Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Get Real! Get Serious!
A few days ago, i happened to catch an episode of Channelnews Asia's "Get Real" program, and as the website (http://www.channelnewsasia.com/programmes/prog_current.htm) states,
The pitch: Get Real! addresses topics close to the hearts of Singaporeans, with each episode focusing on a distinctly "made in Singapore" issue. Now, you know what sets Singapore apart from any other country in the world.
The particular episode that i watched was on the sex industry and child prostitution that has been going on in Batam. Many of these sex workers are tricked into working in these brothels. Having been promised a good job and better life by smooth-talking agents, they find themselves sold to and trapped in sex syndicates. The only way out is to pay off what they "owe" the syndicates. But it is probably as good as no way out, since the price of freedom keeps increasing with the interest rate. There is an estimated 1 million sex workers who are still children, i.e. below 16 years of age. About 600 Singaporean men arrive on Batam's shores every Saturday for sex. Most of these are Chinese men -from teenagers to granddads clutching walking aids - looking for sex partners. "Some men think they are doing a good deed by paying for sex in Batam, that the girls will starve in their villages" quotes a source, and another reveals that "a young sex worker might have slept with a few hundred men by the time she is 15".
I don't know what to make out of all this.
I was really disgusted when one of the interviewees on "Get Real" - some stupid golden-haired ah-seng with the most revolting voice - replied in a heck-care tone, "Does my wife know? Of cos lah! She come with me one!" (This is the point when i temporarily lose all hope in womankind).
Even typing this entry is making me worked up. Feeling quite incensed... not just at the atrocity and sinfulness of this whole situation, but at the fact that deep down we all know that it is impossible to stop it. Let's get real here. Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and as TS added, stamping down prostitution is the 2nd oldest profession in the world. We can condemn, judge, set laws & impose severe punishments on these sex perverts and pimps, but these can never change the sinfulness and lustfulness of a man's being. It takes more than just legislation & enforcement to save the intrinsic being of mankind from total immorality, depravity & decadence, although i must say... the state of man today is pretty much almost there already.
Get Real! although helps to educate and inform the many sheltered & blessed people of Singapore (including myself) about the stark realities of the island just a stone's throw away from us, i'm afraid that's the best it can do. Sure, it may stir up some controversy, fuel some organizations to pump some money in to help, prompt some NGOs to work harder in cracking down such syndicates, incite some strong emotions of the people... but let's really get real... the sex trade will never stop. How can it? If it has existed for the past 6000 years of human history? You think it can stop right now? Especially when it's probably at its most rampant & intense stage of development?? I'm not advocating sex tourism/trade, neither am i being cynical or pessimisstic. It's really commendable that there are people out there who are trying their best to stop all this, and i'm not saying that we should all just sit back and do nothing. Just that... well... this is real. Ok, i expect some flak for saying all this, but well this is reality.
If you really think about it, the whole consumer-capitalist-materialistic-competitive system is the problem. (Ok, i see more flak coming). Everywhere today, we are bombarded with images & all kinds of paraphernelia associated with physicality, sex, money, wealth, lust and decadent living. Man, you just can't escape it. It's just totally wired into our subconscious that we have become totally immune to it. Everything's ok and acceptable. Safe sex is promoted and we say good, but why should safe sex be promoted in the first place? That in itself is an unspoken permit/allowance for pple to have casual, pre-marital sex in the first place. Read: Yup go along and do yer thing, just dun forget the condom. If we really wanna get real and get serious, forget about promoting safe sex. Promote No sex outside marriage. Yeah, perhaps some will say i'm idealistic & old-fashioned, but who's to care anyway. Well, sex sells. No doubt about it. 8 out of 10 commercials you see today has some inkling of sexual connotation or meaning in them. Then with all your exoticised imaginaries of island destinations and the like, coupled with the ease and cheap cost of mobility & movement today, further supported by the www, you basically have a recipe for lots of good ol' vice.
So as i type this, yet another 600 men are taking the ferry across to Batam. Another few hundred girls are being enslaved to their sex masters. And the bright lights of the brothels burn on relentlessly throughout the night, but unfortunately, there will be no day.
The pitch: Get Real! addresses topics close to the hearts of Singaporeans, with each episode focusing on a distinctly "made in Singapore" issue. Now, you know what sets Singapore apart from any other country in the world.
The particular episode that i watched was on the sex industry and child prostitution that has been going on in Batam. Many of these sex workers are tricked into working in these brothels. Having been promised a good job and better life by smooth-talking agents, they find themselves sold to and trapped in sex syndicates. The only way out is to pay off what they "owe" the syndicates. But it is probably as good as no way out, since the price of freedom keeps increasing with the interest rate. There is an estimated 1 million sex workers who are still children, i.e. below 16 years of age. About 600 Singaporean men arrive on Batam's shores every Saturday for sex. Most of these are Chinese men -from teenagers to granddads clutching walking aids - looking for sex partners. "Some men think they are doing a good deed by paying for sex in Batam, that the girls will starve in their villages" quotes a source, and another reveals that "a young sex worker might have slept with a few hundred men by the time she is 15".
I don't know what to make out of all this.
