"A critique of SlutWalk Singapore? Try again." by Desirée Lim.

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ETA 22 June 2011: You can read Ben Cheah's reply to Desirée Lim's piece and Lim's further deconstruction of that email at her Facebook note. And if one's feeling extra intrepid, one can witness more FAIL from Cheah here: (TRIGGER WARNING - and yes, you have to copy and paste the address if you really want to feel the pain) https://www.facebook.com/notes/benjamin-cheah/the-blame-dialogues/183967081658348. As far as the farm is concerned, we're no longer entertaining Cheah's rubbish on this subject.
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Readers will remember our 'favourite' rape-victim-blaming, Rational Male Blogger^TM Benjamin Cheah from a while back. Well, Cheah has resurfaced from what little manhole in which he resides to offer more useless cents (and sense) on the proposal to host SlutWalk in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The farm is honoured and most delighted to host our first guest post, this lovely response to Cheah by frequent #sgfeminists contributor, Desirée Lim. This is x-posted here.
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Today I came across a blog post titled "Slutwalk: noble but misguided" by Benjamin Cheah. I am personally for Slutwalk and am pleased that it's coming to Singapore, but as I believe it's important to critique the things we support, I decided to read it. I hoped to read something that could shed light on SlutWalk's shortcomings and limitations in a Singaporean context, which I have been ruminating over the last few days: boy was I disappointed. If anything, it's shown me, all the more, how goddamned pervasive the exact attitudes SlutWalk stands against are, "academically" expressed or not, and how important it is so rally against them. Here is a brief response.

SlutWalk Singapore x Kuala Lumpur’s Facebook page says that one of its goals is ‘to stop victim-blaming in sexual assault, which is a crime that has nothing to do with what we wear or even sex.’ This reveals a dangerous misunderstanding of sexual assault.

Clothing matters. Rapists prefer women who wear clothes that are easy to remove. Rapists want to do the deed as quickly as possible, to minimise risk to themselves. The more time they spend removing clothes, the more time the victim has to defend herself and call attention to the rape-in-progress. Rapists aren’t necessarily turned on by scantily clad targets – but they will prefer targets who are easier to attack.

Naturally, this paragraph displays an excellent understanding of sexual assault, far superior to that of Slutwalk's! So rapists regularly sit around evaluating women's attire, poised to attack the first woman who has clothes that are "easy to remove".

Rapist: "Hmmm. This one's wearing a jacket, so nah. Shit, that one is wearing stockings and ripping them off is going to hinder my rape, so I'll let her off. Damn it, HER dress has BUTTONS on!"

The next time I walk out in a dress with a zip down the back (I can't think of any other article of clothing that would be easier to remove - maybe my old sweatpants that are loose around the waist and can thus be swiftly yanked down?), God help me. In fact, I should conduct sartorial experiments, just in case - does anybody want to volunteer to rip off a series of my outfits so I can be absolutely sure?

A protest march is a public expression of group opinion – but rapists don’t care. They don’t see themselves as part of society. (More on that below.) Protests can’t pressure someone who won’t feel it.

Workshops, fora and meetings attract people who have a stake in the topic. Rapists do not. They won’t show up. They may know someone who attended such a workshop – so they’ll just take her and her friends off their target list, if they care. Or put them on the list, if they care that much. (Again, more below.)

How does this invalidate SlutWalk? Cheah seems to be suggesting that it is pointless because rapists are not going to join women in the march, speaking out against victim-blaming. By the same logic, protest marches against any kind of injustice would be useless as well, since the perpetrators are probably not going to join in. Moreover, did anyone ever suggest that SlutWalk would stop rape? I doubt so. What we're more interested in is changing preponderant public attitudes towards rape - the very attitudes that Cheah himself, as I will show later, cheerfully propounds. He later continues along the same lines: A predatory rapist isn’t moved by popular outrage. He doesn’t even see himself as part of society. A social rapist doesn’t care…and may turn on ‘his’ woman if he learns she took part in something like SlutWalk. It’s not rape to him; he’s just putting her in his place. Right, and we feminists simplistically believe that SlutWalk can "move" and dissuade rapists. The day a protest march moves rapists to tears when they think about their wrongdoings ("This is it! I'll NEVER RAPE AGAIN!"), I'll eat my hat.

The heart of SlutWalk’s stance on rape is its attack on ‘victim-blaming’. SlutWalk believes that society pins all the ‘blame’ of a rape on the victim instead of the rapist. On the surface, this is only logical. A rapist committed a rape, therefore the rapist is to blame. But this is a shallow way of looking at rape – the rape probably occurred because the victim didn’t look after herself.

What did I tell you? Can a deep, incisive, correct way of looking at rape point us back to (gasp) victim-blaming? If you can bear to, let's read on.

Predatory rapists like to ambush their targets. The key word is ambush. They wait in dark, secluded areas, and assess everybody who walk by. As soon as they see a target, they strike. Predators can be avoided by going where they can’t hide and not provoking an attack. Personal safety is beyond the scope of this blog, but for more information, there are plenty of books and websites available. I favour Marc MacYoung, Gavin De Becker, and Rory Miller. While geared towards an American audience, much of what they say applies across cultures and borders. More importantly, they make sense, and their tactics work.

Social rapists are people you interact with. To avoid being raped by them, cut them out of your life, and spread the word about them. Potential rapists tend to fit a profile: if you know what to look for, you can take appropriate measures. They’re not that difficult to spot; they tend to be misogynistic bullies or slick charmers.

Most rapes occur because a woman took a risk, and got burned. She took a risk by walking down a dark alley, by ignoring the three young men lined up against a wall, by leaving a charming handsome stranger alone with her drink, by continuing to live with her abusive husband, and she paid the price. But these are avoidable risks. Most crimes occur this way. It’s controllable, even eliminated in some cases.

Now, two things. I first need to point out how ludicrous the second paragraph is. So, to avoid being raped, I am responsible for developing an internal Rapist Detector that enables me to systematically de-friend any rapist that could inhabit my friendspace. What's more, Cheah claims that they're "not that difficult to spot". I would love to personally introduce him to all my friends, just so he can tell me, afterwards, who is most likely to rape me - lest I suffer the consequences. It's easy! Cheah also conveniently ignores the fact that many rapists are people that you cannot easily disassociate yourself from with the click of a button - what about family members? Work superiors? Husbands you have young children with? Is it my fault that I am raped, or is it their fault for raping me? No prizes for the correct answer.

Secondly, being strongly against victim-blaming doesn't mean that we can't encourage people to be careful. There is a reason why I avoid walking alone in the dark by myself. It is perfectly natural for me to ask a female friend to send me a text when she reaches home safely. Before I left for university my mother gave me a flashlight/alarm hybrid that I was supposed to set off if someone tried to assault me (I never used it). The problem arises, however, when we say, not only that rape happens because we fail to do these things, but that we, as Cheah implies, have it coming.

Let me use a simple example. This point has been explained to death by more capable feminists, so feel free to skip over it, unless you need to be disabused. I am an amateur sailor who decides to go boating in an extraordinarily violent storm. No doubt, I am taking a risk because I choose to go boating in a storm. If I drown as a result, it will be my foolishness at fault, even if no one will say it at my funeral. How is this different from a woman who takes a risk by walking down a dark alley that might be populated by rapists? The key here, which so many people fail to grasp, is agency. Storms have no agency, but rapists (hopefully) do. A storm will continue to rage no matter what, but rapes happen because rapists actively decide to rape. A woman who does - or fails to - do x is in no danger of rape if men do not choose to rape. If we blame the victim and not the rapist, we are assuming that rapists, like storms, are an uncontrollable constant we should accept as a fact of life. Men rape. That is normal. They can't help it. If we believed this, I seriously think it would be a huge insult to men in general.

With the aid of another analogy:

Either: To stop rape, women take EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE PRECAUTION to make sure they don't get raped. This includes, as Cheah suggests, wearing clothing that is difficult to take off (like thick leather onesies with conspicuous locks on) and fine-tuning their aforementioned Rapist Sensors. Disappointed, potential rapists give up and go home.

Or: Potential rapists stop themselves from raping.

Either: To stop ourselves from being hit by drunk drivers, we make sure we TAKE EVERY SINGLE POSSIBLE PRECAUTION to make sure we don't. We wear fluorescent clothing and refuse to cross roads, ever. Otherwise, it is our fault for being hit.

