Admit impediments

(Confused about the title? See Sonnet 116.)

Faithful visitors to the Barn will know that there is much disquiet among the livestock about the ghastly fetish society has for marriage.

It's a fairly egalitarian fetish, as these things go, shared equally by cranks whose powers are mercifully limited to writing stupid Forum letters and cranks of considerably more influence. Sulthan "Spoilt Princess" Niaz has the benefit of honesty; he at least more or less out-and-out acknowledged that his vision of marriage was unattractive and unpleasant to women. Lee Kuan Yew's "sadness" on behalf of unmarried women (who by his own account are perfectly happy) lacks even that virtue. He just knows, knows, knows, in his infallible bones, that we females* need this thing that we haven't chosen.

And which, according to this excellent article from British newspaper The Guardian, in some developed countries at least, statistically correlates to poorer health and happiness outcomes for women:

In Committed: A Sceptic Makes Peace With Marriage, the follow-up to her international bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert tries to answer why we make such a hash of it. She uncovers sobering facts about what sociologists call the "marriage benefit imbalance", showing that marriage is an institution that greatly benefits men, not women. A partial list: married men live longer than single men; married men accumulate more wealth than single men; married men are far less likely to die a violent death than single men; married men report themselves to be much happier than single men, and married men suffer less alcoholism, drug addiction and depression than single men. [...] But married women versus single? There's more depression, less career success and less good health in married women and, until recently, a greater chance of dying a violent death – usually at the hands of the men they love.

Only last month another study came out of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany which showed that women who are seven to nine years older than their husbands have a 20% higher mortality rate than if they were the same age. Marrying an older man shortens a woman's life span, but having a young husband reduces it even more, the study found.

In Singapore, you can add the fact that most women who contract HIV do so from partners, including husbands, to whom they have been faithful.

I'm not writing this to knock marriage. It works for some people, and we should all be very happy for them. But this universal assumption that it is or should be every woman's goal in life, and the ordering of our cultural and political priorities around that assumption, and the relentless delegitimisation and hounding of women who might choose differently? Those are pure poison.

The Guardian article quotes Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History, as saying, "It is the relationship, not the institution, that is the key."

As all Magical Chickens (global population: 1) like to say, "No shit, Sherlock."


* After the revolution, everytime someone uses "female" as a noun when they mean women and/or girls, they will be given 50 hours of remedial English lessons through the medium of interpretive dance as performed by a troupe of sea slugs. Consider yourself warned.

Filial piety: fine feelings and hard work

Parenting is hard work. If only the Singapore government were as good at recognising that when making policies that have material consequences for parents, as it is in making sappy videos full of fine feelings.

But that, of course, as Funny Little World explains, is the whole point. This video on filial piety is about displacing political responsibility from the government for collective problems that need (to some extent) collective solutions. It promotes a moralising discourse, about the fine feelings we should all supposedly have about our parents (failing to recognise that they might have been wholly abusive, indeed perhaps specifically notwithstanding any abuse), to avoid questions about society's and the government's welfare obligations, about the fair and appropriate distribution of the hard work of eldercare, as between individuals and the state.

We were all ruminating on this in the Barn, prompting the following wisdom from the Complaining Cow:

The ad plays on people's fears about growing old alone and unassisted, a huge source of insecurity in a country without a social welfare system. The idea that it's possible for elderly people to be abusive is generally unrecognised (even though many people have experienced this firsthand in their own family, from what I've been told -- in particular elderly people abusing each other). Such behaviour is seen as 'demanding' and 'unreasonable' at most, but something to be put up with because the way society functions is stacked up against older people, so family members have to be accommodating.

I was thinking about the ad, where the elderly mother says she wants to move out. Personally, I think I would want to have my own household when I'm old (whether or not I have children), and I wonder, in the context of the fictional ad family, why her moving out would be a bad thing for the family? The family in the ad seems to have no choice but have the grandmother live with them. I'm aware there are all sorts of possible reasons: eg if someone for some reason she can't afford their own home anymore, or needs assistance, or does want to live with their child's family but just suffers occasional fits of pique against them, etc.

But these in turn point to problems like homelessness, access to care for mental/physical disability, general accessibility of our built environment to anyone who's not 100% able-bodied; and MCYS's response to that seems to be: have children now so that they'll provide you with these social services FOC when you need them, 'cause we sure as hell ain't going to. Which fucks over everyone who can't or won't have children, or for whatever reason doesn't want to depend on them.

The Cow also raised questions about the other toxic messages packed away in the ad:

Also: what's up with all the other toxic narratives that are peripheral to the ad's intended message but tightly woven into its fabric?! Eg setting up the woman as the primary caregiver of the family in both generations (it wasn't the man's cooking the grandmother was criticising, was it?), framing relations between the woman and her mother-in-law as adversarial, etc.

My Magical eye alighted upon these items too. Not only does the filial piety conversation attempt to displace collective obligations onto individual households, it also (less overtly) displaces collective obligations onto women, in particular, who are assumed to be the ones who should provide free care work for the sake of family togetherness. The stamps of this assumption are all over the video, which is - funnily enough - entitled "Father and Son". There is no indication of what relationship the woman has with her own parents (presumably this is a nod to the notion that they ought to have bothered to have a useful child, i.e. a son and not a daughter, of their own); in fact, there are no daughter-parent relationships portrayed at all. Not only is the work of cooking done by the woman, but also, at the beginning, she goes off to sort out tasks on behalf of the family, while telling her husband and son to stay with her mother-in-law and with each other. The lesson the boy learns is evident in his question: he asks not about the work involved in caring for his grandmother, but about his father's feelings.

The message here is gendered. The fine feelings of filial piety are for men and boys: but the hard work of elder care, which makes the sustenance of those fine feelings possible, is for women and girls.

If we have to watch videos about fathers and son, I think I prefer this ad:

A nation of WTF

I have been roused from my Magical torpor by an unbeatably vile missive from one Sulthan Niaz to, what else, the Straits Times forum. Apparently Singapore is "a nation of spoilt princesses. Lo:

THE Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware) seemed to suggest last Thursday ('Singapore still far behind in true gender equality: Aware') that women are free from blame for the declining birth rate in Singapore.

