MP quoting ‘Gang rape is democracy in action’ on Facebook

Posted on May 9, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘MP Zainudin draws flak for posting ‘offensive’ quote’, 9 May 2013, article in Sg Yahoo news.

Member of Parliament Zainudin Nordin has drawn flak for posting on his Facebook page a fantasy author’s quote equating gang rape to the exercise of democracy.  The MP for Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC was criticised by people online for being rude, offensive and insensitive after he posted on Monday a quote from “Sword of Truth” fantasy series author Terry Goodkind with the line “Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.”

The controversial statement prompted a flurry of over 140 comments, most of them expressing outrage. “Even if you did not say that yourself, it is still a very dangerous statement to quote. I simply do not understand why you chose to quote such a thing. Shame on you,” posted Facebook user Joel Yap.

Another Facebook comment by Pauline Leong called the quote “truly, highly offensive” and demanded an apology or explanation from Nordin, while Freya Cyen accused him of being “unable to differentiate democracy, human rights and freedom.”

Nominated Member of Parliament Lina Chiam of the Singapore People’s Party on Wednesday released a statement on the issue, asking Nordin to “retract his statement and apologise to women in Singapore.”

So is spray painting ‘Democracy’ on the Cenotaph. What the quoted writer intended was that no nation should be so ‘democratic’ that your right to free speech or thought turns into action that transgresses basic human rights. In fact, some of the world’s self-proclaimed ‘democracies’ are far from utopian societies. North Korea is the DEMOCRATIC People’s Republic of Korea. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the WORST place to be a mother. The world’s largest democracy India has her recent string of high profile raping, and both Congo and democratic South Africa have been termed ‘rape capitals’ of the world. It may be more accurate, however, to connect gang-raping with Anarchy than democracy, though the vandal who decided to exercise his free will to deface a war memorial clearly mistook one for the other. We may not have people raping others in huddles here, but we do get glimpses of unhinged anarchy at NATAS fairs and K-pop concerts.

But before we decide to ignore Zainudin’s Facebook post because he simply quoted someone else’s provocative analogy and people decided to zoom in on it because ‘rape’ and ‘democracy’ were in the same sentence, there have been people investigated by the POLICE for ‘quoting’ other people on their timelines, except that these were the kind of stuff that our government believes would incite race riots over the island and tarnish this whole ‘democracy’ thing. In 2011, NSman Christian Eliab Ratnam quoted Roy Egan on how ‘Islam is a cxxt that glorifies death’, while another blogger in the same year ‘shared’ a picture of a pig on the Kaaba. Would the police investigate an MP for equating the supposed pinnacle of political systems to the most despicable of crimes against humanity? That’s as likely as me being sodomised in an alley by a bunch of expat louts with a shisha pipe.

Terry Goodkind isn’t the first to allude democracy to gangs and violence. Here are some similar ones from the Quotes About Democracy website:

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The terrible tyranny of the majority” – Ray Bradbury

So perhaps using gang-rape as an example is simply a stark exaggeration of the beloved ‘majority wins’ rule, or what our PAP would call the MANDATE of the people. There are plenty of activities that can pass off as ‘democracy in action’ and yet flout all moral codes and decency known to man. Spitting in public, squatting on a toilet seat with dirty shoes, having the whole bus seat to yourself and ‘gang-raping’ your Facebook friends’ news feeds with daily updates on how many km you ran and calories you burnt, for example. Yet we remain cocksure of our ‘democratic’ aspirations, and we cherish those rare moments when we get to protest like a virgin landing a threesome on his first date, all this coming from a country languishing in the 149th place in press freedom,

Postscript 11 May 13: Zainudin soon apologised for offending anyone with Goodkind’s quote, though he’s not taking too kindly to a certain ‘Ganga’ who posted his photo with the controversial line next to his face, slamming the blogger for being ‘mischievous’ and selective in his abstraction of the quote. His latest FB post as of 11 May was:

Yesterday, I played football with our NYP colleagues for the ITIS-NUSS Staff Tournament. I played one half and managed to score a goal. We won 4-1 against TP. Congrats to our NYP Staff team.

