Expat Navigates Chile’s Formal, Informal Morality

By Eileen Smith, the woman behind the travel blog Bear Shaped Sphere. Eileen’s blog was nominated for a 2009 Lonely Planet travel blog award.

I came home after a trip to the south of Chile to find my questionably-located Santiago apartment pretty much the same. Dusty, small, and now, with a neighbor’s door police-taped shut, with the word “clausurado” all over it. I later learned that the crime in question was that the owner’s son, an otherwise upstanding citizen, had been renting out the apartment by the hour to prostitutes.

The maintenance guy in the building told me this story while shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders, as if to apologize for the terrible behavior of my neighbor’s son. And I said the Spanish equivalent of “hey, I live above a strip-coffee shop (look it up, they’re called café con piernas), and next to a by-the-hour sex hotel.”

His apologetic look turned to disgust, indicating to me that my moral line in the sand is drawn in a far different place than his is.

This wasn’t the first time I’d misstepped in a conversation about morality.

Another time I was out on a date and the gent of the moment was talking about the high rate of marital infidelity among Chilean couples (which takes place largely at the aforementioned sex hotels), and which studies place at 48% for women, and 67% for men.

Libertine Attitudes, Moral Code Don’t Jibe. I pointed out that this libertine attitude toward marriage just didn’t jibe with other “morality-based” social issues in Chile, where surgical termination of a pregnancy is both illegal and criminal. And he stepped in front of me, and said to me, sternly, “that’s different.” I’d stepped on his size forty-whatever toes, and he wasn’t taking kindly to it.

From the perspective of someone from the United States, which I wholeheartedly admit is not a bastion of liberality, large coastal cities and smaller mid-country hamlets aside, Chile’s moral code is still a bit alien to me.

How Chilean society, the government and the not unstrong hand of the Catholic Church can square public makeout sessions on park benches that border on pornographic, the actual porn magazines sold in downtown kiosks, and marital infidelity with the official conservative policies is an absolute mystery.

Plan B contraception, or the morning-after pill has technically been available since April of 2004. In practical application, women are routinely refused its purchase in pharmacies whose employees oppose it the moral ground that it is abortive. Or who simply claim not to have the pill on hand.

Divorce Not Legal Until 2004. The year 2004 was big for redefining Chilean social policies, and in November of the same year, the country legalized divorce. This  BBC article calls Chile “one of the last countries in the world to grant married couples the right to divorce,” finally supplanting the law enacted in 1884.

One of the side effects of conservative policy is that women nearly always get custody of their children in a separation or divorce, the notable exception being prostitutes, and other women of dubious moral character, including lesbians. See this New York Times article to learn about Karen Atala, the lesbian judge who lost custody of her three daughters for publicly stating that she’s gay

Formal and Informal Morality. To say that the moral compass is all over the map here is to ignore the fact that like there is a formal and informal economy, there is also a formal and informal morality. What happens between people, on the street, in their bedrooms, at the sex hotels (or on the park benches) is subject to one set of rules. Anything governmental is subject to another. There are ways around nearly all of the official policies, from seeking birth control pills with a similar formulation (though in lower doses) of the morning-after pill to private doctors that will perform abortions under the guise of an appendectomy.

I have to say, many of these issues don’t affect me on a daily basis. I am not in particular danger of getting pregnant, do not have a Chilean spouse from whom to seek divorce.

But every day I walk down the street among women who are/have. I also live a few blocks from the best public girls’ school in the country, Liceo 1, where a maternity-version of the blue jumpers would be a useful addition for the niñas (girls) that go there. It’s not that I want them to have abortions. I want them to make decisions that they can live with, and I want to go back in time and educate them about their choices. Their choices to abstain, to seek effective birth control, to not make their parents into grandparents before they turn 40.

Things are Changing. And yet, things are changing. There is (at least by law) the possibility to divorce, to use emergency contraception, and there are calls to both decriminalize and legalize abortion. There are even neighborhoods and establishments where gay men and lesbians can hold hands, flirt and dance with impunity.

I, as a foreigner, have been fortunate enough to see many of these changes in the five years since I’ve been here. It’s a stunning story, an incredible thing to witness as policies do eventually change, and as Chile elected the first female president in South America, it was a moment of great rejoicing. If this is possible, people thought, anything is.

And yet, as the seamstress I frequent in her storefront apartment a block from my house told me, as she was pinning the hem of my pants, our president, Michelle Bachelet is a bad example. She’s a divorced mother of three daughters, from two different fathers. Even though I know the strong fist of morality is impossible to change with a few well-placed words, I tried. And was rebuffed.

Outsider Status Not Easy to Forget. I have to remember (and it’s not easy to forget), I’m a guest here. My carnet (national ID card) may say “residencia definitiva” (definitive residency), but just as clearly, and in a larger font, it also reminds me that I’m an extranjera (foreigner). I can pick and choose who I spend time with, even who hems my pants, and am somewhat external to Chilean societal pressures.

I’d like to stay and see what else unfolds, but I have to be honest; if the situation ever got unbearable, there’s a giant mega nation to the north, which by luck of birth, gave me a pretty blue passport with an eagle on the front, and which would (I understand) be glad to have me back.

You can follow Eileen on Twitter at @bearshapedspher. For more of her work, check out this thought provoking post about how she grew to appreciate the lost art of listening and observing while visiting a foreign destination. Or, as Eileen puts it “How I learned to Shut Up and Listen.”

Photo by Bill in Ash Vegas (Via Creative Commons)