In Singapore, most parents urge their children to excel in studies and focus on their career. Few prepare their children for the rigours of parenthood.

Many households also employ maids. As a result, our boys and girls grow up lacking parenting skills and are clueless about household chores. The boys, however, have responsibilities forced upon them in the form of national service. Not so the girls. They are free to place personal ambition above all else.

And here begins the flight from Reality to some bizarro fantasy world. I wouldn't mind going there for a while, though; it would have been nice to grow up "free to place personal ambition above all else". I am a wistful Chicken.

Many women choose to remain single because they do not see the need or the urgency to get married. They do not need a man to provide for them and they can always depend on their girlfriends for emotional support. As for sex, few see the need to have it regularly.

If it is the case that women don't see any benefit to themselves to getting married - and it's by no means clear that that's true, otherwise I would no longer be bombarded with nauseating and ridiculously stagey wedding photographs on Facebook - then, Sulthan Niaz, it is for the best that they do not marry. If you are suggesting that all women are obliged to marry even at the cost of their own aspirations, then, well, let me put it this way: it's not feminists here who are presenting it as an institution of oppression, but you. You are arguing, in no uncertain terms, that compulsory marriage must be instituted and must come at the cost of women's happiness. You therefore present, in fact, one of the single biggest arguments against women ever valuing the institution of marriage. Congratulations.

Even when a woman does want to get married, her expectations get in the way. The man must be her 'type'. He must have a great job, good income, be reasonably good-looking and he must also charm her off her feet before she will contemplate marriage.

These frightful harridans, how dare they believe they should marry to get something out of marriage? Clearly, they should marry just because, uhm. Because any man at all has been magnanimous enough to confer legitimacy onto their pathetic female existences - so how dare they want anything like love, or compatibility, or sexual attraction? The unbearable cheek - it's like they think they're people whose feelings and desires actually matter.

Our society glorifies the career woman. Lifestyle and fashion magazines devote pages to tips for the career woman to get ahead. Floors in shopping malls cater exclusively to the needs of these women and credit card and insurance companies vie for their money.

That would explain the predominance of degrading sexual objectification in all that woman-oriented advertising, then. I'm sure the promotions of those things women are relentlessly sold and taught that we require actually further our happiness and well-being instead of trying to drain money out of us by encouraging insecurity and self-hatred. Also, of course this career advantage for women means that businesses all over Singapore and the rest of the feminist-infested world are wholly dominated by women. Of course.

As a result, women are spoilt for choice. Egged on by society, free from national service and reservist obligations and not needing a man, they are totally free to focus exclusively on their careers. Choosing to get married and have children is committing career suicide.

Funny how this "logic" works - so if women did national service and had reservist obligations, we would all be popping them babies out. Absolutely. Err. What?

The conclusion is inevitable. We have raised a nation of 'spoilt princesses' unwilling and unable to handle the rigours of motherhood.

The conclusion is inevitable. You are the most putrid concentration of hatefulness this side of Pluto. Fuck off, and when you've finished fucking off, kindly fuck off again.

Pink Dot: The Story of Jamie Yee.

Our recent thread on the blatant transphobic discrimination against Marla Bendini has drawn some weird commenters out of the woodwork. While it's normally in my nature to ignore and delete, my educator/promoter side thinks this episode also proves a good opportunity to raise a little more awareness on trans people's plight.

Gender and sexuality are very complex aspects of day-to-day living for some of us. Just because we do not see positive and affirming representations of the different sorts of people around leading largely differently lives than the norm doesn't mean that these people are insidious deviants. The media and our larger societal machinery has only so much time to dedicate itself to playing to a wider majority -- we here on the farm obviously think this rather misled.

To begin to fix this, Jamie Yee, a post-op transwoman, bravely came out recently to speak of her own experience in transitioning from her old self to who she is today. In a very touching video (accompanied by an article), in which she is joined by her two very enlightened parents, Jamie and family tell us the struggles they had in coming to terms with Jamie's transgender self. Her story reveals the remarkable power love has in overcoming seeming barriers of complex human life-paths to eventual acceptance and love for another human being.


Speaking of her mother's struggles:

Crucially, however, Jamie’s mother was opening to the idea that her son was really her daughter. Through her own very difficult period, while wrestling with thoughts of suicide, Mrs Yee went for counselling courses. It was there that she began to open up and learn more about diversity in human sexuality.

Transgendered people are individuals who express their gender in a non traditional manner. In Jamie’s case, she was born physically as a man, but sees and expresses herself completely as a woman. In practical terms, she has always been a female, but requires gender reassignment to fully express it.

Mrs Yee knew this. She knew that gender identity issues aren’t easy to deal with, and that family support can help her daughter. “I don’t think they have a choice”, she said, “sometimes they are born in this way, so they need the help and understanding from their family to help them and to believe in them.”

It took a while before Jamie's father learnt to grapple with her need for an operation, and eventually it would be his understanding that regardless of Jamie's complicated gender setup, they "have a child" in Jamie still, and that "I'm her parent, so it's my responsibility to see that she lives and grows as a healthy and happy individual no matter what she may be like. I cannot abandon her."

And we won't abandon our fellow friends of LGBTQ persuasion too, so we'll be at this year's Pink Dot gathering next Saturday, in our glorious pink coats of feathers and fur. Do join us too in promoting the right for people's freedom to love and be loved.

Pink Dot
15 May 2010, Saturday
1700-1830hrs
Hong Lim Park

More information: Facebook Event Page.

"Making Room for Love"

A little bird recently sent me this article from 2001, by architectural writer and LGBT activist Dinesh Naidu, on how unmarried people negotiate physical space to express a little loving.

...

Possibly the most important spatial manifestation of mainstream sexuality norms is found in public housing. Despite 'land scarcity', the State actively facilitates the purchase of affordable homes by all young married couples through the provision of cash grants and subsidised public housing. These policies complement the promotion of heterosexuality, marriage and procreation as the norm in Singapore. The State-sponsored marital home provides couples with a relatively permanent and private space of their own. Within the constraints of monogamous marriage, couples are free to indulge in a range of marital relations in their purpose-built and sanctioned space. Indeed, traditional homes have long served as the "locus of heterosexual reproduction and socialisation".[6] Although inherited colonial era statues[7] forbid what we may assume are fairly common sexual practices among married couples, the degree of privacy and sanction provided by the marital home protects husbands and wives from the practical and psychological effects of these laws.

