In the wake of the first world mens relentless chasing after their far-fetched ideas of the

ideal wife comes their misogynistic tendency at the notion of domestic and sexual gratification.
This concept is strongly manifested in Yvette Tans Seek Ye Whore, which of course
eventually undergoes criticism in a sense that the males seemingly necessitative bliss gets
overturned by the source of blissthe female herself. The previously cited misogynistic
tendency is thus reduced to overdependence of all sorts, hence finally domineered by the
feministic ideology.
The short story unfurls with Foster, an American corporate worker, depicted as to being
reminiscent of the day he considers getting marriedthe fateful day when he finds himself
drooling over the scrumptious lunch Donovan, whose cubicle is just beside his, is indulging.
To his surprise Donovan, who never struck him as a marrying man, is married after all
something Foster learns after inquiring about where the latter got the palatable roast beef on rye,
Donovan remarking that his wife made it for him.
After further inquiry about the married life, he then learns about the website
siquijorbrides.com where Donovan found and eventually ordered and paid for his seemingly too
fantastical but surprisingly affordable Filipina wife named Nida.
With the promise of satiating the first world mans whimsical fantasies of what a third
world woman was capable of offering or doing for him: serving in general, cooking, and of
course, lovemaking, Foster decides to venture the world of online bride selling and orders
himself the woman that catches his attention the most Luli.
The weeks that followed are horrific, disturbing, agitating, and overall life changing as
siquijorbrides.com sends him a disassembled though weirdly alive wife, with the body parts
delivered by packages or installments. Apart from that, he eventually discovers that there is

something wrong with the mail order brides personalities in general. He is left with a decisionmaking he has to make eventually: enjoy an ecstatically horrific life and see whether he would be
lucky or not to not get destroyed by a demanding and sadistic wife, or let go of the absurdity of
living in unreasonable ecstasy and masochism under the mercy of a wife whose mere existence
challenged all norms of science and nature.
Fosters recollection begins at Week 0 which evidently marks the start of his spiraling
into the realm of the weird and supernatural. Seek Ye Whore is apparently divided into such parts
from Week 0 to Week 6, the numbers or sequence being referential to the certain junctures in
between time lapses where he receives the packages that contain Lulis animate body parts.
Amusingly, the story has its way of tickling the readers minds as much as leaving clues
as the plot progresses, thus inviting the mental questions take form and introducing possibilities
for the unthinkable. One good example is when, at Week 0, Foster asks Donovan since when the
latter has been married. Donovan then replies, Officially? Two weeks ago. His statement gives
the first hint to the underlying peculiarity of the story. The way he mentions official seems to
be very offafter all, marriage by nature really is an official event where things get official
between couples, so the question was unnecessary. But ironically, it is necessary information
regarding the state of his marriage, which inferably has undergone a sort of phase to reach that
certain official pointthe phase being the gradual assemblage of his wifes body parts, and the
official point being the time when she is already fully formed. This confirmed by
siquijorbrides.com through their letter in Fosters first week, citing the prior process as almost
marriage. Another example is when Foster asked Santiago, a Filipino co-worker, about the
province of Siquijor. Its famous for being bewitched. People believe that everyone who lives
there has some nasty occult stuff going on, says Santiago, which makes the transaction sketchy,

and gives light to the probability of the involvement of the uncanny because of the nature of the
location where the brides come from. Then there is the unusual combination of miracle and
science as clumsily suggested by Donovan when asked about what the shipments mean and how
they work. Miracle and science are obviously completely different concepts with clashing
ideologies, and thus the absurdity of putting them together, which all the more accentuates the
unexplainable absurdity behind the shipping process. Lastly, there is the advice the married man
gave to Foster, Only dont fucking freak out. Oh, and just add water. which wraps all the
weirdness up.
When asked about the marriage, Donovan later compares to to being like a vacation.
(Note how the comparison is restated again at a later part in the story, though there is already a
significant difference in Donovan at that period.) Its like a vacation. I wake up, the wifes made
breakfast and packed my lunch. I eat, she kisses me off, I go to work. I get home, the house is
sparkling, the wifes made dinner, and has a Bud chilling in the fridge for me. Some nights, we
chill and watch TV, but most of the time he paused, then said, with eyes closed as if
remembering, We fuck like rabbits. Its a really sweet deal. Donovans statement and himself)
is reeking of misogyny, and in fact best expresses and embodies the misogyny prevalent in the
story. This is further supported by Fosters reply, Did you just step out of the 50s?, with
reference to the widespread sexism during the 1950s, when misogyny was tolerated and wives
were ideally perfect and gullible just like how Foster described Donovans wife.
There are two kinds of dominations happening in the storythe first is sex domination.
Both male characters express each a certain level of misogyny, with it being more pronounced on
Donovan, who takes having a wife as being served like a king by his own "subhuman". While
Foster expresses disdain over this way of thinking, he is nevertheless attracted by it, and seeing