Or: People stop drink-driving.

Which looks more sensible? I leave it to the reader.

Degrees of hate.

Char Siew Pau here was ambivalent to see news of American teen, Tyler Clementi's suicide appearing in the local Straits Times last week. It wasn't clear to this male unfeminist, badly drawn pig what exactly it meant for him that the papers prioritised the article on the third page of the main papers, because he was still reeling from a couple of events that broke with the news of Clementi's death.

Such as learning that one of the two guys recently caught having sex together in a local mall toilet is being charged under Section 377A [ed: please read People Like Us's statement in full!], i.e. the anti-male homosexual act law that our parliament said it won't repeal for symbolic appeal. Then there were debates amuck on the veracity of saying that homophobia was the key ingredient in driving Clementi off the bridge.

From the latter thread, one such detractor was the very rational and evidence-based--let's call him--Mr Mensch, asserting--and I paraphrase, "Until I see evidence of homophobia, I'm inclined to believe it has nothing to do with Clementi's death. Charlotte’s Interwebz encourages people to distribute exposés all over. It's free-market sexcapade galore for straight people, for gay people, for all!"

Why, what a wonderfully insightful libertarian mensch! I would have totally gotten my Pork Trotters twisted in the excitement of such sound revelation if not for fact that, hey, my stupid gay, asian Lup Cheong self looked around and saw that he remains in the shadow of a vigilant heteronormative state. A state in which the assumed default and premium is in being heterosexual (or at least discreetly straight-acting), failing which you are a frowned-upon deviant. It precedes that when straight people, who aren't presidents, hotelier heiresses or pop stars, are caught in the hanky panky on film, there's practically no uproar about their sexual orientation, only mixed reactions of privacy invaded.

Never fear, you could be a random breeder snogging in China, Alaska, South Africa or Greenland but still find that nowhere will you so pervasively come against some bigots calling for your demise, accusing you of bearing some hidden agenda that seeks to devalue the family, desecrating one's holy ground, insulting one's gods, or going against nature's ways. If you are caught on film making out with the opposite sex, no one in any part of the world has the image of you in mind when zie plans for the never-going-to-exist ex-straight conversion camp that will fix you of your widely-popular choice of lifestyle. If you were caught on film doing the heterosexual hoochie coochie, some people may be happy to reenact the scenario on a R-21 screen without the fear that censors will snip you out because we don't want to promote deviant lifestyles--and they don't mean being caught on camera.

No, the sensationalism here never rode on the fact that Clementi kissed someone--few 18 year-olds warrant any attention with their snogfests, but that he had "asked for the room till midnight" (oh, he must be hiding something!), and later caught "making out with a dude"! GAY! TRYING TO HIDE!? GAY BUSTED! - to the whole fucking world, both friends and foes. The thrill of it comes in irrevocably exposing Clementi of his furtive engagement in something still denounced in many circles, inviting the floodwalls to collapse for all to see, celebrate, wank to, but also jeer, hiss, laugh, mock, cuss and pitchfork.

And the gates will open to the nefarious, especially since a person already doesn't even need to be caught doing anything (homo-sex-ual) except exist to cause a stir in others, then finding hirself at the brute end of all forms of physical, mental and emotional attacks from others of all walks of life--family, friends and absolute strangers—and for no reason than that they *think* zie's quee, which somehow justifies abusive behaviour. Even if one's truly queer, making no excuse for living as a proud and openly queer person, coming out as such is to continually navigate through a minefield. Because despite hir feeling secured in hir own skin--a feat not to be belittled ever, there are always unsafe spaces to come out in, and forever the unsafe people to come out to.

In Clementi's unfortunate case, such a person was Dharun Ravi, the sneaky little asshole who not only recorded but also broadcasted Clementi's make-out session. Ravi may seem like such an equal-opportunistic mercenary to the likes of Mr Mensch, but really his tactics are but a leaf out of the books of anti-gay witch-hunters, exploiting nothing but the dangers, fears and anxieties associated with an out gay person, and the sickening, self-righteous thrill of those who seek to uncover and tabloid the secrets of bones and people in closets for effect beside the well-being of the outed. (Newsflash: if you care about a queer person, do not out hir in any manner, or demand to know if zie's queer.)

So guess what? Just because thick-skulled Ravi is, presumably, unable to recognise the cause and effect of a hate crime does not mean he operated by anything less than that--imagine what the world would be like if members of the Ku Klux Klan actually knew they were being assholes! And just because Mr Mensch proves himself equally obtuse to the undercurrents of context, it proves nothing but that there're people who continue not to grasp the extant of homophobia and the real-life cruel aftermath it has on a whole lot of people.

That said, what really chaps this Suckling Pig's hide is that despite how much we protest this grave injustice, and even come to the point of publishing news of deaths brought on by homophobic pressures, this sunny-but-not-so-happy island of Singapore remains guilty of similar exploits all the way up the ranks. It makes it nearly impossible to take home any lesson on tolerance and acceptance of queer people that can be taken from this reportage when anti-sodomy laws are kept for what seems to be the express purpose of making it central to any sex-related crime between two consenting men.

Seriously, just what the fuck was the egregious crime here that Tan Eng Hong and his partner are caught for? Having sex in a public location, or having homosexual sex in a public location? A similar case involving a straight couple might have been charged under Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act--like how the nude couple in Holland Village were--instead of S377A, noting that not only is there no equivalent in “gross indecency” in heterosexual terms following the repeal of anti-straight oral/anal sex in 2007, but also that, technically speaking, "gross indecency" between two men may occur in and out of the private sphere. This is imprecise a charge, and frankly a disappointingly unfair one, given what was envisaged by PM Lee Hsien Loong in 2007.

This only leads my Braised Pig-head to conclude that, just as how the problem wasn't about Clementi kissing someone but about him "kissing a dude", this is now not about displays of sexual acts but displays of male homosexual acts between two men.

Even with the decriminalisation of homosexual acts in so many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, United States, China, Japan and Taiwan, it is still an uphill battle for queer people to get even an ounce of respect and acceptance. A not-so-symbolic anti-gay law in our legislature, so arbitrarily reapplied despite claims of non-pursuance, empowers people to continue doing and talking shit about gay people without the slightest hint of contrition (read: Rony Tan). Because always it's what the government believes in, and now even it's the greater crime prosecutable. Abusers will always be on the right side of the law, and by the government's suggestion, they’re bedfellows to a wider, bigger majority that is all right with the active discrimination and abuse of gay people.

If you think Clementi's case is free of homophobia, if you think it's okay to throw S377A at Tan et al, then you are part of this----in a clever play of language to make them sound so marginalised—(mythical)silent majority that the government seeks to valiantly protect.

Don't be mistaken though, I hear and feel every sub-decibel of contempt your silence holds to my piggish ears even if you think you know otherwise.

Dear Oliver, I'm sorry.

Bacon Bits here just learnt that the Swiss graffiti artist Oliver Fricker, who had a month or two ago broken into our SMRT depot to tag an MRT train, is receiving 3 strokes of Singapore's cruel cane, accompanied by 5 months in jail:

But Swiss IT consultant Oliver Fricker ... failed to convince District Judge See Kee Oon that a deterrent sentence was not in order.

Finding that Fricker, 32, had displayed a "calculated criminal conduct", Judge See sentenced him to five months' jail and three strokes of the cane.

The sentence was handed down about six hours after Fricker pleaded guilty, around noon, to charges of vandalism and entering a protected place. A third charge stating that he had committed an act of vandalism by cutting the fence of the depot was taken into consideration.

Judge See agreed with Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharon Lim who said Fricker had committed "a very serious offence" - and that the whole incident had "alarmed the general public" and "shaken their confidence in the security of protected places".

Shake my confidence in the security of protected places!? What fucking rubbish!

The only thing that is being reinforced here is the stranglehold that the State has on the insecurities in its people of itself. The fear that Singapore insists in instilling in her people of the elusive terrorist, of the potential invasions by our regional neighbours, of all sorts of bloody calamities effected by external enemies who hate the State and apparently also her people. The constant insistence that I need to be wary of suspicious looking people at all my public spots, and that I need to mindful that there're terrorists out there waiting to kill me and my family.

Strangely enough, I already know that.

I also know that if the terrorists really want to get us, they're likely going to go about it in ways and at times least expected. Because terrorism is essentially an element of surprise. That's why it's scary: you never know when it's going to happen.

