IX. HYPERSEXUALITY

Truckers are machista in the sense that they believe that their women should obey and be faithful to them. The reasons for this policy rest on weak foundations. To avoid their collapse, people opt never to discuss them. The absence of communication, for its part, corrodes exploration and creativity. Life becomes rigid and there is fear of making a false move. “Any change in my relationship with my wife can lead her to demand a freedom that I’m not willing to give her,” confesses Pedro. This means that each practice must undergo a scrutiny more severe than the Spanish Inquisition. “A suck on the backside might make my wife like it and look for it when I’m not around,” says Emilio.

However, instead of changing the rules of the game and reducing machismo in the home, truckers do their exploring elsewhere. Sexuality on the road, then, should not only be seen as the release of a repressed sexuality. It is also implies exploration for truckers and repression for their wives. Oral and anal sex are forbidden practices in the home but not on the road. For truckers, oral sex – given to or received from – the wrong person, can make fortresses crumble and unleash a war of the sexes.

To maintain this polarized sexuality, truckers must find partners who are as compartmentalized as they are. Paradoxically, this takes them even farther away from the macho discourse.

To give a more exact idea of what happens with this group, the structured questionnaire included some questions about relationships between couples. Specifically, truckers were asked whether they had had sex with their regular partner and/or with other occasional partners during the 30 days prior to the interview.

The results showed that during the 30 days prior to the interview, 82% of all the truckers had had at least one sexual encounter (330 truckers in the regional sample). Of this group, which we might call sexually active, 53% had sexual relations exclusively with their regular partner (wife, companion or girlfriend). The rest, 47%, (Table No. 8) had sexual relations with their regular partner and with other occasional partners, or else just with occasional partners.

However, we must be careful when we interpret these figures, because they show what happened during the 30 days prior to the interview. Had the previous three or six months been taken into account, we would expect the percentage who had sexual relations with their regular partner and with occasional partners to be higher, and those who only had sex with their regular partner to be lower. This, because the possibilities of having additional partners increase over time.⁸⁶

One doubt raised was if truckers really do have a higher proportion of multiple partners than the average for the region. Although we have no regional data, there is information gathered in Costa Rica on sexually active men during the 30 days prior to the interview.⁸⁷

It should be noted that if the data for Costa Rica remains the same for the present, the comparison indicates that a large proportion of Costa Ricans had sex with their exclusive or regular partners during the 30 days prior to the survey, while the truckers did but to a lesser extent. However, the truckers had twice as many occasional sexual partners as the Costa Ricans (47% of truckers compared with 21% of Costa Ricans).

We asked Mauricio, a sturdy, handsome 25 year-old Costa Rican trucker, if he had any idea why truckers are more sexual than other men. Smiling mischievously, he answered: “On the road we have more independence than any other worker because we don’t have the boss on top of us. We also provide transportation services to women and have a little money, a lethal combination for fidelity.” Esteban, a Salvadoran driver believes that this kind of work increases the libido” “Traveling from one place to another and one country to another, leaving known people and meeting new people, is a way of loving. Constantly leaving people makes you realize that the same can happen with sex: leaving the known and seeking out the new. We like the idea of knowing different women in each port, just like sailors.”

We wanted to evaluate how truckers view their reputation of being more sexually active than other men. Juancho says he feels a certain “pride” because women expect a better quality of sex from truckers.

When you say you’re a trucker, there’s a kind of respect on the part of men and women and a certainty that they are with an expert on love matters. Many youngsters come over to my table when I’m having a drink and ask for advice about sexual relations. Young men have a lot of misconceptions about how to do things, because nobody talks clearly about sex. I think many truckers end up giving more advice than making love.

Luis, for his part, is convinced that truckers are the new sex instructors on the road.

Sometimes it’s a shame to discover how ignorant young people are on matters of sex education. Imagine, last month in Guatemala, a young girl of 15 came up to me and asked how to avoid getting pregnant. I said she should always carry a condom in her purse. Last week I saw her again and she said she was very pleased with my advice, and she always carries one around in her purse. „And you didn’t have problems using it with your partner?’ I asked her. „No, not at all. He said so long as I didn’t take it out of my purse, he didn’t care.’

Heriberto, a large 33 year-old trucker from Antigua, Guatemala, is convinced the truckers know more than most people about sexuality and that they have sex more frequently.

Truckers know more because they do it more often. It’s no secret that we’re more promiscuous than other men and that it’s part of our job to have more sexual relations than many. One thing leads to another. It is easier for us to conquer a woman because we know how to do it. It’s unusual for a trucker to come way empty-handed when he’s set his sights on a woman. Frequent practice, then means that you attract more women and have more sex with them. One thing leads to another.