While couples who marry can enjoy home ownership, singles are barred from purchasing either new or re-sale public housing until they reach the age of 35, when they may buy re-sale apartments. This policy stems from an avowed promotion of the 'traditional' family unit. As a result, apartments and estates are designed for occupation by such households[8]. In addition to these State-imposed obstacles, Singapore parents often have cultural expectations of their children to reside with and support them, at least until marriage. Private housing is also unaffordable to most people [9] and this fact, compounded with housing policies and parental demands, means that most singles live with their parents at least until they are middle aged, if not beyond. Bachelor pads or apartments shared by singles, common features of middle class single life in other developed cities, remain unrealised types in the Singaporean experience.

These conditions constrict the space available for sexual practices outside of marriage. For unmarried couples who wish to spend some quiet, private time together, and perhaps engage in light petting, the parental home is a problematic venue because of the presence of family members and even maids. These household members can act to discourage or even forbid such activity, which is, ironically, better tolerated in anonymous public settings. In his short story "Evening Under Frangipani"[10], Jeyaretnam depicts the parental approval faced by an inter-racial couple, making the home a hostile area for courtship. Two solutions are presented in the sotry.

First, the couple ritualised their meetings at a small landscaped area: "A few carefully trimmed hibiscus bushes, their leaves variegated shades of green, lined the concrete path which stretched across the path -- no more than a hundred square metres -- of green. Fallen red petals stained the grass. They called it a park, according it dignity and respect because of the importance it had assumed in their routine as meeting point." [11] Here we see how private ritual and the act of naming can be used to create a vital courtship space out of anonymous urban landscape. These practices are also symbolic means of affirming a relationship frowned on by others.

Later in the story, we learn that "... her parents would be away in Malaysia over Saturday night and Elaine and Prakash would have the bungalow all to themselves on Saturday. There would be no need to meet on the crowded malls of ORchard Road, jostling with teenagers on parade... The bungalow all to themselves! A release from the claustrophobia of Singapore courtship, the lack of places away from the watching judging eyes of parents, friends and strangers."[12] The strategy employed here invovles observing family or neighbourhood schedules and patterns in order to discern small windows of opportunity to appropriate ordinarily 'unsafe' spaces for use. As this practice is trangressive, individuals may initially experience feeling guilt or fear (although some might instead / also enjoy the pleasure of forbidden fruit and the thrill of subversion). Unlike the earlier act of symbolic affirmation, this act of hiding denies a couple any sense of legitimacy and pride, and works, however subtly, to shame them. At the same time, the inability of spaces to address real social needs renders them, and their underlying ideology, open to critique. For example, as spatial trangressions become routine, dominant values become exposed as inadequate.

Gay couples face obstacles similar to those mentioned above, but with some important differences. Whereas moderate heterosexual displays of affection are sanctioned in public spaces, gay couples have almost no comparable public spaces to use. Ironically, while the act of bringing to the home or bedroom a 'friend' of the opposite sex tends to attract the notice and possibly disapproval of family and neighbours, such action tends to go unnoticed when the 'friend' is of the same gender. This stems from a lower public awareness of homosexuality. The presumed platonic nature of same-gender relationships can act to mask gay relationships and even facilitate the use of family homes by such couples.

Gay couples also can use the symbolic practices noted earlier. In his study of local gay relationships, Sinn[13] characterised this strategy as the 'symbolic appropriation of objects, spaces as well as time' and reported two cases of this. The first involved a couple who tended a small herb garden together in the home of one while other family members were out. Another example was of a couple who maintained a photo album of shared times together. Given the invisibility and secrecy whcih surround most gay relationships, such small acts, which are easier to conceal, are loaded with significance and become critical to the symbolic affirmation of the relationship, in the absence of familial and societal recognition and validation.

...

[6] Friedman, Alice T., "Not a Muse: the Client's Role at the Rietveld Schroder House" in Diane Agrest, et al (eds) The Sex of Architecture. New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc, 1996 p218
[7] [Ed: Naidu highlights the recently repealed Singapore Penal Code Section 377, which sanctioned against oral and anal sex that does not lead to vaginal intercourse between a heterosexual unit. Section 377A remains to sanction against fellatio and anal sex between a homosexual male unit.]
[8] It must be noted new typologies such as housing for the elderly ('granny flats') and the recent announcement by Prime Minister Gosh Chock Tong that these flats might be available to singles in the future does signal a move towards accommodating a more diverse range of households.
[9] According to Chua, the State has an ideological commitment to the universal provision of (up to 90% of the population) of public housing in Singapore. This leaves private property developers to cater to the housing needs of the elite top 10-15% of the population. See Chua, Beng-Huat, Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore. London: Routledge, 1996, pp19-20.
[10] Jeyaretnam, Philip, "Evening Under FrangiPani" in First Loves. Singapore: Times Books International, 1987, pp166-199.
[11] Op cit pp168-169.
[12] Op cit p171.
[13] Sinn, Wai Mu Mark, A Different Kind of Love: Gay Relationships in Singapore. Singapore: unpublished National University of Singapore thesis, 1996.

Naidu, Dinesh. "Making Room for Love," Singapore Architect, 212. Dec 2001. Singapore: Singapore Institute of Architects, pp98-100.

Pinkdot 2010!!!

O.MAI.DOG!

15 MAY 2010, YO!

People We Love: Jolene Tan at The F Word.

As a good part of the world is celebrating the emergence of spring, we at the farm have also been busy preparing for a good harvest ahead. So do excuse us for the sudden dearth of posts.

For the time being, it's come to my attention that a very 'stray', familiar Singaporean feminist by the name of Jolene Tan has risen to write about feminism in Singapore's context at the prominent UK blog The F Word. In her first exquisite post, self-explanatory titled "A False Necessity: Singapore's Maid Trade", Tan incises:

I suspect that for many Singaporean women, abusiveness towards [Foreign Domestic Workers] is also connected to fear and anxiety about our own place in society. Patriarchal attitudes simultaneously devaluing and gendering care work and domestic work are well-ensconced in Singapore, but the prevalence of FDWs staves off, to some degree, arguments about the role of Singaporean women in private and public spheres, by replacing the grossly undervalued labour Singaporean women would have been expected to do with grossly undervalued labour that foreign women are made to do. The hierarchy and unfairness remain in place; we’ve just changed the demographic on whom the worst burdens fall. Which is, of course, from a humanitarian perspective, little change at all.

