How can we talk about the taboo and the illegal :
It’s a real privilege for me to have the chance to give a talk, ‘How can we talk about the taboo and the illegal’, at this year’s IndigNation. http://indignationsg.wordpress.com/
Some topics are more challenging than others to talk about in the classroom setting. Topics like,
1. Homosexuality – How do you de-stigmatise homosexuality, get homosexual students to practise safe sex, when you have the 377A law?
2. Under-aged sex – How do you get under-aged teens to practise safe sex, or seek medical treatment early, when their beloved partners might be jailed?
3. STI/HIV destigmatisation – How do you impress upon teens the severity of these illnesses without scare-mongering, and yet de-stigmatise these conditions at the same time?
4. Condom usage – How do you get teens to practise safe sex without over-stating the effectiveness of condoms, and without “preaching promiscuity”?
5. Trust and abuse — How do you get teens in a monogamous relationship to consistently use condoms, when love and trust are essential for a healthy relationship?
It’s a short 20min talk on this subject of Taboo and Illegal topics, followed by what I hope will be a lively discussion with the audience =)
( Disclaimer: I am giving this talk in my own personal capacity, and will NOT represent the views of any organization / faith. )
23 August Sunday
Triple bill: Kings and condoms 7 pm @ 72-13 (72-13 Md Sultan Road)
Michael Jackson and The Man In The Mirror: In the wake of Micheal Jackson’s passing, Otto Fong reflects on what he – a gay Asian who studied in America – learnt from African Americans before, during and after Jackson’s reign as the King of Pop.
The same ties that bind: A 20-minute video exploration of the various elements that determine a gay person’s acceptance within the family: family love, prejudice, religion, etc.
How can we talk about the taboo and the illegal: Mathia Lee in her talk discusses the challenges she faced as a Comprehensive Sexuality Education instructor, in bringing into the classroom topics like 1. Homosexuality 2. Underaged sex 3. STI/HIV destigmatisation 4. Condom usage 5. Trust and abuse.
In sum, this forum looks the process of acknowledging a gay person in our midst, and dealing with issues of self-acceptance, family acceptance and education.
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Ignorant, ambivalent, and kiasu/kiasi people would like to know, are you going to talk about this as well?
HIV rates among gay men in some African countries are 10 times higher than among the general male population, says research in medical journal the Lancet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8158469.stm
Or are gay activists going to continue pretending that gay anal sex is no more dangerous than heterosexual sex and lifestyles?
Mrs Tan. thanks for highlighting the link
(actually I really can’t figure this Mrs Tan out. Mrs Tan seems to have a lot of animosity against me, yet Mrs Tan keeps coming back, with pieces of evidence supporting my work)
I’m just going to qoute a few lines of the article Mrs Tan recommended:
The report called for greater education and resources in the fight against HIV.
The Oxford University researchers found that the prevalence of HIV/Aids among gay men in sub-Saharan African has been “driven by cultural, religious and political unwillingness to accept [gay men] as equal members of society”.
Lead researcher Adrian Smith told the BBC there was “profound stigma and social hostility at every level of society concerning either same-sex behaviours amongst men, or homosexuality”.
“This has the consequence that this group becomes extremely hard to reach,” he said.
More relevant statistics from Singapore http://www.moh.gov.sg/mohcorp/statistics.aspx?id=246
In 2008. 248 new cases acquired through heterosexual sex, 151 through homosexual sex, 34 through bisexual sex ( although I really cannot understand what this one means : HIV acquired during a threesome???) , 20 through drug-abuse needles. 280 persons were single, 105 were married. 17 of the 30 females were married.
Hey Mrs Tan,
Sorry for not doing this earlier : Would you like to attend this forum?
Would LOVE LOVE LOVE for you to be there. Basically I’m gonna talk about a lot of challenges, and you obviously disagree with my solutions. I would SO LOVE to hear YOUR suggestions!
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Guess Mrs Tan suffers from a case of “read only what she wants to”…hahah
Or maybe she did not even read the full report and only saw the summary (headlines) hence her “support” for you
Whatever it is, the ignorant must be educated…
Mrs Tan,
Consider the likelihood of a marked difference in the way that homosexual males treat sexual activity vis-a-vis heterosexual males within their own sociocultural context when you view such statistics.
The statistics show that prevalence is not exclusive to one gender orientation over the other, only the intensity of the prevalence. Hence, it is vital to compare socio-cultural differences in the source of such occurences, and avoid a slippery slope argument that ignores the elephant in the background, namely that straight males are also liable to risky sexual activity.
This is my take on the issues/questions raised…
I will use an analogy for this one. I think administrators, engineers and programmers regularly face issues having similar concepts.
Consider the wife carrying competition in Finland. The winning couple gets a prize of beer equal to the weight of the wife.
Now, this is a dilemma for the husband who loves drinking beer. If he wants more beer he would prefer his wife to be heavier. However, if his wife is heavier, his chances of winning would decrease.
You can’t have both. The fact is, if anyone had the perfect solution, everybody else would follow suit.
My personal preference is still the use of the pig cage by the river in ancient China. Kill one to warn a hundred. Fear is such a useful tool.
Sorry… Too much dragon blood inside.
This is my attempt at statistical analysis… Conclusions are based on the data provided and the analysis.
This is not my personal view! LOL.