No mention by the MP if it was in fact an OWN GOAL.

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Filed under: 2011, 2013, Bloggers, Politicians, Sex, Violence | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Lift Your Skirt, Save Your Life ad goes against Asian values

Posted on May 8, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ad catches the eye and raises a few eyebrows’, 8 May 2013, article by Debbie Lee, Eugene Chua and Joanne Lee, ST and 10 May 2013, ‘Cancer ad goes against Asian values’, ST Forum

“LIFT your skirt, save your life,” urges a new advertisement by the Singapore Cancer Society to promote awareness of preventive measures for cervical cancer. But the campaign appears to have raised eyebrows instead.

Public reaction to its posters, depicting celebrities in white dresses catching a rush of air from the ground, have varied from “catchy” to “obscene”…It features celebrities MediaCorp Radio 987FM DJ Rosalyn Lee, model and TV host Linda Black and 93.3FM DJ Siau Jiahui.

The campaign aims to encourage women to go for Pap smear screenings being provided for free by 178 clinics this month. However, more than 60 per cent of the 80 people polled by The Straits Times said the advertisement was not effective in delivering its message.

Respondents commonly mistook it for fashion or slimming advertisements….A quarter of the respondents felt the advertisement was offensive. “Most people are saying, ‘Oh, it uses sexual undertones to get attention, it’s effective.’ But just because it gets people talking doesn’t mean it sends the right message,” said Miss Yvonne Jin, a 21-year-old student.

The Association of Women for Action and Research agreed. Its executive director, Ms Corinna Lim, said: “It is a sad reflection on society that good causes also have to resort to sex to promote their message.”

(Dr V Subramaniam):…We have long cherished and promoted the age-old values of decorum, decency, good morals, respect for tradition and other attributes that go with our rich Asian culture. These values provide us with the cultural ballast against the influx of unhealthy foreign cultural trends and behaviour.

The ad to promote awareness of preventive measures for cervical cancer, which comes with the tagline, “Lift your skirt. Save your life”, is not in keeping with our Asian morals and is degrading to women. Left to the imagination, the crude insinuations can easily corrupt the morals of our young.

Otherwise you’ll get more than just a 7 year itch

Cervical cancer is no joke of course, as ambassador DJ Ross Lee would attest, having had a near brush with the dreaded disease herself. But you don’t need a controversial headline to grab the attention of Singaporean women. One four letter word starting with the letter F would do the trick: FREE, and that magical word that possesses Singaporeans into queuing long hours for stuff they don’t need is restrained here by small caps and boring font. Hell, you may even get a MAN to queue for cervical screening if you market your freebie a little TOO well. Maybe SCC should try the same tactic for prostate screening. I doubt anyone would complain of such an ad as obscene, sexist or defiling ‘Asian values‘, though some may accuse it of causing nightmares, loss of appetite and general distress.

manpants

It’s always tempting to employ ‘sexual undertones’ when you’re talking about cancers of intimate body parts. In 2010, another local cancer foundation used nude models to encourage women to, well, keep ABREAST of cancer prevention, painted NIPPLES and all. Just like those crying foul about this PAP smear campaign giving upskirt perverts ideas on the escalator, some dismissed body painting as crass objectification of women everywhere.

A very cheeky ad

Take away the provocative images though, and what you’re left with are awful puns like ‘Treasure the BREAST things in life’ in 2011, the kind of tagline that would only draw the attention and non-stop giggles of females with their breasts still under development. Unlike boobs, there’s very limited wordplay when it comes to organs around the pelvis without offending someone, especially when words like ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ are still avoided by the media till this day. Even saying things like ‘Hey ladies, come spread your legs!’ can be as insulting as an orgy invitation.