But I also don't know when I'm going to die. I also don't know when I'd finally meet the Hamsomest Porkchop of my life. I also don't know when my buses and trains arrive. I also don't know what my life will be like in the future: will I be happy, sad, single, sick, with kids, unemployed, married, with a cat (hello Cat in the Cream!), the first gay porcine Prime Minister of Singapore, a war hero, a dissenter, or even a terrorist?

This fear that our State security can be compromised should be like any other existential woe. It is difficult to dissipate but we roll with it as and when the shit hits the fan. Instead, what we have now is constant pressure to turn this precautionary stance into a debilitating phobia that arrests us in our own minds and country. There're basically two types of people who we're also encouraged to be wary of. If by media standards (read: stereotyping), it's always going to be some darker-skinned person, or who looks like he might be a Muslim (that's two assumptions there: male and Muslim), or who looks poor, or doesn't speak well, etc.

If like me you have actually been physically attacked by random pigs, you know that the kindest and friendliest people can indeed turn into major arseholes who'd beat you up. The only way to effectively get around this is to either develop an unhealthy paranoia of everyone, or become a conspiracy theorist who never leaves his/her house.

But I don't want to live in a state of constant arrest. I don't want to fear for all these potential arseholes who are out to get me and my barnmates. So I refuse to put on my tinfoil hat and x-ray glasses and with all those off, I inadvertently gain a clarity and the eventual realisation that there's someone else far more frightening than real and imagined criminals.

In the case of the People versus Oliver Fricker [2010], who is the one sending terror down my spine? Allow me to share with you what Jolene Tan dug up for her argument against caning, published at The Online Citizen--from a victim of State atrocity: (do read her whole article, it's really good!)

I heard the cane. It sounded like a plank hitting the wall. A split second later I felt it was tearing across my buttocks. I screamed and struggled like a mad animal. All I thought was that I want to run away. If I’m not tied up, one stroke could keep me running for a mile.

And I just could not control my screams. It went on and on, one stroke, one minute. Some lashes fall on the same spot, splitting open the skin even more.

Some prisoners urinate and even faint because of the pain. I felt giddy and went limp on the trestle at the last stroke. My bleeding buttocks throbbed with pain and felt like they were on fire.

A few prisoners pretend to faint to escape more strokes but the warder will go on flogging to see if you cry out. That’s because if you’re conscious, you will scream.

After we were flogged, a medical officer applied some antiseptic on the wounds. My buttocks then swelled to twice their normal size. My thighs went blue-black. I had to go without shorts for more than two weeks so that my wounds could heal. I couldn’t sit or sleep on my back or bathe all this time either.

The pain burns in your mind long after it is over. Until now I have nightmares about it.

You know who scares the shit out of me? It is none other than the bloody State! A State that can so easily turn to arcanely barbaric corporal punishment involving intentionally splitting people's skin with the crack of a cane because so-and-so premeditated some crime. A State that continually justifies the premeditated use of such punishment because--and I paraphrase--this is written in the books, you know our practices, so if you don't want to suffer these consequences, then you jolly well don't transgress.

Really? So if you decide that, hey, thieves should have their fingers chewed off by sewer rats, or that male rapists get their penises skewered by a satay stick, or that homosexuals get publicly stoned to death, or that spouse abusers will have mouths stitched together, then it's all okay. Because, come on, don't like the punishment? Just don't commit those illegal acts.

Make no mistake here, the message might be subtle but eerily clear: the confidence that the State has the will, power, and temperament of an enraged hulk must be protected. It is not an entity to be fucked with because it will unleash its cruelty against you even if you do something as completely harmless as give commuters a delightful experience. Peddling fear of others, fear of truths, and fear of the State. State torture. State murder. State terror. This State will tell you when, where and how to have fun; please, declare and surrender all imagination, initiative and peace of mind at immigration checkpoint.

Dear Oliver, on behalf of the many Singaporeans and farm animals who don't believe in the legitimacy of your sentencing, that tag was awesome, and I'm sorry for my country.

Rony Tan and The State - 5 - "An openly pluralist, secularist, human-rights based challenge"

Really agree with this Oh My Goat - that someone really needed to push him hard to retract the statement, and it's unfortunate that it was the ISD rather than others in civic society, as would happen in a "free world". Ideally there would have been - in addition to blog posts, which there are - protests, pickets, strongly worded letters from a variety of faith and interfaith and secularist organisations published in the papers, disputing editorials in rival newspapers discussing the very nuances like those in your email etc., collectively leading to a social consensus so strong that people would hesitate to be obnoxious in the way he has, while continuing to make strong criticisms of hateful attitudes and practices whether they take a religious or non-religious form.

The reason why we have none of that is the ISA/PAP state control generally, and that ironically also creates the need for the ISD/PAP to step in, but their involvement inhibits the development of the environment that wouldn't need them... It's woeful really.

I agree with Poultrygeist that mandating prosecution wouldn't be great... I just think the healthy endpoint isn't one that's reached via the ISD.

What I think is going on here is a colonial strategy in a domestic context - divide and rule. The government is interested in a clear sectarian division between communities defined along racial/religious lines partly for ideological reasons (i.e. LKY's weird racialism)...

...but partly also because this means they can achieve this "surface harmony" you refer to, without the destabilising effect of difficult questions that arise from minorities-within-minorities (like someone criticising their own religious "community"), or groups like women, LGBTQ people, the poor etc. who have shared interests between "communities". Successful challenges to "communities" by these individuals and groups would also legitimate other challenges to interests that the government has in avoiding welfarist obligations. It is in their interests to palm welfare off onto religious "charity", and have participation in ritual ("spirituality" without social content) replace political engagement. Possibly this is also why welfare, where it exists, is often supported by the state along "community" lines (and in Singapore also by continually trying to enforce a vision of morality whereby the "family" has all the obligations to support those in need), to avoid the issues of state obligations to individuals qua individuals, which would pose a much more direct challenge to their economic and political control. Give each religious/racial "community" leader their fiefdom and they'll keep their own house in order, allowing the government elite to continue with their profits.

Of course their problem is that they're feeding (with financial support and legitimacy) the very same factions that will inevitably give rise to challenges to their own power, so they have to rap them on the knuckles with the ISD every now and then. But they won't be able to do this forever - and there is the danger the PAP itself will be assimilated into fundamentalism or increasingly pressured to give way to it on substantive matters, which amounts to the same thing - and if we want to avoid theocracy (creeping or sudden) an openly pluralist, secularist, human-rights based challenge needs to be cultivated pronto.

Rony Tan and the State - 4 - "A national narrative of harmony and stability"

I've been thinking about this in terms of the government preference for a national narrative of harmony and stability, rather than diversity and non-violence. I think it was Cat in the Cream who pointed out during our conversation that to the ISD, what they were doing was indeed clamping down and enforcing harmony/stability to arrest any possible slide down the slope to non-violence. And either Badly Drawn Pig or The Terrierist who noted that many old-guard politicians remember the days when dissent was followed by violence, and the new generation that'll take over has been schooled in and become comfortable in this framework of justifications for policing public discourse.

When the system is set up to enforce surface harmony rather than allow people and groups who disagree to express themselves up to the point of violence or incitement thereof, then people like Rony Tan's followers muttering about their preacher being a persecuted martyr, and people like Oh My Goat wondering whether she'll suffer any backlash from criticizing a religious practice, even one that might originate from a faith should she belong to. Or do people just buy into the prevention-is-better-than-cure approach?

Rony Tan and The State - 3 - "Valid criticism of religious or religion-adjacent practices"

This isn't the first time I've heard this anti-Buddhism, anti-Taoism spiel. I've heard it at least once before during a talk in school specifically aimed at how homosexuality is an abhorrence. It's probably a lot more common than we may realise for some churches to disparage other religions in their efforts to convince their flock that they have chosen the right path.

I think it was a good thing that he was asked to retract his statements. That was a massive amount of misinformation he was spreading to his flock. In a free world, there would be other ideas to counter this Rony Tan's hateful crap. But I'm not sure all members of his flock seek them out. In that context, it was probably right to make him say "I'm being irresponsible and I should have never said that. That was blatant misinformation on my part."

However, I feel uncomfortable about the "upsetting religious sensitivity" angle. Spreading falsehoods about a religion is one thing. I think valid criticism of religious or religion-adjacent practices must certainly be permitted, yes? I don't think religious beliefs should be considered sufficient in and of themselves to confer legitimacy on suspect practices.