We need a rethinking of existing ways, and an understanding that care work and domestic work are work, and the people who perform this work, whomever they may be, should be accorded proper respect and status. Instead, we have imagined into being a hellish necessity: that there must be maids, who must be subjugated; and only by meting out the ill-treatment that defines this degraded role can we reassure ourselves of our own precarious superiority over it.

For those who are unacquainted with Tan, she was part of the Terrible Three™ who rattled the delicate sensitivities of our marital-rape-approving society with the No To Rape campaign a little less than a year ago--a cause we at the Barn not only fully support but have also written quite extensively on.

We happily welcome back the original "pro-gay, feminist family-busting" blogger (after the untimely death of Glass Castle); nothing excites us more than someone who goads Them Big Blogger Boyz and Unaccompanied Ursidaes!

But enough bootlicking sentiments and echo-chamber-chamber-ber-ber-ber-ing on my part.

Please just hop over to The F Word to follow Tan's on-going writing; already archived:

1. "Same garbage, different continents" - On the fetishisation of Asian women as "delicate lotus flowers of mind-reading, uncomplaining wish fulfillment fantasy",
2. "Important questions from Gita Sahgal" - On the very fishy and unfair suspension of duties for Amnesty Gender Unit's Gita Sahgal, after she called Amnesty out on their ties with an unsavoury organisation,
3. "Race to the Bottom" - On the various ideals of beauty (e.g. big eyes, fair skin) that Asian women are subject, and the complications of "patriarchy [shaming] women and girls into aspiring to femininity, and then [shaming] women and girls for achieving it."

Blog For Choice: Trust Women

I remember being about seven and asking my mum if abortion counted as murder. I don't know where I had first heard the word abortion and was probably really fuzzy about the concept (as you would imagine a seven year old to be) but I know the question was sparked due to a Sunday School lesson on the Ten Commandments. The Sunday school teacher was trying to impress upon us that even if we didn't think we were sinning, we well could be. She used the typical examples of a white lie, she asked if we ever wanted a friend's stickers (OMG guys, do you remember sticker books in primary school? No? Just me?) really badly, she even asked what we did with the rest of our Sundays once we got home from church (although she never really explained what keeping the Sabbath holy entailed...just implied heavily that watching TV wasn't part of the deal).

So it got me thinking. Which other commandments could be violated by otherwise well-meaning people? What about the one about not killing - does it extend to animals? Does it extend to plants? I started thinking about whether it was ambiguous when it came to people, and that must be how I chanced upon abortion.

My mother lit up like a tree on Christmas and enthusiastically took the opportunity to explain that yes, abortion is murder. That god (it was capital-G God back then) was clear on not killing people, and babies even in the mother's womb were people. Not satisfied that her answer was comprehensive enough, she then started telling me about the IUD and how it prevents tiny babies from holding on to the mother's womb (no, seriously, she even mimed grippy motions with her hands at this point) and how that was abortion too. She told me that there was a couple at church (a well-respected couple that I admired quite a bit at the time) who used the device, and that's why their only son was in a wheelchair - as punishment for all the little babies they killed with the IUD.

I'm gonna pause here for a bit so you can appreciate just how fucked up that was.

As amazingly ableist and scientifically inaccurate that was, it was my first introduction to abortion (and contraception, really). I understood that it was wrong, and that there were no circumstances under which it was ok. My mom took the opportunity over the years to use abortion as a method of slut shaming. She told me about how my dad's colleague's wife procured an abortion because the due date conflicted with a planned trip to Japan (and why those godless people were cursed with only one child). She told me tales of classmates who had abortions every other month while bitterly discussing how they were popular anyway and were quite mean to her. She told me these stories with an aim to impress upon me how the world has a dirty, unseemly underbelly, how even people who appear good HAVE ABORTIONS and therefore ARE MURDERERS. Sort of like this:

Slowly, after each of these narratives, after each consequence and moral was revealed, I began to realize that underpinning all of these fables was the throbbing drumbeat that to be a good woman all the choices you make must be externally transparent - that onlookers will be judging you for what you do and blaming your misfortunes on your transgressions. And the worst, the absolute worst action you can do is to kill your "baby" because there is nothing in the world that can justify MURDER. Because there is no one in the world who would give you the benefit of the doubt, who trusts you to make the right decision for yourself and your family. Because if you have an abortion, you are automatically discredited as an active, responsible agent.

Because the world at large does not trust women.

I trust women. I trust that decisions are not made lightly. I trust that women are the only people who can know everything about their individual circumstance and with the information they have can be trusted to make the best call for their lives at the time they have to make it. I trust women and that's why despite my mother's best efforts, I am pro-choice.

Put a ring on it

Here is Lee Kuan Yew talking to Mark Jacobson of National Geographic, in an interview which showcases a wide array of Lee Kuan Yew's characteristically bizarre opinions. (Special mention must go to the persistent spectre of the "disloyal" Muslim Singaporean, and to the idea that citizens are workhorses who need "spurs" to be put to their "hides".) But what particularly caught my Magical eye is how Lee Kuan Yew channels Beyonce.

All the single ladies, all the single ladies...
If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it.

He really can't stand the fact that there are single women running around out there, doing their thing and living their lives without official state assignation to a man. It gets his goat something awful. The idea that a woman might have plans for her life that are more important to her is besides the point: indeed, it's a nuisance. She can't be trusted to know what's good for her.

I’m undergoing physiotherapy because I had a fall on the bicycle, so I’m stuck there for one hour talking to the physiotherapist [...] she was 32-years-old. I said are you married. She said no. I said you shouldn’t leave it too late. She said well, I haven’t found the right person. I said how is that? you are meeting fellow nurses, you better join, you have got a social development unit where you meet men above board, they are looking for spouses, you are looking for spouses and you meet in groups, unless you decide we are friends, and you want to cultivate a closer relation, and she said no, no, no, I'm a Christian, that limits my choice to 20 per cent of the population and we meet in Church.