You can’t make visual puns of erogenous zones without coming across as downright vulgar, like the ‘Unfurgivable‘ ad by the Ministry of Wax, which got some all fired up over a purse resembling female genitalia. Still, cervical cancer is the ONLY preventable cancer in women to date, which means delivering a necessary message and making it stick may be more important than what the good folks at AWARE think. All it takes is one person to notice the ad, ‘lift her skirt’ and get saved from disaster for the campaign to work. I don’t see how ‘skirt-lifting’ is a problem for AWARE considering they endorse anti-rape campaigns called SlutWalks. It’s also better to benefit from a lewd ad that is a ‘sad reflection of society’ and be ALIVE, than get your knickers in a twist and dead.

Filed under: 2000s, 2012, 2013, Advertisements, Campaigns/Elections, Nudity, Sex, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Singapore as a location for blockbuster movies

Posted on May 1, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Lights, camera, action – in S’pore’, 25 April 2013, ST Forum

(Matthew Varughese): THE Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is constantly striving to come up with creative ways to promote Singapore as a tourist destination…A lot of resources have been spent on advertising and organising events such as the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix. Perhaps it is time for the STB to consider another form of marketing that targets an international audience and creates a lasting legacy – that is, entice big-name international film studios to use Singapore as a location for blockbuster movies.

In this way, the STB can achieve its target of showcasing Singapore to the world and marketing it as a vibrant place to visit. Already, Indian film studios have shot movies in Singapore, and some Korean and Japanese bands have used our landmarks for location shoots in their music videos.

The next step would be to get leading Hollywood studios to shoot on location in Singapore. Our country has already been referenced in a number of films and, as a global city with multiple attractions and an iconic skyline, there should be little difficulty in incorporating a Singapore sequence into a modern blockbuster.

Regional cities such as Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong have already made their mark in Hollywood, and it could be time for Singapore to take to the silver screen. Movies in the James Bond and Godfather series have become staples that will be watched and re-watched for generations to come. Should Singapore be featured in such a film in future, the effects of marketing and publicity would endure for far longer than any print, radio or television advertising campaign.

Singapore’s skyline will never match the scale and pomp of China or Dubai, where you have impressive monoliths like the Burj Khalifa as a phallic set-piece for Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible:Ghost Protocol. Hong Kong gets to be featured in Batman and was among the first Asian countries to headline the globetrotting James Bond franchise (You Only Live Twice, 1967). Even Petronas Towers in KL has been immortalised in the spy-caper Entrapment starring ex-James Bond himself Sean Connery. The last time someone attempted to pull off an action flick in our high-rise metropolitian setting was in the Hong Kong film 2000AD, which starred heartthrob Aaron Kwok and local actors like the now obscure James Lye and Phyllis Quek, though the HK superstar served more as product placement for RSAF in the trailer than a skyscraper-crawling daredevil.

Meanwhile, we await Hollywood magnates to take notice of the only candidate to star a blockbuster so far, the Marina Bay Sands. Fast and Furious star and rapper Ludacris gave us a boost by soaking in the Infinity Pool during the F1 season and tweeting about it in 2011, though since then we haven’t heard from Tom Cruise, James Bond or even the guys from the Hangover (with its sequel shot in hot and sultry Bangkok). We have, however, been featured in a Japanese porn film. MBS, chicken rice and all.

Even Julia Roberts’ character in Eat Pray Love would rather head to Bali for some spiritual me-time. So, if our buildings aren’t glitzy or gigantic enough and we’ve lost out on that Oriental lustre and LUST to fellow ASEAN nations, where does that leave us? Bollywood and its song-and-dance with national icon backdrops I suppose. Interestingly, the first ever Indian move to be shot here was titled ‘Singapore’ (1960), and featured Haw Par Villa in its prime. The ‘strange garden’ exists till this day, though more of a curiosity than a tourist attraction that it once was.