Rony Tan and the State - 2 - "Things will get much, much messier"

We don't have any anti-discrimination laws expressly spelled out (even the wording of our constitution is aspirational on this issue, and does not set out examples of what discrimination etc is). Which is why they've used the Sedition Act.

I guess I don't have an issue against invoking the Sedition Act, because I find the notion that religions be allowed to preach against each other to be fundamentally flawed. But then, I also don't believe in an absolutist concept of truth - which is the basis for such hateful speech anyway: [insert religious text here] says [insert subject of hate speech here] is wrong and therefore it is wrong.

I think it's frightening that people in positions of power are allowed to preach whatever they want regarding the incontrovertible truth of religious ideology with a view to influencing a group of people. Personally, I believe this lays foundations for extremism.

To be honest, I was completely offended by the WAY in which he belittled Taoism (and the concept of karma and the chanting), as if fancying himself some kind of stand up comedian. It was irresponsible and pretty hateful. And given that he has no grasp/understanding of Taoism, on what basis is he making these comments?

I think the reason we don't have anti-discrimination laws is because they don't want to get rid of the discretion not to prosecute. The ISD basically forced him to capitulate and retract all his hateful crap and apologise thereby appeasing the groups he maligned, as well as keeping the Christians' persecution complex at bay. I'm pretty sure the ISD called up Derek Hong during the AWARE issue, because I don't think he apologised out of the goodness of his heart or anything. I don't think the ISD is attacking the freedom of association or religion in this regard - I think they're saying "Look here, you can preach but stay out of purporting to be an expert on other religions kthxbye". While it does seem paternalistic, I think it might actually be a better alternative to prosecuting this guy, as would be the case if we had anti-discrimination laws (even then, who's to say the ISD won't be involved? Usually they don't trumpet their involvement - this was an anomaly!)

Just my view on things lah, I think if you start prosecuting people for irresponsible proselytising things will get much, much messier.

Rony Tan and the State - 1 - "The enemy of my enemy"

This is slightly tricky one for me.

On the one hand, I have no issue with anti-discrimination laws that spell out protection against hate-speech, or mete out greater penalty for hate-related crimes. As we here at the Barn ARGUE. ALL. THE. TIME, spouting and hearing shit unchallenged is the very reason people feel justified to hate, which ultimately underpins all the violence and harassment we face at hand. As Sparky notes on the puzzlement that the mothership of Focus on the Family expressed when they found out that their teachings were being propped up as the intellectual apparatus that motivated Uganda's deathly anti-homosexuality bill:

And, as we've seen before with Rick Warren, the Family and others who are up to their evil eyes in this particular vileness, they are now all shocked, SHOCKED, that their hate filled words could have encouraged such an awful awful thing.

Even accepting their protests as sincere (and I really really don't, because it's beyond belief that someone can espouse such hatred and then be shocked at the result), even accepting that they never ever imagined this could happen - well, what did they expect? How can they be shocked that constantly attacking gays, accusing us of preying on children, of trying to destroy society, leads to persecution?

...

Hatred does not come from a vacuum. The violent do not appear out of thin air. There is no mystery behind those that attack and hurt and kill us.

It comes from us, our society, our leaders, our culture, our language and our very selves. We have value - but that will never be acknowledged - that will never be truly BELIEVED - while there are so many voices that devalue us.

Hate will never stop until we stop saying, in a hundred ways, every day that hate is ok.

And so long as we keep saying hate is ok, we are responsible when that hatred leads to ruined lives.

On that count, I'm angered by what Pastor Tan has said and continues to say.

On the other hand, I do think invoking the Sedition Act and invoking police action as most foul, and I don't like how this has played out for Pastor Tan too.

As a free-thinker who has had personal investments in various faith in the past, I don't actually think it's wrong of religions to preach against each other, since fundamentally each more or less already believes itself humanity's answer to attaining peace. But I also do not think that arguing the superiority or rightness of one's religions needs precludes also arguing against violence or intolerance of any sort at the same time. People should be entitled to believe shit, preaching and saying shit should be challenged. But is the Act really the right sort of "challenge" to be up against?

I'm of the belief that the Act is crafted and employed more to force EVERYONE into acquiesce under a rather troubling paternalistic rule. If anything, the Act poses more problems for liberals attaining freedom, often in service of preventing a punishing spectre of civil war, race/religion inspired riot, etc. Using this legislative pressure tactic to demand an already fearful culture to cede more freedoms, often beginning with the attainment of a voice to speak, I think, is plain awful for all. I am not entirely naïve to believe that I live in a problem-free country where people are so mild that emotional and physical abuse is not enacted on some LGBTQ person everyday, but I simply don't think moving the masses into a darker age by keeping shit under wrap is the way to go.

Not discounting that Rony Tan was indeed an asshat for holding and saying those things (I'm not even entirely convinced by his apologies), and in another time and space perhaps warrants penalty, but I think in this scenario, and strictly for this Singaporean context, his strongest detractors are just using tools of a greater enemy to inflict wounds on another enemy. The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, and I'd much rather not have to succumb to employing a strategy meant to hurt me as well on another person.

The equal-opportunist, fight-fire-with-fire, schadenfreude-lite approach to this worries me. In the same way it frightens me that some people's solution to the denigrative objectification of women is in the objectification of men, or the parallel of attempts to outlaw militant Islamic extremism by banning the Muslim veil. Ultimately piling on shit on more people doesn't make the already hurt hurt less, what it does instead is present a net increase in the amount of shit on a net increase in the number of victims.

So count me in on calling out Pastor Tan on his disinformation, but please count me out of rallying for State embargo. The last thing I need is for him to be or feel remotely martyred.

Preamble: The misadventures of Rony Tan.

The animals at the Barn took time away from farm duties to attend an on-going roundtable discussion on the subject of Rony Tan, the governmental actions that have either already been taken, or are currently lobbied against him, and whether we think he should be allowed the right to think and speak how ever controversially he wishes on how ever sensitive, highly politicised a topic. Proceedings are being put together as posts and will be published over the weekend. This is a preamble.

How does one begin?

RONY. FUCKTART. TAN.

That's the founding senior pastor of Lighthouse Evangelism Church who's been making headlines over the last two weeks. He quickly established himself as a bonafide asshole who aggrieved the Taoist and Buddhist communities in Singapore when videos of his rather unpalatable sermons surfaced on the internet. The sucker punch, however, came in the form of an extremely public invitation from our lovely Internal Security Department (ISD) for Pastor Tan to join them for tea and scones. All this ended in removal of said videos, apologies, woeful sermon of regret, and other double-taking that all ran rather openly. Now his words on gay people are haunting him, as two film-makers have lodged a police report against him, ostensibly in hope of invoking aspects of the Sedition Act even if the Act is written to only protect racial and religious harmony. He has since come out to stand by and defend his position on homosexuality, "I’ve said nothing wrong, you know. Like I said, my stand is with the average person and the Government."

Here are some choice quotes that I've managed to dig up so that you can have a rough idea of what was uttered:

On religion; responding to a parishioner, Rita's experience with Buddhism:

[4:51 onwards]

Ok, now, here I pause again to, you know, let you all know that, when we talk about religions; false religions, we are not just talking about a set of teachings. We are talking about the spiritual world. we are talking about satan and his demons,coming into people's mind and dropping ideas like that, to get us away from ...

When rita was seriously, you know, in this religion, the demonic power would supernaturally put some ideas in her mind, and the same demonic power, you cannot see, put the same kind of thoughts into the Tibetan monk. So when they check up the facts, it's the same. It dazzles us. but if you were to look behind the scene, it is a cheap david copperfield trick, nothing more, nothing more, you understand? So conclusion, there's no truth in reincarnation.

...

When Buddha was dying, do you know what he said to his disciples? "I'm still searching for the way..."

[Grunts to suggest last breath, then steps forward.]

And Jesus comes, "I am the way." (Source)

On homosexuality:

What Pastor Rony Tan of Lighthouse Evangelism thinks about gays and lesbians from Kenneth Tan on Vimeo.

