The point: you are proving it

Rarely if ever does this Chicken allow her weary gaze to rest upon the august pages of STOMP. Expecting anything other than vapid nastiness from that churning sewer of hate is rather like hoping to be surprised if you scratch your butthole and then sniff your finger.

And yet what's a bird to do, but gape in horror when the portal decides to blather on in the least informed manner possible about the growing SlutWalk movement?

STOMPer Handsome Boy wonders if this movement is really necessary in Singapore,

It is. For proof, see the rest of your article.

and if it might send out the wrong message to the young.

"Don't rape, and don't be an asshole about rape." WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN.

But I don't know if this whole SlutWalk thing is necessary or relevant in Singapore, or if it's just another copycat idea by women here who think that just because some women in a Western country is affected by it, they should be too.

Let me get this straight. You can't be bothered to pull your head out of your armpit for two seconds to note that victim-blaming and slut-shaming are alive and well in Singapore - so alive and so well they are legally codified. Instead, it seems to you, it is more likely that women in Sngapore, after years of frolicking joyfully in a perfect feminist paradise, have decided we want to be "affected by" rape culture because... because... because the West is. Hey, who cares about facts when we can simply assume utterly implausible behaviour on the part of women?

Handsome Boy (I hate him just for making me type that name) goes on to worry that

young girls might get the wrong message -- thinking that dressing provocatively is OK.

I'm not saying that it's not all right for women to dress sexy (not naughty)

Yes, these two sentences are included back-to-back. Your guess, my friends, is as good as mine.

"Sexy (not naughty)" is also clearly not at all some arbitrary bullshit standard. How'm I gonna sleep tonight, knowing my clothing choices might not be approved by Handsome Boy?

but if they feel that they have the right to dress the way they like, then it's not fair for them to get upset when men stare at them, because the men can argue that they are free to look at whatever they like too!

You appear to be missing a key basic concept here. You know, the one which involves the bodies in question belonging to the women who are dressing them and not to the men who are behaving like dehumanising jackasses.

Staring at anyone in public with disregard for their comfort is rude. Arguing that women are fair game for rude behaviour, by virtue of being women going about in the world in clothing, is misogynist.

Not content with hosting Handsome Boy's poop, STOMP goes on to post some pictures of mostly headless women (and one bum) and asks us to tell them "which of these you consider 'slutty' or inappropriate and why".

As far as I can see, no one has yet commented that every single picture which objectifies and dehumanises women is inappropriate - in public space in general, and on a post about a women's rights movement in particular. But someone has commented saying:

SlutWalk? Hmm... Mass rape anyone?

...so, you know. STOMP's lovingly cultivated safe house for misogynists serves its purpose once again. And proves even more why SlutWalk is so necessary.

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.

Why not Morrissey?

There's a certain buzz going around outside of our farm regarding former-Smiths musician, Morrissey's racist remark about Chinese people:

Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies." (Sauce.)

Here at the barn, we are well aware that everyone farts up once in a while, and hold no illusion -- especially since child rapist Roman Polanski walked free, TWICE -- that even the cutest, most talented, smartest and even most cuddly sorts are saved from being fucked up. Little surprise, hence, that there's very little I care to say about who and what Morrissey is, and why his racism is any more or less egregious than if uttered by mere mortals.

On the other hand, there is much to be said about how fellow concerned life form can deal with famous assholes, much of it brought on by a Guardian commentary by Tom Clark, in which Clark calmly urges Morrissey's fans to "not feel obliged to disown the music we love" and that "nothing Morrissey says or does now would taint my enjoyment of the songs". Obviously the mileage varies between Clark and this male, unfeminist, gay Chinese pig, because I don't see why it's so impossible for offended fans to renounce their loyalty to any artist for the latter's assholicism.

In fact, I think any fan or music lover who gives a flying fuck about making the world a better place has every right to exercise some consumer discretion for an embargo. Here at the farm, we care to do something.

And just why fucking not?