Infidelity

In their profession, many truckers “breathe” an atmosphere of sexual adventure, multiple partners, and many women. Rolando says truckers want to find the country of love, which means getting to any country to find women. He describes it in this way:

I know some truckers, I’m not going to give any names, who want to get to their destination; they go from Guatemala to El Salvador, or from Honduras to Guatemala, from Costa Rica to El Salvador or from Nicaragua to Honduras. In this situation the only thing they want is to arrive and feel than they’re in the country of love. That’s what they call the place where they’re going. „Let’s go to the country of love’, that’s what they say, ha, ha. In Nicaragua, for example, there are loads of women on every corner. You can choose if you want. In the south of Costa Rica they’re almost hanging on the side of the truck when you go to park. There are pretty ones, regular ones, and ugly ones…

Robert gives his version.

Well, the truth is we’re sometimes mischievous. Especially if the woman is simple, we fill her head with lies and promise her heaven and earth. We don’t have anything, but we offer everything so that she’ll spend a while with us.

Julio is more explicit.

Married adventurers and the “second front”

One of the groups that emerge from the in-depth interviews is the group of married men that has extra-marital sexual adventures. This group represents a sector of the 32% who had sexual relations with their regular partners and with other occasional partners (Table No. 8).

Daniel is one of them. During the in-depth interview he mentioned that he has been married three times and has six children. He admits that when he works he has many opportunities to have sex and that sometimes he takes them. The same applies to Victor, a married man with five children, who says he feels good about the fact that he has no illegitimate children, despite his adventures. Rafael, married with four children, says he “picks up women, but only occasionally”.

Juancho says his wife “doesn’t understand” him, and that is why he has adventures.

Others admit that they simply enjoy having sex with other women.

It’s not a question of whether my wife satisfies me or not. She can’t give me what a new adventure can give me. There’s nothing more delicious in the world than having sex for its own sake, without having to invent feelings that you don’t have. (Mario).

Truckers often live with two women. The unofficial one is termed “lover”, “second front”, “second wife”, “branch line” or simply “the other one”. This relationship sometimes begins as an occasional affair that becomes more permanent after several visits. Mario describes how he fell in love with Alarova.

She was tall and pretty, though a little plump. I met her one day at a supermarket in Costa Rica. She was reading a book and at the same time shopping for food. I began to follow her without her noticing me, and noticed that she had some boxes of condoms. To open the conversation I went up to her and said, „excuse me, Miss, but those condoms you have are poor quality and tend to break’. She didn’t get mad, and instead smiled and said she did family planning workshops and was buying them to give demonstrations. We went for a coffee, since she had time, because she’d fooled the organization she worked for into thinking that she was writing a book. Well, I tell you, she ended up inviting me to give her a demonstration at home. This has lasted over five years. I love her, but she’s married with grown up kids, and kind of neurotic and unstable.

Within this group we noted there are some who provide financial support to their second regular partner. Sometimes, they father children with their lovers.

I have a wife and children in Honduras and in Nicaragua. My official wife has four children and my lover has three. As they live in different countries, there’s usually no problem, because I’m with each one at different times. I have to contribute to both households, which costs me a lot of money.(Carlos)

Miguel describes his own experience. He lives with two women and supports both, because he has children with both. In addition, he considers it an advantage, because that way he avoids getting into problems with other women. Another interesting aspect is that all parties involved are aware of the situation and tolerate it.

Guayaba’s situation is fairly similar to Miguel’s, as he also has a “branch line”. However, the unusual thing here is not that they are aware of the situation, but that both women are almost neighbors and accept the situation.

Gonzalo’s second relationship remains clandestine, and his wife does not know about his “second front”.

Occasional partners

Pablo tells us that like other truckers, he also acquires “pick-ups” on the road. Fernando is more explicit about this matter.

The thing people say most about truckers is that they’re womanizers, that they take every woman they find on the highway, and the truth is, things aren’t like that. If I leave here and head south and a woman appears on the road, then I might pick her up. If she’s just looking to make a few cents, then she can easily do it with me. But I only do it with one, because I can’t go doing it with every woman that stands in front of you. If I’m not in the mood, I wait for another occasion.

Francisco begins by telling us that “some chicks, when they see you in a truck, they ask for a “ride”, so if you want to you pick them up, because that’s their life, wandering around.” Rafael expanded on this subject.

We decided to ask Cirino to tell us which are the advantages and disadvantages of having several sexual partners at the same time. According to him, one disadvantage is that it costs a lot of money. Secondly, a man must be careful about what he says and does so that the women will not suspect anything. Finally, he says he likes it because he can be a different man with each woman. We then ask him to explain in greater detail his feelings about his different homes and families:

What I like is that I’m not always the same person. When I’m with my wife I act like a more serious and religious person than when I’m with Maria, my lover. With her, for example, I don’t go on social visits or go to church or religious activities, like I have to do with my wife. With Maria I go dancing, or to the movies or to drink in a bar.