Don’t believe all those loud-mouthed gay people who tell you they are born this way... If we don’t warn people against this, then there will be more and more homosexuals... Many of these people will be harrassing and seducing young boys, and they in turn will become homosexuals... Half the world will be homosexual! Proper sex means life — it propagates life. Lesbianism and homosexuality simply mean death and barrenness... If you allow [homosexuality], next time people will want to get married to monkeys. And they will want rights. They’ll want to apply for HDB. With a donkey or a monkey or a dog and so on. It’s very pathetic. (Source)

You can see why animals and people alike have gotten prettttty upset with him. Yet, should we play Volitaire and defend his right to speak even if we gravely disagree with him?

Lest you too are the curious sort, you can view copies of the videos pertaining to religious insult here. Pastor Tan has beseeched that copies of the video be taken down as well, but I personally find this forced erasure/ amnesia of mistakes frankly stupid. I'm glad copies are floating around so that we can be constantly reminded of how horrible he was, even if those who took offense have since forgiven him.

Public service announcement from AWARE: "It's your space!"

(AWARE ZoCard, circa 2002.)

It's your space!

Public contact cannot be avoided but sometimes you may feel someone has come too close and made you angry, or upset you by saying something about your body or touching you without permission. It's a criminal act that only you can stop.

[On the back of the card] If you have been a victim of sexual harassment, or you know someone who may be a victim, we're here to help. You have the right to say no. Call us at 1800 774 5935. [Phone number still functional.]

It's 2010! It's real shitty that any of this has to be repeated at all, or even ever to begin with.

Addenda and Clarifications

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it." and "Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences".]

Having done some holiday pondering and mental pontification, this turkey feels that perhaps some clarifications are in order to better understand the posts below on accusations of sexual offences and the procedures which are subsequently followed (particularly in light of the comments on the posts below).

What the ST article does not make clear (and these are woeful omissions) is that:

(1) an accusation per se is not tantamount to a conviction;

(2) an accusation does not inexorably lead to prosecution;

(3) in the context of a nightclub (i.e. dark, all-round diminished faculties due to inebriation, two total strangers etc) does not provide conducive conditions for fact-finding and evidence-gathering.

In relation to (3), what the article glaringly fails to point out is the potential for abuse by both parties - both the alleged offender as well as the alleged victim. The article's primary failure is its angle - that there is a "trend" of evil, wanton, trollopy women whose sole motivation in accusing men of molest/OM is to recover some form of compensation.

In mainly interviewing lawyers who have represented these alleged offenders, the article ends up painting these men as wholly innocent. But what has been omitted is this: there possibly has been no fact-finding; no completed investigations. At this stage, one cannot decide guilt or innocence. There simply is no proof, which is the problem of nightclubs, and other situations where the evidence boils down to Him vs. Her.

(And more importantly, the cardinal principle of legal ethics: a lawyer must always act in his/her client's best interests. That is to say, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a lawyer will assume and profess the innocence of his/her client.)

And therein lies the conundrum (as contained in the soundbite from Prof. Hor appended at the end of the article). The fact that the men coughed up money proves nothing - it sheds no light on their actual motivations. At the end of the day, I do feel that the likelihood that the composition was to avoid prosecution is at least equal to the likelihood of the victims not wishing to re-live the incident.

But perhaps, what could (and perhaps would?) tilt the balance is that at the end of the day, character evidence against the female victim is admissible, and will be duly considered.

Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences.

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it." and "Addenda and Clarifications".]

Following the barn's porcine lash-out at Straits Time's festive helping of victim-blaming, our resident spectral turkey has risen from her resting place to grace us with her netherworldly visions of the difficulties in the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences, including molest: (I channel The Poultrygeist's spirit to reproduce this in full)

Let me tell you what happens when a woman accuses a guy of molest:
 
1. Woman makes police report.
 
2. Police investigate
 
3. In deciding whether to charge him with an offence, they produce their findings and evidence procured in the course of investigation to a prosecutor at the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC).
 
4. The prosecutor looks through all the evidence and again interviews the victim.  This interview involves detailed questions including some which are very personal.  This is to assess the relative strength of the evidence and the veracity of the victim's version of the story.
 
5. The prosecutor will also inform the victim the sort of questions she will face from the Defence Counsel (i.e. the accused person's counsel) at trial.  These can include questions which throw suspicions on the victim's morals (i.e. past sexual history, conduct at the time of the alleged offence - whether skanky clothes were worn so as to "tempt" the dude - etc). 
 
6. Based on the victim's answers and any corroboration with all other relevant evidence, the police will then charge the offender.
 
7. Only then will this matter go to Court.
 
So really, I think it is quite apparent that there is no question of "easy money".  If the evidence is not strong, there is no way this matter can proceed to conviction.  The victim in the case of molest has to answer several detailed questions on exactly how the incident occurred several times: to the police, the prosecutor and eventually the defence counsel.
 
If the claim is frivolous on the evidence, the matter cannot proceed.
 
I also don't believe that victims "demand" compensation.  Usually, the alleged offender will offer compensation for their own reasons.  This is in my mind immaterial.
 
As someone who has faced drunken molestation and heckling in clubs and other public places several times, I can tell you that it's demeaning, embarrassing and offensive.  It's not something I would wish to re-live over and over again.  Actually much rather than prosecute, I would prefer to resoundingly bitch slap the mofo there and then.  How a victim chooses to proceed should be up to her. 
 
That's my two cents.

Oh and I must add: it is open to the defence to ask any question and make any statement that can cause aspersions on the victim's moral character.  There is nothing to stop them from doing so.  This is more true in cases of rape.

[/End channeling.]

Adding to this, Oh My Goat says, "Character evidence is admissible though, I'm quite certain of that - no "rape shield" or an equivalent that I know of in Singapore. Any wonder why composition seems to be a much less traumatising alternative?"

Quit selling us vengeful wives and entrapment schemes, you hear now, fear-mongering media honchos?

BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it.

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences" and "Addenda and Clarifications".]

No, that's not really what was said. Instead, what we have today is "More women say: touch me, pay me".


(Image scanned from Straits Times, 24 December 2009, P A10.
Hover for ST Online image tag.)
Indeed, in its neverending quest to introduce insightful and/or exciting journalism and opinion FAIL to readers, The New Paper The Straits Times decides to play the wildly popular Womenz Iz Hysterically Wily, Money-Grubbing card. This Christmas Eve Special Edition comes complete with resplendent trimmings of a mood picture; spanning half a broadsheet, it really conveys our humanity's eternal battle of the sexes--men dodging women scorned, rational reason vs irrational emotion, advancing dude vs his coy mistress.

You can read the whole art-icle after the cut, but here's my male, unfeminist, pigheaded summary in pointed fashion:

• Opening hook: Honorable Professional (engineer) claims to have paid 8K out-of-court settlement to 23 year-old woman who accused him of molesting her in a club.
  
  
• Lawyers claim that more cases of molestation have come up and are settled out of court, and -gasp- defendants are paying "more cash" as well.
  
  
• Worries that milking men with molestation claims has become a full-time occupation by Wily Womenz. (I kid, though not really.)
  
  
• Not one, not two, but SIXXXXXX lawyers corroborate that drunk men are being accused by women in their early 20s (because early 20s need money, yo, for erm.... Their Louis Vuitton up-keeping?!?) of molestation!
  
  
• Men claim to settle "to avoid the saga", even though they're drunk and don't actually remember manhandling the plaintiffs.
  
  
• Accusations normally happen in the wee hours of the morning, and accused are normally alone.
  
  
• Local lawyer-cum-clairvoyant Subhas Anandan "believes that there are so-called 'victims' out there trying to make easy money".
  
  
• Local arbiter of modesty-to-cash exchange rates cum lawyer, Radakrishnan said some compensatory sums are "extortionate sums of between $20,000 and $50,000".
  
  
• All examples accused are of Nice Guys™, decent, high-profile/ paying Honorable Profession, like engineer, CEO of listed company, dentist, OBGY, etc.
  
  
• Lawyers want a registry of victims to be set up, so that "it's not the same people who make these claims" as gatekeeper and local Batman-of-molestation-crimes-cum-lawyer Ravinderpal Singh will ensure that women who get molested once will be personally protected from ever being sexually assaulted again.
  
  
• Divination Masters cum lawyers opine that The Real Victims are usually those who [a] don't want money, [b] demand public apology, and/or [c] "insist on their day in court, no matter what".

