Economic turmoil breeds sexual crisis in Bandung

By Kafil Yamin

BANDUNG (JP): The diminished rupiah has bred diminished sexual relationships for many Indonesians. A crude statement, perhaps, but an expert claims it is true.

A study by Teddy Hidayat of Bandung's Hasan Sadikin Public Hospital revealed that 48 percent of patients surveyed thought that their sexual lives had degenerated due to the economic crisis. On top of this, 39 percent of them said their family life was not as harmonious as before.

Simple logic may explain the results. The prolonged economic meltdown has generated massive unemployment and poverty. Many wives begin to see their unemployed husbands in a new light: helpless. As family finances become more and more strained, quarrels brew, which in turn leads to a loss of sexual appetite.

Jakartans have a saying describing a woman's feelings about her man: "Ada uang abang disayang tak ada uang abang ditendang" (if there's money, the man is loved but if there's none, he is kicked).

Hidayat, who also teaches psychiatry at Bandung's University of Padjadjaran, said the phrase did not quite accurately describe worsening relations between couples. "This just shows how important a stable income is in maintaining a harmonious family life."

His research was based on a sample of 50 respondents, aged 35 to 45, said to represent regular patients at Hasan Sadikin Hospital. Thirty-nine of the respondents were men and 19 were women.

Most were considered to have a low income, making between Rp 200,000 and Rp 500,000, while a few fell into a middle-income group, earning between Rp 500,000 and Rp 1 million.

All respondents were asked to compare their sexual lives before and after the crisis.

Hidayat found that respondents with a stable or decreasing income were forced to reduce consumption, given the high rate of inflation.

Sixteen percent said they now ate twice a day instead of three times a day. Sixty-four percent bought lower quality food or simply less food. Hidayat believes such changes in consumption patterns has led to depression and other psychological pressures.

"Such a severe psychological situation no doubt brings on physical suffering, one of them being a loss of sexual appetite."

He said depression led to health problems such as gastric discomfort, heart problems, hypertension, asthma and a decline in resistance.

Frequency

Ninety-six percent of the respondents claimed they had a "good" sexual life before the crisis. Only 60 percent, however, said they could maintain "family harmony" as the crisis became worse.

Hidayat acknowledged that while sex was not the sole determinant of a happy family, it remained a salient element.

"Nonsexual aspects, such as social and economic levels, offspring and mental maturity, are similarly important in happiness. But a healthy sexual relationship turns nonsexual aspects into real love and affection."

How much has the economic crisis affected sexual desire? Before the crisis, 42 percent of the respondents said they had sex more than nine times a month.

Twenty-two percent had sex five to eight times a month, while 32 percent had sex two to four times a month. After the crisis became acute, 28 percent said they had intercourse less often, down by as much as a quarter to half of previous frequencies.

Worse, not only was frequency affected, but also the couples' endurance levels. Before the crisis, 64 percent of respondents said they could have sex for 10 to 15 minutes.

As the economic crisis deepened, 42 percent disclosed that they could have intercourse for less than five minutes. Forty- four percent felt they had a loss of sexual appetite.

The loss of sexual desire occurred more with men (72 percent) than women (28 percent).

"It may be that men feel under pressure more because they perceive themselves as being responsible for their family's survival," Hidayat elaborated.

Anger and resentment can bring about negative attitudes toward sex, he said.

Hidayat said if men suffered from a loss of masculine pride and self-confidence from an inability to feed their family, they could suffer from a loss of sexual desire. The more men succeed in bringing prosperity to their family, the stronger their sense of pride and sexual desire, he claimed.

Psychiatrist and education expert Ahmad Tafsir offered another explanation. Sexual desire, he said, was determined by what he termed as "power of imagination".

He said such a power was propped up by good income and the nature of people's creativity.

"When men have to think a lot about how to feed their family or how to keep their children in school, how can they have a lot of sexual imagination? That's why economic hardship leads to a diminished sexual life," Tafsir said.

An uncomfortable family life, psychiatrists believe, adversely impacts the psychological development of children because parents are often unable to provide them with the proper quantity and quality of attention.

Tafsir offered an age-old solution to such problems: Look to religion, in which one can be reminded of the relativity of the material world.

With such a mind-set, people can learn to adjust by taking a bus instead of a fuel-consuming private car, he said, adding that such values should be taught to children.

This solution doesn't sound very easy given the state of public transport here.

But Tafsir said: "If (people) see such change as destiny, they will undergo (change) without psychological conflict."

"Make children believe that their parents are behaving in line with what they believe," Tafsir said. "Parents have to remain strong and look strong. That will comfort the children."

Even with much less money and less sex, "don't quarrel in front of the children," he said.