If someone hasn't found the right person to marry, then they shouldn't be married. It's not a crime, it's not a failing, it's not a problem. It's just what happens. It's also none of your business.

Once the women are educated, they have equal job opportunities, some of them earning as much if not more than men, there is a certain independence of choice. I mean they say what’s the hurry? Singlehood is no burden, my daughter is 55, unmarried, mother has been nagging her when she was in her 30s, she's quite happy. [...] I've got two boys who have got grandchildren but I feel sad for her. Because when my wife is gone and I'm gone, this hotel which keeps her going. She will have to manage it.

She's independent. She's a hugely successful doctor! She's - in his own words - happy! But he has to "feel sad for her" because it's not her - the person - and what she wants out of life that matter: it's whether she fulfils Lee Kuan Yew's master plan for the destiny of female reproductive units.

We can't undo women's education, equal job opportunities. But the whole problem springs as I was talking to this physiotherapist, I said suppose you were not educated to a point where you are independent, your mother and father would have got you matched off. [...] Father and mother will look for another father and mother with an appropriate background, no inherited diseases and similar social affluence and then they marry them off, they get them together and meet and no objections and then you are married. Then you love the man, or you love the woman you marry. But she's educated and she's thinking of a degree in physiotherapy and upgrading herself and so...

As a matter of fact, women don't yet have equal opportunities for social and economic participation (see here and here for starters). But even to the extent we do: these opportunities are part of the basic requirements for humane society. They aren't optional and you shouldn't lament being unable to "undo" them.

You'll note, for example, that he doesn't for a moment speculate about denying all men education and career opportunities so that they might be required to stay at home and bring up the kids of their financially successful wives - even though that might also bring birth rates up. The suggestion that we should solve any problem by deliberately sequestering men at home is ludicrous and unacceptable on its face - and it should be equally so when it applies to women.

When you characterise women's education as some kind of unfortunate historical residue...

When you daydream wistfully about starting over again without it...

When you talk of putting women on conveyor belts heading into arranged marriage and complete financial dependence, and expect the woman you address (who has already stated her desire to choose her own partner and further her career) to respond to this with anything other than complete rejection...

When you do these things, your fantasies are grounded in seeing women as subhuman.

This fetishisation of marriage is degrading enough even before you consider that the state he exalts is one of permanent rapeability for women (to say nothing of society's failure to take seriously other forms of domestic abuse).

Single ladies don't like it. Put a sock in it.

People we love: Ms Tania De Rozario for "Avoid being judgmental with children"

ST Forum publishes something actually REALLY AWESOME. In her response to a recent series (still on-going, I believe) on apparent teenage delinquency, Ms Tania De Rozario writes to dispel the loose and stereotypical correlation of cause and effects.

I wish I'd written it myself: (emphasis mine)

Jan 2, 2010
Avoid being judgmental with children


I REFER to Tuesday's reports, 'Errant parenting helps breed teenage crime' and 'Divorce is start of downward spiral for duo'. As someone from a background of divorced parents, I find the association of teen crimes with divorce offensive.

The reason children from 'broken' homes feel 'broken' is that they have been sold the idea there is only one type of home or family structure worth having and anything different is, well, broken.

I have friends who are the products of a variety of family structures: happily married, unhappily married, divorced, separated and so on. None is a criminal.

Many teen criminals come from what you may call 'wholesome' families.

From my observations, if parents want to keep lines of communication open with their children, they must realise their children have a different understanding of the world they inhabit and not be judgemental about things that are essentially non-consequential: the way they dress, the colour they dye their hair, the tattoos and piercings they want.

Is a teenager supposed to be responsible for the fact that in his parents' time, getting a tattoo meant one was a criminal?

If parents don't want their children to deviate, then don't make them feel deviant. No child will drift away from you because you teach him that stealing or killing is wrong.

Children drift away from you when you make them feel like louts for expressing themselves or liking the things they like.

Another fast way to alienate your children is to demonise the company they keep. If you catch a glimpse of your child's friends and become paranoid that he is moving with unwelcome company, invite the friends to dinner. I can tell you as someone deemed a 'weirdo' by many a 'proper' adult - because of my bald head and piercings - that many have found me pleasantly surprising. And those who treated me fairly have been rewarded with respect and a strengthened loyalty to my friends.

Parents should also watch against demonising everything from sex to drinking to smoking. Instead of condemning them as signs of immorality and bad company, they should focus on the harm they can cause the human body. Let your child know you don't want him to suffer pain.

Tania De Rozario (Ms)

Word!

On the point of sex and safety, I just want to point to something else I read that I hope prompts sex educators, concerned friends and family to re-situate their advice should they aim to be in the least relevant to anyone who really needs the info:

Worse yet, today's sex education still bears the scars of abstinence-only. So it's not like we've provided our young with advice they can trust or embrace when they are naked and alone together. Instead of offering a genuine interest in their sexual enjoyment, we begrudgingly acknowledge their sexuality by insisting they put gross-looking and strange-feeling latex galoshes on their penises. (Sauce.)

She sports a "bald head and piercings" (so what?) and she gets it. For that Ms De Rosario is welcome to come play with us and share our delicious treats here at the barn. ^^

2010, so far so good!

13 Myths of Homosexuality.

This badly drawn pig is trying to close his previous one-pig soapbox, so he will be importing some of its material over here.

One of my favourite is this snarky lists of debunkers for gay marriage. It's been floating about Teh Interwebz for a while now, but I think it's especially timely given the Ugandan anti-gay bill, and failure of New York senate to pass the gay marriage bill (see our feline friend's post for a senate debate by Senator Diane Savino). Closer to home, we're still dealing with crazy [WARNING: CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!] unaccompanied ursidaes inciting more prejudices and hatefulness* for "howling gays", and "pro-gay, anti-family feminists" (his favourite candidate is "Notoraper" Jolene Tan)--although of late the interest is in debasing The Online Citizen, anti-death penalty campaigners and Teh Easter Bunny knows which other remotely motivated egalitarian.

13 Myths of Homosexuality.

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

13. Marriage is a religious institution, defined by churches. This is why atheists do not marry. Christians also never get a divorce.