Mathia: In 2008. 248 new cases acquired through heterosexual sex, 151 through homosexual sex, 34 through bisexual sex ( although I really cannot understand what this one means : HIV acquired during a threesome???) , 20 through drug-abuse needles. 280 persons were single, 105 were married. 17 of the 30 females were married.
Disclaimer: I assume patterns of HIV acquisition is representative of patterns of sexual activity/conduct of the whole population.
-> By logical deduction, population has more people who are married than singles. Therefore we have a premarital-sex and promiscuity issue here. Because the 280 belong to a smaller group (i.e. singles) compared to the 105 belonging to a bigger group (i.e. married).
In normalizing the data, we have a higher percentage of singles getting HIV.
-> In terms of percentages, men and women are equally at risk in acquiring HIV, whether they are married or single. Here I assume there are no homosexual and bisexual women in the data.
-> In terms of total numbers, well, sex education (any type) should be educating males, homosexuals and bisexuals instead of females. Possibly there should be different types of sex education, one type for each sexuality.
-> In terms of percentages, the risk of acquiring HIV is very high for homosexuals, bisexuals and drug-abusers. This is a simple numerical ratio/percentage calculation.
(No. from hetero) divide by (Total no. of hetero population)
Compare with…
(No. from homo/bi) divide by (Total no. of homo/bi)
This is why health officials say homo/bi are at very high risk because they have high number of cases within a small community.
CM,
I totally agree with you on these points:
- Sex ed definately should be provided to all groups, male , female, straight, gay etc, and tailored according to behavioral needs. The main limitation that I know of is manpower resource — it’s INCREDIBLY difficult to get male volunteers free during school hours. I hope MOE has a programme in place…..
- Yes, indeed the rates of HIV is much higher amongst homosexual men. I think the figures are under-reported — judging from the female rate and the imbalance in ratio, I suspect many heterosexual males are really homosexuals who are not declaring their orientation.
- Because of this reason, I fully agree with the authors of the African studies re the causes & re what needs to be done.
It’s a big big big wish of mine to have conservative, abstinence-only, sex-educators attending this forum. I ‘ll be delighted to have Josie lau, Thio Su Mien etc come down.
Discussions get boring / biased when only certain subgroups are represented.
I don’t want people who argue for the sake of arguing — it gets tiring — I want people who lived and experienced through what they are talking about. Give me a different view by telling me your story, that’s what I’m saying.
I think I might bring my mother down………
Mathia: The main limitation that I know of is manpower resource — it’s INCREDIBLY difficult to get male volunteers….
-> This is one of the reasons why I prefer an economically sustainable non-public-charity solution.
If certain assumptions are made, the figures do tell a lot… Even if assuming homosexuals make up 10% of the population, it will take about 10 hetero cases for every 1 homo case just to make the rate even. If homosexuals make up even less % of the population, then the rate computed is quite alarming.
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I think even if you have people from various schools of thought attending the forum, it’s not going to be constructive.
I believe this is a inter-generation cyclical problem. Let me elaborate with a conservative starting point – In reality it can begin in any part of the cycle.
-> Conservative parents (1st Gen) drum into their kids (2nd Gen) to be conservative and practice abstinence.
-> 2nd Gen feels 1st Gen very restrictive and decides to keep secrets and explore themselves. 2nd Gen may or may not suffer any consequences of their actions.
-> 2nd Gen-A suffered and regretted. When 2nd Gen-A have kids, what would they think? Would they think that 1st Gen did the right thing? If so, their style of parenting would be more like 1st Gen. Or they may try to adopt some hybrid method of parenting like 2nd Gen-B.
-> 2nd Gen-B turned out alright. When 2nd Gen-B have kids, what would they think? Would they have double-standards and adopt 1st Gen method to protect their kids? Or would they adopt some kind of hybrid method of parenting?
And what are the consequences of different methods of parenting? Frankly, it is all experimental, and it gets repeated again and again.
Children (including grown-up singles) will often think “Why cannot try? Why cannot do this?”
While parents (whether conservative or liberal) will always think about protecting their children.
It’s a neverending cycle.
Also bear in mind that your own parents could have gone through their share of traumatic experiences. Not telling you doesn’t mean it never happened.
I do know of married couples who decide not to have kids in consideration of a whole bunch of such issues. I suppose that is one way to break the cycle.
http://laicite.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/homophobia-is-not-just-another-point-of-view/
Secondly, and perhaps most commonly ignored by many people, is the fact that homophobia is not merely another opinion. “Vanilla is the best ice cream flavor” is an opinion. But some things are not so simple. Let me illustrate. Consider the following “opinions”:
“I don’t want those Indians near my daughter. Who knows what they’ll do to her.”
“Blacks and whites should never get married to each other, let alone have mixed race kids. It’s just disgusting and wrong.”
“Women don’t have the ability to take part in politics. They should just know their place and stay home to take care of the kids.”
“I send my kids to elite schools so that they won’t have to mingle with those Chinese speaking neighborhood school kids – they’re all poor and uneducated anyway.”
Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we. Those aren’t mere opinions. Those are examples of racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry. The difference is that bigotry and intolerance against races, sexes or classes are acknowledged as such, and not regarded as valid in a pluralistic society, whereas bigotry and intolerance against homosexuals are still treated as simply “differing opinions”, or mere disagreements.
Well Put!!!
Actually, considering how everyone seems to think hetero sex is safer, do you guys think that most heteros actually dun go for testing and dunno that they are HIV positive?