In the remote countryside of Ilocos, Phillipines, various women are sexually abused by local men. Two friends, Tonya, a sexually repressed young woman, and Selda, a promiscuous woman, compete for Simon, the butcher and the most attractive man in the village. Tonya teaches catechism to the local children because the priest left the village. She is secretly sexually attracted to Simon, but she openly despises him and refuses his sexual advances. He has an affair with Mona, but he is ready to give up for Tonya. Her paradoxical behavior is found in her past, which resurfaces when Selda returns home from the city after a five-year absence with her American lover Ronald, who leaves shortly afterward. She's the exact opposite of Tonya, as her views on sex are more liberal and less guilt-filled.