ETA:
* I'm trying to make a more substantive distance from using "hate" as freely as before, for philosophical reasons. But in this case I don't think "hate" is too liberal an application.

What it Says About You

Today I witnessed a discussion about whether differing viewpoints on LGBTQ rights should be a dealbreaker in a heterosexual relationship. Points such as "it only affects us by extrapolation/if our kids turn out to be gay" and "it's an intellectual disagreement" came up.

So, I write to offer my unsolicited advice.

If I have to explain to someone why people whose sexualities fall outside of the one man-one woman norm should also be granted the same legal rights to marriage and adoption, then that someone to me isn't someone worth spending time with. LGBTQ (and everything in between) rights is not a subject for intellectual discourse because anyone arguing against the provision of such rights are arguing against the humanity of the people involved. It is also a stunning display of privilege that is frankly acutely unattractive (since when were your rights brought up over drinks as a point of intellectual debate?).

Monogamous hetereosexual people may feel that they are not affected by whether those who fall into other categories are seen as full people under the law. But that's not true. Their humanity is affected by the opinion they hold on whether a person's humanity can be decided by referendum. I'll make it simple for you - it can't. My humanity is not up for discussion, neither is anyone else's and if you feel differently then I question how much you have considered the world around you and how much you have decided that you, by virtue of an accidental alliance, should be entitled to so much more than anyone else.

A few weeks ago Senator Diane Savino spoke eloquently of how us heterosexual folk have squandered our right to marry by constantly making a mockery of the institution of marriage itself. She followed it up with a breathtaking description of the very human people who are denied this by an arbitrary and cruel standard enforced by prejudice and by nothing else. If you can, please take the time to watch it now (full transcript here):

A quote from the video:

You know I’ve also been lobbied, quite interestingly, on this bill by people on both sides. I’ll tell you one funny story. I was on 6th avenue in Manhattan, I was in my car, I was driving, make a left turn onto 52nd street, I was stopped at a light, I had my window open. And a young man on a pedicab stopped and stuck his head in the window of my car, which I thought was kind of strange. But he recognized the senate license plate on my car and this was right during the week that the assembly was taking up the vote earlier this year.

And he said to me, "Excuse me, is there going to be a gay marriage vote in Albany this week?"

And I said, "Yes, the assembly’s going to take it up, but the senate probably won’t take it up any time soon, I’m not sure when."

And he said, "Are you going to vote for it?" and I said, "Yes I am", and he said, "Why?"

And I said, "Because I believe that people should be able to share their life with whomever they want and the role of government is to administer that contract that they agree to enter into."

And he stopped and said, "But they’re changing the definition of marriage."

And I said, "Don’t get so excited about this marriage stuff." I said, "Think about this, we just met, you and I right here at the stoplight. You stuck your head in the window of my car. Do you know tomorrow we could go to City Hall, we could apply for a marriage license, and we could get married, and nobody there will ask us about the quality of our relationship or whether we’ve been committed to each other or any of those things. They will issue that marriage license and we can get married."

And he said, "Yes, that’s true."

I said, "Do you think we’re ready for that kind of commitment?"

And he stopped and he said, "I see your point."

Human rights shouuld not be up to a vote, neither should they be subject to discussion. I would not piss to put out a fire on someone who disagrees - they have demonstrated to me how they feel about the humanity of others, leaving me free to disregard theirs.

Physician, heal thyself

This Magical Chicken was idly perusing the Media Development Authority's free-to-air radio programme code, as one does every now and then, when her avian eyes settled on the following paragraphs:

3.1 Broadcasters should bear in mind the importance of the family as the basic unit of society in Singapore. The sanctity of marriage should be respected, and divorce should not be treated casually or in a frivolous manner. Adultery, cohabitation and promiscuity should not be endorsed, glamorised or encouraged.

3.2 Information, themes or subplots on lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transsexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest should be treated with utmost caution. Their treatment should not in any way promote, justify or glamorise such lifestyles. Explicit dialogue or information concerning the above topics should not be broadcast.

Followed immediately by this:

3.3 Programmes should not make careless references to any class or group of persons as being inherently inferior. Programmes should not encourage or in any way discriminate against any section of the community on account of gender, age, disability or occupational status.

Ah.

Well, there's no contradiction in that at all, now, is there?

Physician, heal thyself.

Public Service Annoucement: "To have self-esteem."

My turkey spectral pal's really awesome and very sad moving tale of her first encounter with pedestrian racism has really put me in such a horrible mood. I'm bowled over by the sort of shitty things parents, guardians and mentors can teach children in the name of love and the latter's self-interest. As I said in the comment section there, I'm reminded of my own experience in having to listen to the sort of bullshit about race and "bad animals" that my elders tried to inculcate in me, which for some reason never really stuck because I was and continue to be doubtful of authority figure and authoritative--and worse, authoritarian--tones.

Unlike many other people, I was always in the company of authority figures who fought a lot with each other, make all sorts of mistakes and cause all forms of hurt behind closed doors. That slightly dysfunctional background led me to understand intuitively that even purported role models are not always right. As my feline friend discovers, older people are not necessarily relevant in their 'wisdom'. By all means respect your elders as you should other people, especially with the common decency that we should accord all human beings (see: Human Rights), but screw that listen to your elders unremittingly bullshit.

This is going to be hard to accept, but even we on the barn makes mistakes for the simple reason that nobody's perfect. (Though, we're still pretty damn close to cutesy perfection, yo!)

So dear searching kid, teenager, jia-buey-tua (literally: eat no big) adult who feels different and alienated from the majority, please find delight in the fact that the sagely ones and even your media bigwigs might be wrong, but that you are capable of change and differing from them. Therein making you a little more real (human or otherwise), and a little more prepared for a life of infinite betterment.

Finally, I dedicate the following clip to Poultrygeist and all the other barnmates for showing us that one can actually wade through all the misogynistic, anti-gay, racist, et al bullshit to come out stronger, wiser and brimming with such admirable self-esteem. This is by yet another American comedienne, Margaret Cho, whom I mostly piggishly love, from her stand-up "Notorious C.H.O." (2002):

And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing 'cause I'm probably somebody who wouldn't necessarily have a lot of self-esteem as I am considered a minority.

