Sense and Science: Pubic lice in Pinoy culture

“Paa niya nasa ulo” (its feet are on its head) goes a classic Filipino riddle.  The answer isn’t crabs but lice, or kuto —all too familiar to many Filipinos.  There are two subspecies of this lowly lousy louse (singular for lice), one which thrives on human head hair and the other on body hair.   

 

Less well-known but still significant pests are pubic lice, known too by the slang term “crabs” because of their shape.  It's a completely different species from the head and body louse, and I sometimes explain to my students that the two are examples of adaptation to very specific environments.  

 

The more well-known kuto is sort of a temperate creature, shooting the breeze like a golfer on a windy course  while pubic lice are tropical, thriving in a warm and humid, albeit dark, environment.   I must say that medical journals do report on more adventurous pubic lice who migrate to eyebrows and moustaches —and don’t ask me how.

 

These two types of human lice are excellent case studies for cultural ecology, a branch of anthropology which looks at how culture —beliefs and practices— interact with the natural environment.  For example, with head and body lice, archaeologists and anthropologists have established that such infestations became a problem only after humans began to wear clothing, the lice multiplying rapidly and spreading through shared clothing.  

 

Ever wondered about the origins of the term “flea market”?  The term was used to refer to the little itchy bonuses you got when you bought used clothing.  Why not lice market?  Fleas are actually different from lice but when you’re scratching away like a dog, the names don’t really matter.  

 

Just look at our terms in the Philippines: kuto referring to human head lice as well as dog and cat fleas. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

 

Pubic lice are different, having evolved in relation not to the wearing of clothes but of removing them. Put bluntly, pubic lice are sexually-transmitted, which is why I thought this would have been a good Valentine’s Day essay.   “Crabs” are never fatal, but they can be terribly inconvenient, and embarrassing, because they cause terrible itching, which leads to constant scratching that attracts not just stares but bacterial infections.

 

There are all kinds of folk treatments for pubic lice, from kerosene (no smoking while applying) to applying slabs of meat that supposedly draw the infernal creatures out.  But the only effective treatments are, well, insecticides: less toxic than agricultural and household pesticides but still poisonous, followed by using a fine-toothed comb, suyod in Filipino, to take out the nits or eggs.  

 

Crabs made headlines early this month on news that these creatures are possibly becoming an endangered species.  Over the last three years, there have been reports coming out in medical journals about a decrease in patients going in for treatment of crabs and it seems that this came about because of the modern bikini, invented in 1946. Besides raising moralists’ non-itchy eyebrows, this itsy-bitsy swimwear seems to have modified human grooming habits.   Specifically, increasing numbers of women, as well as men, are removing hair from that crucial private area through shaving and waxing.  Which spells environmental disaster for the pubic lice, equivalent to deforestation, reducing the possible habitats and breeding places for crabs.  

 

I am told by friends that waxing, specifically Brazilian waxing, is becoming popular too in the Philippines, which will be bad news for pubic crabs.  Now if you’re talking about the crab mentality, that’s a completely different matter although I can imagine crabs —oops, I meant, people gossiping about who was seen entering or leaving a waxing salon. — TJD, GMA News

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Dr. Michael L. Tan is a veterinarian and a medical anthropologist.  He is currently dean of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, and Clinical Professor at the College of Medicine at UP Manila.  He also writes the opinion column "Pinoy Kasi" for the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He has been involved in numerous research projects on a range of issues from HIV/AIDS prevention to the culture of impunity. In 2012, he was elected to the National Academy of Science and Technology, the Philippines' highest science advisory body.