The world in which Straits Times resides, is sadly empty of barnyard realities of women such as: women in their early 20s being an immensely big demographic of club-goers; the key demographic of club-goers (not to mention, young women) may naturally receive the most inappropriate attention from people; they may not take your being abused without a fight because they know better or want to stand up for themselves; they may naturally be the most reported victims of abuse; young (or old) women may possess the right to determine for themselves what is appropriate or inappropriate social contact, bodily or otherwise, from anyone; they may also possess the spirit of confidence, self-esteem, sense of justice and self-worth, to decide *she* deserves high reparations for her outraged modesty; she can decide for herself whether or not she wants to bring her perpetrator to court or seek compensatory justice equivocal to her sense of self-worth; a compensated victim of molest, sexual assault, abuse, violence is not impervious to repeated attacks.

In the world in which Straits Times resides, drunk men who don't remember if they behaved badly are given the benefit of the doubt because they're estimable men of great professions (freed any child rapists lately, yo?), and were just reduced to boys behaving as boys. (Drunk women, on the other hand, are obviously just asking for it.) And any woman who would put a high price to her abuse because she highly values her personhood is... erm... a victim of her own self-esteem, worth, and sense of justice.

In this very sad world outside of the barn, women remain the sex class whose bodily ownership must always be within reach of men's favour.

In this wo... Ah, FUCK YOU LA STRAITS TIMES!

+++

People We Love: M Ravi & the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign.

Our Barnyard Engineer had a month ago highlighted an interview between Singapore Democratic Party and AWARE founding member, Constance Singam, from the SDP's "Let's Talk" series with Chia Li Tik. This time, SDP speaks with a personal hero of mine, M Ravi, a human rights lawyer who's probably the frontrunner in championing against mandatory death penalty in the Singapore legal system.

On-going is a fight against the death sentencing of drug mule Yong Vui Kong, 21, who three years ago was caught at the causeway between Malaysia and Singapore. Yong, a Malaysian, was sentenced to death because Singapore has insanely strict laws regarding drug trafficking. (Seriously, a 17 year old doesn't even possess voting rights, but the court thinks it's okay to put one on the road to the gallows!?) He was actually supposed to be hanged last Friday, but Ravi has come out to successfully argue for Yong's case to be open to appeal--Yong had initially waived thinking he would should just face unchallenged realities--and will represent Yong during the appeal. It's also important to note that Ravi was not Yong's original lawyer.

From the interview, Ravi comments on the key problem with the mandatory death sentence in Singapore:

The starting point here is not just death penalty per se. What we are dealing with here in Singapore is mandatory death sentence. That is the judge, who is passing the death sentence, cannot look into the extenuating circumstances of the individual when there are mitigating circumstances which are available, where he can set aside the death sentence and offer life imprisonment. So that takes away the vital essence of judicial making, which is discretion. And that discretion is unfortunately given to the President, who has hardly given any clemency for the umpteenth years that we know.

And on how Ravi was spurred into his work in the area of human rights and the death penalty:

There was one day I received a call from Mr JB Jeyaretnam. He felt so aggrieved on account of his client, you could hear the outrage of his voice over the phone. He said this particular case, which involves the death penalty involving a 22 year-old Malaysian boy, had already run its course. Meaning it has gone to the Court of Appeal, it has already reached the clemency stage, and clemency was already denied. The courts just said, look we can't reopen the case because the matter is already concluded, the court does not have the power to reopen the case which has run its course. To which I asked the CJ [Chief Justice], are you then saying that an innocent man can be hanged in Singapore just because of procedural matters? That means you can't reopen the case even if the man is innocent? The Chief Justice just replied, "Yes, the answer is yes." When I looked at that reply, it just shook my conscience beyond belief.

Please watch the rest of the interview to hear Ravi speak on why drugs shouldn't be given the death penalty, the problem with check and balances between the "three arms of the state", and on the Singapore Law Society, and the need for lawyers to speak up.

Lastly, follow also activist, Rachel Zeng's, heartwrenching account of Yong's final meeting his mother behind a glass panel because apparently death row inmates are deemed undeserving human touch from their loved ones by our prisons. Zeng, artist Seelan Palay, and art educator Lucy Davis are all members of the Singapore Anti-Death Penalty Campaign, the very good people who brought us the World Day Against the Death Penalty Forum.

I humbly extend my Awesome Possum salute to all of them, and wish Yong the best in his fight against the death penalty.

Public Service Announcement: No To Rape Petition Ending!

Following our badly drawn friend's post on seeking immediate help for rape, I'm reminded to make a belated public service announcement.

Firstly, on behalf of all the friends on the farm, I would like to give thanks to the good people at No To Rape for both their efforts in forwarding the important cause of recognising marital rape, and giving us a blog mention.

We on the farm are very honoured to be able to forward conversations on rape culture extant in Singapore--a phenomenon that has really caught us by surprise and disturbed us when it finally reared its unabashedly ugly, misogynistic and abhorrent head since the campaign caught the attention of the Singapore blogosphere.

Secondly, No To Rape will end its petition come 30 November 2009, Monday. That's just three days left for us to spread the message! Please visit the site and sign the petition if you haven't already. (Make sure your friends, family and pets have done it too!)

I reproduce all three of their advertisement videos:





SIGN PETITION!

What to do if you're raped in Singapore.

ETA 23 July 2011: We regret to inform that Police Posts at the hospitals have been removed (cf. Straits Times, 15 July 2011, "All 6 hospital police posts closed down", Mavis Toh).
=====

In this Porkchop's continued badly drawn efforts to bring you information you might need in case of emergency, I'm going to provide some porcine-weight, choi-ke-lei resources on seeking help in the event of rape or sexual assault, for all women and girls in Singapore.

Rape and sexual assault victims, I think, mostly don't think or know that they're going to be victimised like that. So it can happen to anyone.

A-N-Y-O-N-E!

I'll begin by first revisiting some knowledge shared by Ms Braema Mathi of the estimable Marauh in one of the videos by the No To Rape people, which strangely hasn't seen much circulation from the campaign:

It is important... to be timely and to keep evidence. Don't immediately have a bath. The natural instinct is to scrub yourself clean. Try and call a friend quickly, go to the doctor. Best to go to an emergency unit, because if you go to a GP, from a GP again you have to go to an emergency department.

Once you enter the hospital system, it is very good. The emergency doctors been trained. most hospital you will notice have a little police post [Ed: Please see update above] there... The link will be made. We have a rape investigation squad within the police force. And you'll find that the link will go back to the investigation squad and a lady will come up.

1) Kandang Kerbau (KK) Women's and Children's Hospital. Go To KKH immediately if you can.

Singapore's KKH specialises in WOMEN'S and children's health and support. A cursory search of their website reveals that they boost an "emergency obstetric & gynaecological consultations at KK Hospital's Women's 24-Hour Clinic". They also have a Medical Social Work that offers crisis intervention to "deal with trauma cases such as sexual assault, spousal violence, child abuse and attempted suicide".

Already, a lot of hospitals refer patients to KKH for when they need expert help in dealing with women health issues, so it is this Porkchop's conjecture that KKH will be the best place to seek help, though any emergency ward near would be just as good.

2) Get to the hospital! The point is to get into the hospital system quickly, so that the victim can quickly get the support and help she needs.

3A) Declare, Disease and Document. Declare the assault, check for disease and document all injuries.

In order for the medical professionals and social services to help effectively, victims are going to need to trust the system. It's going to be tough getting this to come out, but learn now that victims must tell the medical professionals what happened in no uncertain terms; even professionals need reminding since they don't receive rape victims every day. Declare the assault, demand tests for sexually transmitted diseases, and request that all your injuries and tests be documented so that evidence is kept as well.

3B) Emergency Contraceptive. EC, also known as the morning-after pill.

Our commenter kindly reminds us EC should be on the table. (We're not sure if these are offered to victims, but they are inexpensive and quite reliable if administered within a 72 hour post-incident window. Obviously, the sooner the better. [Hattip anonymous reader!]

Again, this is a very difficult process to undertake after suffering the trauma of assault, so I highly recommend thinking about the next idea.

4) Find The Friend. Establish some informed support points.

A radical idea for all my female hairless apes earth inhabitants, talk to one or two close friends or family members about emergency situations. Make a pact, who will help you, what must be done (e.g. where to seek help, 'Declare, Disease and Document', etc) and entrust each other to provide the immediate support you need if something bad happens. Under these dire circumstances, it might be better to depend on The Friend to take the necessary steps for you.

Increasingly we make deals with spouses and friends about death and incapacitation arrangements, so consider this another contingency.