And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to a look certain way, or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror, and you think: Urgh! I'm so ugly! I'm so fat! I'm so old!

Don't you know? That's not your authentic self?

But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall, on some turn-around cream that doesn't turn around shit!

If you don't have self-esteem, you'd hesitate before you do anything in your life.

You'd hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for.

You'd hesitate to ask for a raise.

You'd hesitate to call yourself an American. [BDP: please feel free to substitute this with your appropriate nationality.]

You'd hesitate to report a rape.

You'd hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender.

You'd hesitate to vote. You'd hesitate to dream.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

XOXO

People we love: Madhairday for "not a question of compassion, but one of fairness".

Angry Alpaca started this series for famous awesome possums. I'm going to widen the scope to include (extra-)ordinary men, women, somewhere in-between's for their brave acts of kindness that lend some semblance of intelligence and hope back into our lives over-ridden with unremitting hatefulness.

Today, I extend this Awesome Possum mention to reader, Madhairday, who penned an excellent retort in to the Straits Times Forum, in response to The Great Marital Ethicist and Estimable Mindreader of People in Extra-marital Affairs, Mrs Claudia Tan.

Madhairday's reply, I reproduce in full:

I write in response to Mrs Claudia Tan's letter published in the ST forum on 3 December 2009.

I fail to see any causative link in Mrs Tan's assertion that the alignment of the law pertaining to inheritance and the law governing the maintenance of children under the Women's Charter will inexorably result in "encourag[ing] women with little or no moral values to prey on married man for monetary gain". There are two main logical fallacies in this statement. First, Mrs Tan presupposes that women who have children out of wedlock have "little or no moral values". Secondly, the statement is presumptuous in assuming that women "prey" on married men for monetary gain, wholly ignoring the very real possibility of the complicity of a married man in commencing an extramarital affair.

There is no reason that a child should be deprived of maintenance from the father's estate simply by virtue of the fact of being born out of wedlock, especially given that the law mandatorily provides for maintenance to be paid in respect of the same child while the child's biological father is alive. In this regard, arguments for withholding maintenance payments from a mother of children born out of wedlock are baseless. There is an inherent contradiction in Mrs Tan's description of marriage as a "sacred affair". If, as Mrs Tan suggests, marriage is indeed a "sacred" institution, what justification is there for absolving the man the consequences of his infidelity while in the same breath castigating the woman for what in Mrs Tan's view is wanton behaviour? There is none.

The law as it currently stands rightfully recognises the need for a father to provide for his children, whether born in or out of wedlock. This is not a question of any assumed "monetary gain" for the mother. The Courts weigh any requests for maintenance in a balanced and fair manner, the well-being of the child being the paramount consideration. There is, as the Court of Appeal has recognised, a pressing need to align the law on inheritance as relates to children born out of wedlock with the Women's Charter in order to erase the logical lacuna which persists between both. It is not a question of compassion, but one of fairness. (Source)

Bravo, mate! You should come live on the barn with us!

I also relay comments from the rest of my barnmates on Claudia Tan's note:

Oh My Goat: "I think anyone who has such a virulent stand on someone else's private lives and what they do in their bedroom is definitely perverted in some fashion. IT'S JUST NOT NATURAL!"

Angry "Just Misunderstood" Alpaca: "Plus, you realise that [Claudia Tan] never once blames the dood, because they just happen to "fall prey to lust". It is as if men walk around blindly only to suddenly realise that they've accidentally stuck their penis into another woman's vagina. Oops!"

Cat in the Cream: "No, it's that they trip and fall into a woman, and then right themselves and trip and right themselves...

"And it's totes women's fault for wearing skirts and not keeping their ankles together. Because if we wore pants and shackles, men could trip over whatever they liked, but would not be able to, uh, dock."

"If your marriage is fucked up, it's because you fucked it."

Oh Holy Jeshua Christ! What the bug-eating-Rafflesia is with so much male-cow dropping of patronising condescension from institutions (you cleared up nothing because nothing's been "misperceived", but thanks for making it pointedly clear how you know we see the road to hell you pave with your good intentions; see Redux tackled by brilliant Leona Lo) and a sympathetic married woman!?

Is this, as Complaining Cow says, "wing-nut week at the ST Forum editor's desk"?

I'm in no mood to get further upset after yesterday's hogwash parading as magnanimity (as reader, Madhairday, notes in the comment section, "the HONOUR of the tolerance [Jerkface] has bestowed upon us lower beings") and if people don't see what's essentially wrong with the positions they hold, I think we're just going to have to pretend to agree to disagree, but silently know that my Magical friend is onto them and in all its infinite and magical wisdom sees them for the "nasty, contemptuous assclown" that they are.

To ease tensions, I'll let the wonderful comedienne, Wanda Sykes, share some incisive humour on the seemingly delicate institution of marriage and--by its extension--Traditional Family Valuez. The very illusions of problems brought on by people whose complex lives have led them down different, yet functional and surprisingly mostly happy (if not for your constant shitting on them) paths from your "classicist" structures.

From her 2006 "Sick and Tired" stand-up comedy show:

If you don't believe in same-sex marriage, then don't bother marrying somebody of the same sex. How does someone else's marriage affect your marriage? If your marriage is fucked up, it's because you fucked it.

Are straight couples in marriage counsel now; "we just ain't been working together since Bill and Ted hooked up. We just can't get along."

I don't know. "We got to protect marriage", that's what they say. "We got to protect marriage." I don't think same-sex couples, I don't think they're the biggest threat to marriage. I think the biggest threat to marriage is divorce.

That's what fucked up my marriage.

So if they're so concerned about preserving marriage, and the sanctity of marriage, they want to protect marriage, what they should is ban divorce. Make marriage like the mafia; once you're in, you're in.

...

What is the fear? What are people afraid of? What you're scared that gay marriage is going to be better than your marriage?

"Look at them happy-ass gays..."

You're scared your wives will nag you and stuff like, "Honey, honey, look at Bill and Ted. Oh my god, I love those guys. They sat on that porch for hours and talk. I run into them all the time at the mall, I see them shopping. I mean they spend a lot of quality time together. I wish we could do that. I wish we could be a little more like Bill and Ted."