My taking pleasure in one's art rings the latter's cash register, and in Morrissey's case it is precisely because his records are still selling that he feels his artistry will forever save him from truly being held accountable, or being remembered as a racist (apart from a good musician) long past his death. If his being popular from our listening to his music is empowering him to express his racism without contriteness, which is the case, then the obvious key to some humility may very well be in a boycott.

Then Morrissey's music wouldn't live forever. Maybe some day Someone will ask, "Hey, what happened to all the Morrissey songs that you liked?" And you can go, "I stopped listening to them because he turns out to be such a racist asshole that it pains me to even listen to him pluck his guitar." Then maybe when Someone listens to Morrissey on the speakers at your favourite bar, zie will share the racist factoid with hir friends, and they in turn can remind others that this brand of good music is spun from some moral bankruptcy--warning label reads "Enjoy at your own risk."

Personally, I don't have a problem with forgoing some good art for the sake of some humanity. I would rather the holocaust not have occurred and forgo "Schindler's List", than appreciate the impetus for art that Nazism provided. I would rather we didn't live in a kyriarchy and be writing about fluffy bunnies than exercising my writing chops here. Likewise, I would rather a musician not be a racist than have to exercise mental acrobatics over the fact that his racism is somehow an intrinsic part of some very complex, very profound whole, from which good music apparently stems, and which a simpleton like Bacon Bits here will never possess or understand.

Pftt.

Newsflash: greater people have lived without being assholes.

Why not Morrissey? Why not Polanski? Why couldn't Larkin? Why couldn't Churchill even?

The best art simply cannot justify the diminishing of human decency. And if you choose to ignore that, then don't mind if I stop listening to you too.

"We meant it exactly the way you meant it".

"Theatricality," Glee, Season 1 Episode 20, first aired May 25 2010.

KURT: “It’s just a room, Finn! We can redecorate it if you want to!”
FINN: “Okay, good! Well, then the first thing that needs to go is that faggy lamp, a-and then, we need to get rid of this faggy couch blan-“
BURT: “Hey! What did you just call him?”
FINN: “Oh, no, no; I didn’t call him anything. I was talking to the blanket.”
BURT: “No, you used that word; you’re talking about him.”
KURT: “Relax, Dad, I didn’t take it that way.”
BURT (to Kurt): “Yeah, that’s because you’re sixteen and you still assume the best in people. You live a few years, you start seeing the hate in peoples’ hearts. Even the best people.”
BURT (to Finn): “You use the ‘N’ word?”
KURT: “Uh, of course not.”
KURT: “Well how ‘bout ‘retard’? You call that nice girl in Cheerios with Kurt, you call her a ‘retard’?”
FINN: “Becky, no, she’s my friend. She’s got down-syndrome. I’d never call her that; that’s cruel.”
BURT: “But you think it’s okay to come in my house and say ‘faggy’?”
FINN: “That’s not what it meant…”
BURT: “I know what you meant! What, you think I didn’t use that word when I was your age? You know, some kid gets clocked in practice, we tell him to ‘stop being such a fag’ ‘shake it off’… we meant it exactly the way YOU meant it. That being gay is wrong and it’s some kind of punishable offense.”
BURT: “I really thought you were different, Finn. You know, I thought that being in Glee Club and being rased by YOUR mom, meant that you were some, you know, new generation of dude who saw things differently, who just kinda, you know, came into the world knowing what has taken me years of struggling to figure out. I guess I was wrong.”
BURT: “I’m sorry, Finn. But, you can’t… you can’t stay here.”
KURT: “Dad!”
BURT (to Finn): “I love your mom. And maybe this is gonna cost me her, but my family comes first. I can’t have that kind of poison around.”
BURT (to Kurt): “This is our home, Kurt.”
BURT (to Finn): “He is my son! Out in the world, you do what you want; not under my roof.”
BURT (to Kurt): “The place looks great.”

(from The Jumping Off Point.)

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.