Donovan's leisure at having ordered a woman, he goes to do the same. Though Foster has
evidently a weakness for food which is his initial motivation to get a wifeto experience the
luscious life of having someone cook delicacies him out his jealousy in Donovans mealhe
later then succumbs to the other possibilities that a Filipina wife could offer. As for Donovans
case, he does not even bother feeling offended by Fosters remark of his wife Nida being hot.
There is the absence of respect and value for women from the two. Both view women as objects
bought to satisfy them in any way possible, and dominate them for being "lesser" to males. Well
the story in general presents the women as objectshaving them shipped in packagesand are
more or less dehumanized.
The second is race domination. From the names, it's obvious that the male characters
Donovan and Foster are Americans. This is race domination in a way that Foster and Donovan
refer to the women as "third world chicks" who long to "marry white guys". It seems for
Donovan, and for Foster as well, white men like them marrying these Filipino women, whom
they keep referring to as third world (i.e., poor), it is a form of charity. They think they are in a
way saving the women from their state of poverty (as they see themselves as being above in that
aspect). This, for the superiors, elevates the gullibility of the third world women and therefore
makes them more compliant and attentive to the mens domestic and sexual needs.
The line with the women grouped according to their domestic specialtycooking,
housekeeping, laundry, and so forth. enforces the subjugation of women in the story.
But this dynamic is soon reversed towards the climax, first when the person from the post
office that delivers the mail order brides talks about how the customers of the service often
change as they get their mail order brides, and then by Donovan's sudden disappearance. The last
time he saw Donovan, he seemed wasted and spent ("It seemed as if the man had aged over the

weekend. His hair was streaked with white, and he looked more worn-out than ever"). This
sequence of events makes Foster anxious about what he had put himself into, and he gets even
more justification for his anxiety as he grows tired night after night, as Luli would always keep
him up late for sex.
What has really happened is that Donovan's wife has completely subjugated him using sex that
she had caused him to "waste away". And it is the same situation that Foster finds himself
spiraling deeper and deeper into. It changes the entire dynamic of the story. The men, who in the
beginning seemed to be the dominating characters while the women were the subjugated ones,
have come to be subjugated by the women. And in fact, this has been true all along. Donovan
views his wife's continuous servicing for him with sex and food as evidences of his superiority
towards her when in fact, towards the end, it appears that Donovan is the inferior one. They order
mail-order brides in the interest of being provided leisure with service as masters of the marriage,
when in fact they become the subhumans, and are quickly overruled by the women. They were
under submission to their wives, contrary to how they initially believed.
Seek Ye Whore is told with limited omnisciencethe narrator following Fosters
recollective memories, starting at the day when he first learned of the mail-to-order bride
business of siquijorbrides.com, which was during lunchtime at his workplace in an Americanbased company. America embodies the first world that attracts the third world fellows, making it
a suitable setting for the story.
During one of his lunchtime encounters, Foster discovered from Santiago that in the
formers department three of them got married, two of which are he and Donovan. The other one
was Frank Jacobs whose cubicle is apparently beside Donovans and is married to a Filipina as
well, the said marriage being the reason why he quit the job according to Santiago. With the

given information, it can be inferred that Jacobs was the one who introduced siquijorbabes.com
to Donovan, and the rest followed. Anyway, this keys us into the indiscernible uniqueness of
Foster as to being the protagonist in the story, given that he was in a parallel situation with the
aforementioned co-workers, though it cannot be denied that they have different approaches to
how they handle their household (Foster still having a little willpower, Donovan evidently
resigned to his wife).
The abovementioned proposition can be considered as a non-realist anomaly. Another
non-realist element that can be cited is the involvement of the peculiar, as that of the
disassembled live bodies of women which may be associated with the supernatural tendencies of
the province of Siquijor. The legs are the first body parts to be shifted probably for the aim of
granting mobility even to the half-formed body, thus letting her do work as soon as possible.
Another peculiarity is that even without eyes to see, the half-formed body still knows where to
go.
There is also the odd red tint of the water in the brides sanctuary, which grows darker
and darker every time a new body part arrives, which may pass to be that of blood. And how
even with an incomplete form, the parts seem to be individually alive, and are even capable of
feeling emotions.
Collectively, these elements give more emphasis on how the women in the story
overturned their husbands misogynistic approaches. Thus, the story is ultimately about how
third world women of incomplete forms who pledged service to the first world men who would
pay for a gullible wives, could turn around things so easily by tearing down the mens
dominating facades, reducing their worldly desires into weakness, pampering their
overdependence, and eventually taking over the lives of the grossly too engrossed men. The men,

or rather, the gullible men now reduced to the pitiful life form who crave for food and sex every
now and then, eventually become the whores themselves.