[In husband tone] "Really? Well, maybe if you let me fuck you in your ass a couple of times, that could be me and you right there, baby--we could have that."

Just so it's out there

Like I said, I liked Harvey Neo's letter. I also agree with his assessment that in reality, few people would voluntarily opt to face all the practical disadvantages associated with being a single parent or a gay person in the world as currently socially arranged.

But just so it's out there:

Even if homosexuality were entirely "a choice" and even it were true that people in fact actively seek to bring up children without a partner or spouse--

I don't give a flying monkey's butt.

Even if all gay people were able to effortlessly choose only heterosexual relationships on the turn of a dime, they shouldn't have to.

Even if hordes of women were enthusiastically collecting bucketloads of sperm to impregnate themselves with turkey basters (due apologies to The Poultrygeist) and then swearing never to get married, that in itself has no bearing on their fitness as parents or their worth as human beings.

Stop treating people like shit. (I'm talking to you, Jerkface.) Not just because societal discrimination means that they're "so poor thing" (although, in fact, they are). The point is, even if you were the only nasty, contemptuous assclown they had to face in the entire world, or even if they could easily avoid all expressions of nasty, contemptuous assclownery by acceding to the nasty, contemptuous assclown demands, it is - surprisingly - wrong to be a nasty, contemptuous assclown to begin with.

Acknowledging hate is fine but don't suppress

As I was waking up from my drunken stupor from last night, Oh My Goat brought the newspapers in to share with the rest of the barn mates today's helping of hatefulness, as brought to you by a certain Bernard Tan.

I reproduce in full:

ST Forum
Dec 3, 2009
ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES
Respect is fine but don't glorify

I REFER to Tuesday's letter by Mr Harvey Neo, 'Respect those outside traditional family'.

I agree with his view that people with alternative views and lifestyles should be treated with respect, empathy, compassion and tolerance. However, I also share the concerns of the Anglican Church of Singapore regarding the increasing trend to glorify lifestyles alternative to the traditional family. I am not an Anglican but the church's concerns resonate with me - and I believe they resonate with the silent majority of Singapore.

In my workplace, I work with and I have hired gays and single parents, and I am entirely blind to their lifestyle choices. I have good friends who are gay. To me, their lifestyle is a personal choice and has no bearing whatsoever on their character and the work that they do.

However, I draw the line if I am expected to somehow 'celebrate' and support their lifestyle. I draw the line if I am regarded as a bigot or a lesser human being if I do not approve of the alternative lifestyle.

While a single parent can justifiably be proud to have brought up her child despite her single parenthood, I do not think single parenthood in itself is anything to be proud of or celebrated. In the same vein, gays are entitled to their views and lifestyle, and they should not be subjected to any pressure to conform or, worse, somehow convert to be 'normal' heterosexuals. But in my view, they are not entitled to expect non-gays to celebrate and approve of their lifestyle.

I think the line is crossed when respect, empathy, compassion and tolerance are not regarded as sufficient any more; and the silent majority are expected to actively endorse and approve alternative lifestyles. The silent majority are entitled to their views and should not be vilified for supporting traditional family values.

Bernard Tan

Reasonable homo sapiens and livestock will probably miss the finer points of Mr Tan's swiney piece of writing, as the poetry of unfeminist pigheadedness is famously elusive to decode. Thankfully, gentle readers, this badly drawn, male unfeminist pig is here to put an authoritative interpretation for your erudition.

To wit:

Acknowledging hate is fine but don't suppress

I agree with Mr Harvey Neo that the single mothers, gay people and other minority types suffer discrimination, and in fact I have all the "respect, compassion and tolerance" towards browbeating them. But like the Archbishop, I think we must publicly glorify our hate for struggling minorities. By "we", I extend my hating rights to fellow tribesmen beyond the cloister walls of the church, to every other comfortable, privileged, mainstream inhabitant of our society who have so much political, social and media representation that we are constantly spoken for without any active inputs.

I have gays and single parents at my work place because I don't want to come across as a real jerk. I even have friends who are gays because they don't know how much of jerk I really am. To me, it would be better if they weren't around at all, but it's really hard to find good help thesedays and they've somehow proven themselves to be much more useful than I'd like to admit.

However, I draw the line at extending any of the rights, protection and aid--afforded to my fellow mainstream counterparts--to gays and single parents. I also draw the line at admitting that I'm a great, big, gigantic, smelly asshole AND a lesser human being as I do not feel the slightest remorse for my behaving badly.

While a single parent can justifiably be deluded into feeling proud for coping despite our pedestrian and institutional hate, I think single parenthood in itself should be outrightly denounced. In the same vein, gays are entitled to fall in love, and they should not be subjected to any pressure to undergo conversion programmes, only because they don't actually work since there's nothing inherently wrong with being gay. But in my view, it's a real pity that we, the privileged masses have to put up with all these people being around at all.

I think the line is crossed when my right to hate them openly is being curbed, and that we are expected to actively stop being complete shitheads. We are entitled to our hate, and should not be frowned upon for exercising our mythical traditional family value of hating people different from us.

Jerkface Much

Go Harvey, go Harvey, go Harvey Ne-o, go!

To temper my previous unremitting harshness toward Straits Times Forum letter writers, here is a Magical shout-out to Harvey Neo: a draught of hope in a desert of hatefulness.

The Archbishop John Chew - the holy text of whose church speaks again and again of compassion and kindness - could take a leaf from Harvey Neo's book.

If there is to be any consensus on 'mainstream values', it must be built on respect, empathy, compassion and tolerance. The family should reflect such values and not be used to draw divisive lines.

(Interested watchers should note that Chew has previously promoted an anti-gay stance as part of the ongoing conflict among international Anglican leaders. Back in 2006, controversy arose over the "Kigali communiqué" from Anglican churches in the Global South. To save your having to wade through the masses of circumlocutory bullshit in that text, basically Chew and his allies threatened to take their toys and go home unless other Anglican churches adopted anti-gay poses. But the document gave the impression of being endorsed by at least one church that later disavowed support of it: a statement on this by Archbishop Ndungane of the Church of Southern Africa was met by a somewhat watery response signed off by Chew. It all became pretty big news. So this guy isn't just a stinker on the domestic stage.)

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.