5) Marital Rape. Report your having been assaulted anyway!

Even if marital rape is still not a fucking crime in Singapore, the medical experts and police can and probably will collect all the evidence and statements they need so that they may find other ways to nail the perpetrator. Though the obvious barrier will be actually mustering the power to reveal the information first.

6) Confidentiality. Your information will be kept confidential.

Medical and law enforcement agents are bound by a duty of confidentiality, so trust that what you tell them will be kept absolutely confidential.

+++

KK Hospital Women's and Children's Hospital
100 Bukit Timah Road
Main Line (24-hrs) - (65) 6293 4044

+++
Social Service for Violence

If you're experiencing family/ spousal violence of any sorts and need assistance, please contact these people:

Centre for Promoting Alternatives to Violence (PAVe)

Blk 211 Ang Mo Kio Ave 3 #01-1446 Singapore 560211

Operating Hours:
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays: 9.00am - 6.00pm
Wednesdays: 9.00am - 9.30pm (6.30pm - 9.30pm by appointment only)
Saturdays, Sundays & Public Holidays: Closed

Tel : 6555 0390
Email : admin@pavecentre.org.sg

+ OR +

Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE)

Block 5 Dover Crescent #01-22, Singapore 130005

Tel : 6779 7137
Helpline : 1800-774-5935 (Mon-Fri, 1500hrs to 2130hrs)
Email : helpline@aware.org.sg

+++
Personal Protection Orders (PPO)

You can take out a PPO at the Magistrate Court or at one of the other 4 link centres. Learn more about taking out the PPO. I can't quite figure out the fee system, except that it's $1 for each summon issuance, but if I recall correctly, Minister of Law, Associate Professor Ho Peng Kee, claimed that it should be about 8 dollars to file a PPO.

From the website:

"If you have any police or medical reports, you should bring these with you. However, you do not need to have copies of such reports to file an application for a personal protection order."

"The Protection Order Services unit will arrange for the personal service of the summons on the Respondent by a Court process server at the address provided by you in your Magistrate’s Complaint."

+++

Be kind, pass this along to a friend or family member, and be well.

No worries there, my friend

In the Straits Times Forum, Marcus Foo worries that "'consent' [will] trump what society perceives as morally bad behaviour":

I REFER to Mr Alvin Chen's letter last Monday, 'Give courts more sentencing discretion'. This was in response to Mr Vikram Ranjan Ramasamy's letter, 'Decriminalise consensual underage sex' (Nov 13).

Allowing 'consent' to trump what society perceives as morally bad behaviour is to undermine society's right to enforce its moral determinations. This was an issue that Lord Patrick Devlin addressed his mind to in his essay, The Enforcement Of Morals.

He speaks, of course, of the current hot topic of kiddies bonking (on which see also Badly Drawn Pig and my all-important Magical reminder to adults, "Don't fuck children.")

Marcus is bothered by the possibility that our society prizes sexual consent too highly, to the extent that morally dubious practices will be sanctified in its name.

But he really needn't fret. A large strand of Singaporean society fails entirely to grasp the idea that the flesh of the Magical Chicken is to be directed by the will of the Magical Chicken alone. This incomprehension expresses itself not only in Marcus Foo's inability to describe the puzzling and unreal concept of "consent" without quotation marks, but also in our Penal Code.

Mostly the Penal Code quite sensibly tells adults not to fuck children, but it makes some exceptions to this, which the No To Rape blog lays out in lawyerspeak with nifty bolding:

(1) Section 376A(4), which grants immunity from this offence when a girl under the age of 16 says “yes” to sex with her husband.

(2) Section 376A(5), which grants immunity from this offence, even in situations where a 13-, 14- or 15-year-old girl has said “no” to her husband.

Get that? It's okay to fuck your 13 year old wife with consent. It's also okay to fuck your 13 year old wife without consent. In other words, consent means fuck-all.

Far from consent "trumping" morally bad behaviour, what we see here is the almighty and unquestionable right of the husbandly penis to access the wifely vagina trumping any idea of consent. A mere weeping girl-child won't stop a man from having his due.

So Marcus Foo needn't worry that bodily autonomy is anywhere but in its rightful, subordinate place in Singapore.

What he really should worry about is his own tendency to write torturously overlong sentences like this:

Alternatively, if one can show that as a matter of statistical probability, sexual activity at this age results in an aversion to deepening the commitment of a relationship via the institution of marriage, or that it affects an individual's psyche in the perception of the value of commitment, then in so far as the institution of marriage or the value of commitment is regarded as a moral good that society embraces, one could also find oneself somewhat persuaded that the law should remain.

Not only do I vigorously withhold my consent from this painful contortion of the English language, I also deem it morally bad.

"A response to atrocity denied"

In her essay Women's Status, Men's States, Catharine MacKinnon writes about human rights as "a response to an atrocity denied".

She could very easily have been writing about discussions of marital rape in Singapore. I've Magically added bold bits. Watch out, it's a lot of text.

Before atrocities are recognized as such, they are authoritatively regarded as either too extraordinary to be believable or too ordinary to be atrocious. If the events are considered socially unusual, the fact that they happened is denied in specific instances; if they are regarded as usual, the fact that they are violating is denied: if it's happening, it's not so bad, and if it's really bad, it isn't happening. The given status of a certain people is seen as tautologous with, even justified by, the deprivations of their human rights. Law often collaborates by making an unusual or extreme form of a common violation illegal, so that what is illegal almost never happens, yet the law appears to stand against the violation. Victims are thereby ideologically rendered appropriate to their treatment, the unequal treatment serving to confirm their ontological status as lesser humans. When nothing is done, the treatment, and social status accordingly, confirm and create who one is. Legally, one is less than human when one's violations do not violate the human rights that are recognized. Acts common in human experience, such as rape in war and rape in peace, have been beneath serious notice because they are so familiar, while acts that are uncommon, like the Nazi's industrial murder and the Serbs' industrial rape, have been beyond belief. While disbelief and associated impunity reign, the violated are--systematically and effectively speaking--rendered not fully human legally or socially. When and where this denial is overcome the rights against the extreme and the normal are recognized, the treatment is defined as inhuman and the victims human. Women are in the midst of this process.

Did you catch all that? Familiar, isn't it? Many opponents of No To Rape argue:

All men regularly fuck their wives without consent (it's the only way sex could happen, with those selfish bitches), so it's no big deal - how dare the state intrude in the bedroom! ("if it's happening, it's not so bad")

Only rape with further accompanying violence counts as rape, and that is both vanishingly rare and already comprehensively dealt with; ("if it's really bad, it's not happening")

The law already acts against all those rapes where women employed telepathic powers and their infinite legal savvy to get a protection order prior to the rape happening. ("Law [...] collaborates by making an unusual or extreme form of a common violation illegal")

The reason why they make these arguments is that in their view there is no need for the law to treat the rape of women as the punishable violation of human beings. In their view, women are not fully human. Moreover, they make the arguments specifically in order to maintain a law which prevents women from obtaining fully human status in society.

This is why many of them bring up Geylang at every conceivable opportunity. Because that goes to the interest of an actual human being in the equation, i.e. a man. What's really important here, and needs protection, is the male right to ejaculate, whenever he chooses, into a vagina. That the vagina happens, typically, to be attached to a woman, with all sorts of troublesome notions about wishing to control her own body, is perceived by them as unfortunate and inconvenient. And they want the law to continue to agree.

"It's basically kids having sex".

Nov 1, 2009
Straits Times
When teens have sex...
Such cases involving teens who are in love are hard to prosecute, says Attorney-General
By Shuli Sudderuddin

SHOULD teens in love be prosecuted if they have underage sex?

There is no easy answer here.

Other cases involving underage sex — for example, when one party is an adult — may have a clear-cut answer, but teen cases are hard to prosecute, said Attorney-General Walter Woon.

“It’s basically kids having sex.What do you do if the couple think they’re in love? It’s less easy if the girl consents,” he noted.

[...]

Professor Woon listed four types of underage sex.

The first is when the perpetrator is an adult and the victim does not consent; the second, when the perpetrator is an adult and the victim consents; and the third, when the perpetrator is under 18 and the victim does not consent.

But it is the fourth type — when both participants are underage and have consensual sex — that is complicated. Prof Woon referred to this type as ‘Category 4’ cases.