I was really disgusted when one of the interviewees on "Get Real" - some stupid golden-haired ah-seng with the most revolting voice - replied in a heck-care tone, "Does my wife know? Of cos lah! She come with me one!" (This is the point when i temporarily lose all hope in womankind).
Even typing this entry is making me worked up. Feeling quite incensed... not just at the atrocity and sinfulness of this whole situation, but at the fact that deep down we all know that it is impossible to stop it. Let's get real here. Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world and as TS added, stamping down prostitution is the 2nd oldest profession in the world. We can condemn, judge, set laws & impose severe punishments on these sex perverts and pimps, but these can never change the sinfulness and lustfulness of a man's being. It takes more than just legislation & enforcement to save the intrinsic being of mankind from total immorality, depravity & decadence, although i must say... the state of man today is pretty much almost there already.
Get Real! although helps to educate and inform the many sheltered & blessed people of Singapore (including myself) about the stark realities of the island just a stone's throw away from us, i'm afraid that's the best it can do. Sure, it may stir up some controversy, fuel some organizations to pump some money in to help, prompt some NGOs to work harder in cracking down such syndicates, incite some strong emotions of the people... but let's really get real... the sex trade will never stop. How can it? If it has existed for the past 6000 years of human history? You think it can stop right now? Especially when it's probably at its most rampant & intense stage of development?? I'm not advocating sex tourism/trade, neither am i being cynical or pessimisstic. It's really commendable that there are people out there who are trying their best to stop all this, and i'm not saying that we should all just sit back and do nothing. Just that... well... this is real. Ok, i expect some flak for saying all this, but well this is reality.
If you really think about it, the whole consumer-capitalist-materialistic-competitive system is the problem. (Ok, i see more flak coming). Everywhere today, we are bombarded with images & all kinds of paraphernelia associated with physicality, sex, money, wealth, lust and decadent living. Man, you just can't escape it. It's just totally wired into our subconscious that we have become totally immune to it. Everything's ok and acceptable. Safe sex is promoted and we say good, but why should safe sex be promoted in the first place? That in itself is an unspoken permit/allowance for pple to have casual, pre-marital sex in the first place. Read: Yup go along and do yer thing, just dun forget the condom. If we really wanna get real and get serious, forget about promoting safe sex. Promote No sex outside marriage. Yeah, perhaps some will say i'm idealistic & old-fashioned, but who's to care anyway. Well, sex sells. No doubt about it. 8 out of 10 commercials you see today has some inkling of sexual connotation or meaning in them. Then with all your exoticised imaginaries of island destinations and the like, coupled with the ease and cheap cost of mobility & movement today, further supported by the www, you basically have a recipe for lots of good ol' vice.
So as i type this, yet another 600 men are taking the ferry across to Batam. Another few hundred girls are being enslaved to their sex masters. And the bright lights of the brothels burn on relentlessly throughout the night, but unfortunately, there will be no day.
// posted by superlambanana @ 10:40 AM 
Comments:
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I definitely do not support having..uhm.. multiple sex partners.
What I am more angry about is not prostitutes, because they have been around for a really long time and this is life for them. I really hate those people who actually have a Choice.
I watch TABtv and they featured this SPG who is only 17 and loves to sleep with caucasian guys. she has like 20 over boyfrens so far and i believe she has nv had a sexless day since 16. she just say it is fun. There is no real love, just a shallow liking. "I find you Ok, sleep with me" kind of behavior. These people have a choice and they choose to become like an unpaid prostitute, real cheap. I despise people like that!
However i do not agree about your point on safe sex. From my viewpoint, it does not promote teenage/pre-marital sex. What I think is that teenagers (guys esp hehe) are raging with hormones. Most of them would go ahead and it is either they find a gf or prostitute to fulfil them if they can't control it. Contraceptive measures are very useful (for women especially) to prevent STDs or babies in these case. I don't think it is an added incentive for them to go ahead.
More importantly is culture. In our grandmother's time, conservative people think they will get pregnant just holding hands! Now, we all know... I do agree Sex is the ultimate selling message now.
Truly I'm not worried about OTHER people but rather, if I have kids, how am I going to protect them from this?
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What I am more angry about is not prostitutes, because they have been around for a really long time and this is life for them. I really hate those people who actually have a Choice.
I watch TABtv and they featured this SPG who is only 17 and loves to sleep with caucasian guys. she has like 20 over boyfrens so far and i believe she has nv had a sexless day since 16. she just say it is fun. There is no real love, just a shallow liking. "I find you Ok, sleep with me" kind of behavior. These people have a choice and they choose to become like an unpaid prostitute, real cheap. I despise people like that!
However i do not agree about your point on safe sex. From my viewpoint, it does not promote teenage/pre-marital sex. What I think is that teenagers (guys esp hehe) are raging with hormones. Most of them would go ahead and it is either they find a gf or prostitute to fulfil them if they can't control it. Contraceptive measures are very useful (for women especially) to prevent STDs or babies in these case. I don't think it is an added incentive for them to go ahead.
More importantly is culture. In our grandmother's time, conservative people think they will get pregnant just holding hands! Now, we all know... I do agree Sex is the ultimate selling message now.
Truly I'm not worried about OTHER people but rather, if I have kids, how am I going to protect them from this?
# posted by 
: 1/12/2006 4:17 AM
: 1/12/2006 4:17 AM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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