Dear Tito,

It’s 1:28 am and I can’t sleep.

I can’t stop thinking about you…

…What are you wearing?

Are your pajamas unbuttoned at the top? You know, to give a peek of skin into the beginnings of your happy trail?

Or are you the boxers kind of guy who likes to let it hang? You must adore the soft, cool caress of silk, so soft that it can mimic the feel of another’s skin. Cotton would just be too ano, ordinary and regular.

You say you like to pray, but I wonder if that is all you get down on your knees for. Perhaps you have ventured into getting on all fours.

I have a better idea. How about we play – you like to play, don’t you? You like joking around so much that you’ve made a career out of it. Well, now you’re not really funny but rather laughable whenever you open your mouth in the Senate. (Though the gentleman from General Santos makes for a very worthy opponent.)

I have just the thing for you. A feather boa won’t do for this one. Neither will a silk tie. No white Hermes silk scarves to tie you to the bedpost. This calls for white Good Morning towels and…a flogger.

The soft feel of straps of leather that with just the right pressure can inflict pain that is so fine yet so sharp that you might mistake it for pleasure.

Feel the strands of soft leather tracing your skin?

This is what a man like you needs. A man like you who doesn’t know how to act when faced with a woman with a mind of her own and achievements that surpass your own. You don’t know what to do with a woman like that – one who is equal and clearly better than you. You actually make it easy because well, you don’t set the bar very high. (READ: After complaint, Sotto takes a leave of absence from ethics panel)

It makes your knees quiver because in your fantasy world, women are mere sex objects. Wombs walking around on two legs that should remain closed until a man tries to open them. Never has it crossed your mind that women can decide on her own.

That kind of woman is na-ano. And if there is no man in sight, that woman is na-anakan (just got knocked up).

That’s what you meant to say, isn’t it. Na-anakan. 

*whip*

Everyone knows you’re an animal. But that’s doesn’t mean women are only for breeding. A baby factory. You are deluded in thinking that only a man like you – even if your doughy sagging skin and mushy body that is turning 69 – is allowed pleasure.

*whip*

You’re mad now but ano pa ang galet?

You don’t get it. Just like we didn’t get it?

*whip*

You think you can shame a woman for her sexuality, expressed or otherwise?

*whip*

Well, you can’t.

*whip**whip**whip*

Because strong women own their sexuality.

*whip**whip**whip*

And because we own it.

We get to say who. We get to dictate when. And we determine how.

Most importantly, we get to say NO.

*whip**whip**whip*

And today and every single time you rear that ugly dirty mind of yours in a display of supreme anti-intellectualism, we will cut you down to your obvious size: Small. Miniscule. Puny.

We will say NO to your asinine brutish behavior.

We will not be silenced into submission.

*whip**whip**whip*

Not today. Not ever. – Rappler.com

Ana P. Santos is Rappler’s sex and gender columnist. She is also Pulitzer Center grantee who writes about labor migration. In 2014, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting awarded her the Persephone Miel Fellowship to do a series of reports on migrant mothers in Paris and Dubai.