off. I don't expect or want my new Labour Party senators touting policy forged in communist China. But even if I didn't like his prescription, he was talking about a real problem.

It is no refutation of Senator Reid to say, as some have, that the birth rate has already fallen to 2.4 on average. That statistic hides a lot of misery, because many of the people with 2.4 can't manage the .4, much less the other two. Plus some who can least afford it are still having enormous families.And even those with fewer children may have them at inopportune times. If a 'woman' gives birth at 15, again at 16, then calls it a day, although she still owes .4 to the average, the prospects for all are severely diminished.

I was invited by readers to talk about ways Government can helpfully intervene without drastic incursions on civil liberties. OK, here's one.

That mass media play an important role in people's self-perception, expectations and, therefore choices, is so obvious that you pretty much have to be an academic to deny it. Consider the MTV reality show 16 and Pregnant, where cameras traipsed behind pregnant teenagers. The National Bureau of Economic Research concluded the show "led to a 5.7 per cent reduction in teen births in the 18 months following its introduction ... around one-third of the overall decline in teen births in the United States during that period."

This from a show that people complained glamorised teenage pregnancy. However, it successfully brought viewers into the lives of young women dealing with pregnancy. Children may not obey their parents, but they damn well obey the television set.

As a rule, vices are initially way more attractive than virtues, for man is conceived in sin and born in corruption. But in the same way that antisocial values are taught with the mass media, so, too, can pro-social values be imparted. Miguel Sabido, who worked at Televisa in Mexico in the 1970s, pioneered telenovelas that revolutionised family planning and literacy, and his methods are still available. By embedding pro-social values in artistically compelling television and radio shows, and inducing audience members to identify with characters undergoing development and maturation, art is deployed as pro-social activism with measurable results.

People model and learn from the art they consume, particularly when exposed to sympathetic characters struggling with problems and dilemmas similar to their own. It's one reason the orientation and quality of art are so important.

As it is, it can sometimes appear as if we're on a mission to explore what a society without some basic elements of self-restraint and self-discipline looks like. I suppose if all tethers on self-expression are seen as the remnants of colonial rule, an alien culture, or racial or class bias, the very idea of self-restraint (along with the name of your father, if it's even on the birth certificate) has become suspect and belongs - as the Marxists used to say - in the dustbin of history.

Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.