The Kreung tribe in Cambodia allows teenage girls to host private encounters with boys; it is feared pornography will poison the oasis
The idea of a teenage girl inviting different boys to spend the night alone with her every night would appall most Canadian mothers. But for the Kreung tribe in northeastern Cambodia, this is an integral part of a girl’s journey into womanhood.
Journalist Fiona MacGregor and photographer Louis Quail went to visit the Kreung tribe to investigate its culture surrounding sex. Parents build their daughters a small shack when they’ve reached the middle of their adolescence; the hut is a safe haven where the girls are encouraged to bring different boys to spend time with them.
The love huts are meant to create a nurturing environment that teaches responsibility and safety when it comes to sex. But Quail says this culture is under attack of globalization and Western pornography, as it misrepresents female sexuality for the boys in the village.
The positive, liberating culture of the Kreung tribe is falling victim to Western influence that discourages respect towards women, according to Quail.
In MacGregor’ article, “Secrets of the Love Huts,” published in Marie Claire in 2011, she interviews Nang Chan, a 17-year-old girl who has had her love hut for two years. Chan points out that just because a boy comes to the hut, it doesn’t mean they always have sex.
“If I don’t want them to touch me, they won’t,” she says. “We will just talk and sleep.”
Chan, like other girls in the tribe, has a lot of agency. Chan says she and her friends have a screening process for the boys they invite over, which includes investigative questioning and promises of devotion and adoration. Young girls go through a series of lovers before finding a compatible partner to start a family and spend their life with. It is common to marry and have children at a young age, but cases of divorce and sexual assault are incredibly rare.
Quail says the Kreung culture is not to be confused with one of promiscuity and lust. “Many people get the wrong idea, exaggerate the sexual aspect, and project their own—mainly Western—values on these tribes,” says Quail. “The idea is that these girls don’t have sex with their partners unless they are sure of them as partners in marriage. However, they might fool around a little with a mix of boys until they find someone they are sexually compatible with.”
Chan’s mother, Galung, a 45-year-old woman, met Puang, Chan’s 56-year-old father, when Galung was 15. Galung says that out of around 150 families in a Kreung village, there have only been one or two couples that have not stayed together.
The girls in the tribe have also been taught about contraceptives by NGOs that operate in the area, aware of how to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies and STIs. Chan notes that the girls and boys share responsibility for safe sex practices.
Leum and Kawan are a couple from the Kreung tribe, and at 30, Leum already has three children with Kawan, his wife of nine years. “If a girl gets pregnant by a man who doesn’t love her, but another boy does love her, he will marry her anyway and bring the baby up as his own,” says Leum in the MacGregor article.
Leum also says that as parents, they are not worried about virginity or “purity,” so long as the girls are safe physically and sexually, and treated well by boys who return their love.
Lung Wen, the 49-year-old village chief, says this kind of respect for women is fading in the villages. “The boys aren’t as respectful as they used to be,” he says. “They see things on TV about sex that we didn’t used to know about.”
Thanks to media technology, boys have easy access to Western pornography, which, says Quail, teaches disrespect towards women.
“Motorcycles and porn on mobile phones mean boys come from other villages, with a different set of values from those of the past, hoping to take advantage of the girls,” he says. “Before, the families knew the boys from the local area, but now complete strangers can arrive from many miles away. Parents are thinking very hard about whether this tradition can continue.”
Poeun, a 17-year-old girl, saw this behavioural shift first-hand. “Many of the boys are not very good,” she says. “Some of the boys who come to see me are very arrogant. If they try to do things I don’t want, I tell them off in a loud voice. That usually works.”
While Canadian parents might be quick to give any boy who enters the bedroom of their daughter a swift boot out the door, the Kreung tribe teaches that an open, trusting environment around safe sex is empowering for young girls.
Those from the west who condemn the practices of the Kreung tribe should reflect not only on what we can learn from their culture, but also how our own Western values are teaching them to behave.
Alex Hum, Features Editor
With files from Yuni Kim