Since both parties are young and in a consensual relationship, taking them to court can be traumatic for everyone involved.

He cited the case of a 15-year-old boy who got his underage girlfriend pregnant. “The problem is, do we send the boy to jail? What good would that do?” said Prof Woon.

He said that in the case of a relationship that is consensual or long- term, the law usually leans towards warning, as opposed to prosecuting, offenders.

“You need to balance this against the outrage that the girl’s family may feel. They may feel humiliated and taken advantage of, and may ask why we are being so lenient with this fellow.”

He said it is very hard to make rules to deal with such cases as each must be looked at individually.

Prof Woon noted that the law is a “blunt instrument” as it forces the boy to think twice and take responsibility for his actions — by making sex with a girl under 14 illegal and indefensible.

He said: “It is not easy and this is where the non-governmental organisations, the community services play a part. The judges cannot do very much by themselves. Sending them to jail per se will not make them reflect on their lives. That is the last thing that is going to happen. But good or ill, this is the framework that we have.”

(Full article.)

This underage sex thing is indeed complicated.

If a minor has sex with an adult, the adult likely lands in prison. If an underage girl has sex with an underage boy, the boy gets reformative training and probation. (I'm not up-to-speed with the laws of Singapore in this area, but I believe that a boy younger than the girl will nevertheless end up in hotter soup.)

I wholly support maintaining our statutory rape laws between adult and minor, and I do also agree that the law needs reform on consensual sex between consensual minors. So here, I applaud Attorney General, Professor Walter Woon's enlightened view that "It's basically kids having sex".

(I take my hat off, Dear Sir.)

In terms of adult-minor sex, I echo Magical Chicken generally: adults, please "don't fuck children". Their innocence is theirs to own and develop in cadence with their peers, not with or for you. Regardless of whether or not a minor is always offering his/her daisies and asks to take the adult's sunflowers, it is an adult responsibility to avoid all that deflowering. Society and this male unfeminist pig, in fact, expects the adult to not only understand the problem but also lead by example, or at the very least exercise some restraint.

So if an adult decides to breach the law, then you prove yourself irresponsible and incapable of dealing with the greaters freedoms afforded to you. Ergo, should arguably be put out of circulation for a while.

Capish?

The way our current law has been framed is that people below 16 have the least life experience, education, maturity, etc to make an informed *enough* decision to do right or wrong about somethings. That compassionate stance is, I think, great. They are also rightly deemed most susceptible to influence by someone older, given the nature of our very limiting and limited older-(often adult)-mentor/ young-mentee socialising at that age. These young people are therefore afforded the least political and rights and access, which is why we cede a lot of proxy to parents and guardians. It also explains why we do not trust our young'ns to, for example, drive, carry arms, or *consent* to sex.

Statutory rape laws begin from the place where minors cannot even give any real consent, which also means that they cannot really initiate sex as well. Yet in this folly olympics between an underage boy and underage girl, it is often the boy held culpable. There're reasons for this bias like biological consequences (e.g. pregnancy) that have very severe consequnces for women--harking back to their health and our institutional control over their bodies, although I suspect much of it stems from people's unholy obsession with women's virginity. For most scenarios, I highly doubt crucifying the boy (or girl) will improve anything.

I think folly of youth should be treated as exactly that: the folly of youth, in all its celebrations and lamentations. Young people aren't impervious to love, sexual impulses or curiosity. Regardless of what our laws and schools tell them, they're going to fall in love, and some of them are going to touch each other's flowers. Instead of automatically exerting reformative action--suggesting therein that there's something essentially wrong in love at a young age, I think we should encourage them to learn and grow into their adult responsibilities. This will mean that we don't also expect them to turn within seconds from an immature 15 year-old, whose understanding of his/her sexual rights is deemed a legal folly, into a responsible young 16 year-old adult, whose still arguably youthful folly is suddenly and magically worthy of the greater weight of our laws.

This means two things, I think.

Firstly, the law can introduce an age relativity clause allowing, for example, the compassion to be accorded to nuanced pairings. This means that consensual sex between two young people of the same or even a year age gap, are not automatically thrown the litany of reformative action. Although, I will not profess to know what action, if any, they should face; perhaps they need to be sent for all sorts of medical tests to check for diseases or a bud, and then be nagged at for very, very long about the importance of being safe and planning for their future. I really don't know, but I'll revisit this after I've contemplated about it longer.

Secondly, this also forces young people to learn what consent really means. It's deeply regretful that a lot of internet discussions surrounding No To Rape proves that even adults have a hard time grasping the concept of consent. Non-consent or incapacitated, forced or groomed consent by someone else of stronger influence will always be considered rape, which first needs to be investigated, proven and brought to our courts accordingly.

Young people's sexuality education courses, then, can begin from a place where students are not treated as complete imbeciles who have not heard of Teh Interwebz or are unable to give consent responsibly. It can then be programmed to argue the different possibilities, such as contraceptives, other models of sexual engagement/ expressions of love, and even abstinence by their own merits. Averting the sweep-under-carpet hushing that underage sex is just illegal, this then allows us to focus always that respecting mutual-consent, our right to bodily safety and hopes for the future as imperatives, which is a more meaningful if we don't begin first with threats. Hopefully, these young people, who are going to one day be in all sorts of acrobatic positions anyway, will then function in a more enlightened and safer place.

Let's be honest, our 'strong Asian values and culture' of frowning upon sex, emphasis on abstinence, and what-have-you are simply not working. Kids are not only increasingly having sex, but also starting at far earlier ages because every new generation of kids are much more sophisticated than the last--to the chagrin of lot of irrelevant Good 'Ole Days loving elders. This is not to say that, I think, all young people should and will get into an orgy--I have faith a lot of them have other better things to do. The least we, as adult humans and animals, can do is begin to realign ourselves, and see what sorts of new frameworks and lessons we can learn from the young people, and share what relevant experience we have with them.

This male unfeminist pig knows all this is going to sound like an unimaginable, family-wrecking, far-liberal, amoral vision, and that a lot of human beings are all going to go, "We don't want to listen to your pigheaded ideas, because we're not animals!" Well, I can sympathise that it's difficult to be human-headed, otherwise we wouldn't all be suffering from global warming today.

Okay, not a good rebuttal, but please, can just try?

+++
Help: If you are a young person who needs solid advice on your sexual needs, I recommend the non-judgey, neutral and much more enlightened, professional services of AWARE, and especially for gay youths, Oogachaga.

(Speaking for me only. I thank Magical Chicken for the discussions we've previoously had at the barnhouse for some ideas expressed here.)

"Let's get heard".

BREAKING NEWS: No To Rape has a new video!



This badly drawn, gay male unfeminist pig has much disagreement to express:

No to "balanced" arguments suggesting that oppression has validity,
No to believing that women's bodies are not their personal domains to control;
No to always prioritising someone else's life (born or otherwise) before a woman's choice,
No to assuming that the homosex "bottom" role, the receiving end of The Glorious Gherkin, makes one an inferior;
No to thinking that women who are on the receiving end of The Glorious Gherkin are inferior,
No to Penal Code Section 377A,
No to censoring positive LGBTQ material in our local media and education,
No to pretending that the media has no role in moulding minds;
No to pretending that the law cannot protect the interests of the minority despite popular dis(belief);
No to pretending that LGBTQ rights have nothing to do with human rights,
No to arguing that migrant labour and domestic workers Voluntarily choose to work in drastic conditions;
No to always deferring our responsibilities to these migrant workers to someone else,
No to accepting "traditional family values" as the source of all good,
No to the political disempowerment encouraged in Singaporeans,
No to blaming Singlish on bad English;
No to believing the myth that we live in a post-feminist society,
No to using "gay" as a synonym for "stupid/ludicrous",
No to everyday racism that we think is OK since 'no one is hurt',
No to always waiting for someone else to solve our social issues;
No to accepting that 'bread and butter" should always be primed and protected first;
No to ignoring that a lot of these social issues eventually affect your "bread and butter",
No to thinking that meritocracy precludes compassion and empathy.

(This gay male unfeminist pig is unsure if he should be putting this up, because the "Notorapers" haven't done anything at their website, nor have they sent any mailer. But since it's available, I guess it's fair game? Besides, the campaign to repeal Singapore's marital rape immunity told TOC that they'll be releasing a new flick, so I guess they're expecting people to look out for it. Anyway, look at the right side for our email, and I'll remove it.)