Alberto agrees that lovers allow him to do different things.

It’s not the same being with the old lady at home and being with Angela, my lover for three years. My relationship with my wife goes back many years and I feel she’s my friend and the mother of my children. Angela is my passion. I do things with her that I would never let myself do with my wife, whom I have to respect.

Given that this compartmentalization is a subject that interests us, we probe further and ask Carlos, a 29 year-old with three different women, why he likes to maintain such complicated relationships. “I don’t know how to explain it to you, but as a man I was always brought up to respect my wife and put her on a pedestal,” he says. “With lovers you can do things that you could never ask her to do,” he adds seriously. “What sort of things”, we ask. “Many of them have to do with sex,” he continues. “I would never ask my wife for oral or anal sex, but I would with my two lovers.” “Do you do both things with both women or do you specialize with each one?” we ask. “No. I have oral sex with Ester and anal sex with Lisbeth.”

Emotional relationships, however, also seem to be polarized in the same manner. Carlos himself tells us that he tends to talk more with the one who does oral sex and goes dancing and has fun with the one he has anal sex with. In other words, sexual practice is also associated with different forms of behavior or communication. Heriberto explains that he has a more maternal relationship with his lover who gives him oral sex, than with his lover with whom he has only vaginal sex. With the latter he would not dare utter “obscenities” as he does with the first.

Miguel, a good-looking 30 year-old Costa Rican, confirms the fact that lovers serve to activate different mental “compartments” in these men. With his wife, Miguel only has vaginal sex in the missionary position. His wife is very religious and shy and he has never said a “bad word” to her. But Aru, his lover for the past two years, is a real “firebrand”, he says. When he ask him the meaning of this term, he explains that he can “talk about everything” with her, especially about how he feels about religion and politics. Miguel has stopped believing in God since his first daughter died, whom he loved best. He cannot share his disillusion with his wife and his attitude that “you should do all the things you enjoy before you die”. This includes sleeping with Aru and Mirna, another friend, and sometimes inviting a male friend too.

Companions or lovers serve to activate both different sexual and emotional aspects in these men’s heads. However, occasional partners – people with whom there is no fixed relationship – play a role that is more sexual than emotional. With them, men can practice a kind of sexuality that is divorced from romantic notions and without emotional complications. Antonio confirms this by saying that occasional “flings” are just to have fun and feel good. “You dare to do almost anything in a casual encounter”, he confesses. “I make her do everything to me, and if she won’t, I throw her out of my bed,” he says firmly.

The changes from one mental state to another do not only occur with women but also with cultures. Some truckers admit that they practice certain types of sex in different countries. Ernesto tells us that in Costa Rica many truckers dare to have sexual relations with transvestites who are “out in the street and more visible to the whole world”. Julio, a Guatemalan trucker, confesses that he likes to have anal sex in Nicaragua because the women are “hotter” and more willing to do everything than in his country. Mario, for his part, believes that it is easier to get oral sex in Honduras. “It’s easier to ask Honduran women to suck than the women in my country who are more conservative,” he says.

If it is not geography that promotes compartmentalization of relationships, then it is religion. Truckers who are fundamentalists admit to committing sexual sins but only with “women who aren’t Christians”. Those who are Catholics consider that fundamentalist Christians are the best victims, because they are “more naive” and “deluded” and it is easier to take advantage of them. Others take advantage of women’s ages to do things with some and not with others. Ramon, a Costa Rican trucker, says he makes the older ones give him oral and anal sex because “they’re very loose and not as desirable as the young ones”. Some consider certain ethnic groups or social classes as providers of “easy” women. Heriberto says making love to black women is more “fun” because they’re much “hotter” than white women and more accustomed to performing all kinds of sexual acts. Juancho prefers to abuse indigenous girls because “they’re shy and because they don’t have contacts with the government”.

One reason that the truckers’ machismo leads them to have multiple sexual partners is that they are afraid of making their sexual relationship at home more equitable. They do not welcome the idea of a man and a woman sharing all their secrets and intimacies. Nor do they welcome the modern idea that a couple should innovate and maintain sexual interest in each other. This says Carlos, requires that “your wife open her eyes and begin to consider herself your equal.” Pedro shares this concern. “If your wife sees that she can demand oral sex from you, she’ll soon be demanding half of all your money,” he says angrily.

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⁸⁶ The decision to measure this aspect 30 days prior to the interview is a methodological element to measure high-risk sexual practice, as well as HIV/AIDS infection and other STDs. As expected, if the period measured had been extended, practically all those surveyed would have been at risk of infection.

⁸⁷ Madrigal, Johnny and Schifter Jacobo. First National Survey on AIDS: Report on Results. Costa Rican Demographic Association. San Jose, Costa Rica. 1990. p.54. Data taken from Table 4.13.