Screen Shot 2013-05-01 at 10.07.39 AM

There was hope in the late 60s/early 70′s. Homegrown action starlet Marrie Lee (real name Doris Young) was featured in several foreign films including the iconic, Quentin Tarantino-endorsed, CLEOPATRA WONG, which had our campy heroine kicking butt in Chinese Garden (Trivia: Cleopatra also starred a dashing BRIAN RICHMOND, now veteran DJ with Gold 90 FM). Then America took notice with the softcore thriller Wit’s End, aka The GI EXECUTIONER (1971), which featured ‘sultry Singapore’ and sleazy sex in the Raffles Hotel. One version of the trailer started with an old local smoking an OPIUM PIPE. Singapore would have been perfect for the Hangover movies then. I’m surprised even master of the C-grade action movie Steven Seagal gave us a miss.

Screen Shot 2013-05-01 at 10.18.10 AM

Then the Government happened. Local martial arts film The Ring of Fury(1973), featuring real-life kungfu master Peter Chong, was BANNED for its ‘portrayal of crime’ and depictions of gangsterism. Still, that didn’t stop Saint Jack (1978) from being filmed here, another American flick banking on what was left of our sleazy exoticism in Bugis Street. That means two American films in a decade, both with one thing in common. Barenaked BOOBIES. And nothing from Hollywood thereafter except for totally misleading references like the Singapore of Pirates of the Caribbean, a low-life haven that crosses evil Chinese temple with Old World kampong chic. Even our attempts to market the country through local film without foreign money have been stifled for being too seditious or racist for our own good. Jet Li, martial arts superstar and erstwhile Singaporean, has done absolutely NOTHING for our flagging entertainment industry. US chart-topping Singaporean diva-pastor Sun Ho would also rather sing about China than Singapore Wine.

‘Singapore’ has since been featured a 80′s MASK cartoon episode, the occasional foodie documentary with Anthony Bourdian and an Australian mini-series about the Japanese Occupation called Tanamera: The Lion of Singapore. Which ALSO FEATURES BOOBIES. Need I mention Sex: The Annabel Chong Story? Forget Batman, James Bond or Amitabh Bachchan. STB, you should know what to do to make Singapore more ‘Shiok’ now. How about an erotic courtroom drama about an underage prostitute and a high-flying politician, eh?

Filed under: 2013, Advertisements, Casino/gambling, Film, Local actors, Sex, Tourists | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Sukki Singapora’s ‘albino Indian’ look

Posted on April 21, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Burlesque babe’, 21 April 2013, article by Melissa Sim, Lifestyle, Sunday Times

For more than a year, burlesque dancer Sukki Singapora, 26, led a double life. By day, she worked in IT support – wearing formal skirts and fitted shirts – but once the work day was over, she cast off her office wear for corsets and sequined outfits. “It was very much a Clark Kent existence,” says Singaporeconnected, Britain-based Sukki, who quit her IT job with the British cycling Olympic team to become a full-time burlesque performer in April last year.

…“I was fortunate enough to be offered enough shows that I no longer needed a day job,” says the dancer, who uses a peroxide cream to create the look of an “albino Indian”

…What keeps her going, she says, are the letters she receives from Asian women and men, nearly 100 from Singapore alone. “Some want to learn how to do it. However, more often than not, they are too scared to try because of their strict backgrounds and feel they have no one to talk to except me,” she says.

So she set up The Singapore Burlesque Society, a Facebook group which has 64 members, to provide a “safe community” for those interested in burlesque in Singapore. She also started The Singapore Burlesque Club, a touring show which has a policy of hiring at least one Asian burlesque performer at every event.

…Denying that she chose her stage name because it was more exotic to be from Singapore than the UK, she says: “I picked it because it represents where I felt I was from. I still consider myself a citizen.”

Born to an Indian Singaporean father and a British mother, both doctors, Sukki Menon was a Geography major before achieving grand diva success. She became a British citizen when she was 18, and would give our very own drag queen Kumar a run for the money. Most Singaporeans, however, would rather play Angry Birds than see dancers dressed up as peacocks, this despite Moulin Rouge and the less successful Burlesque movies spurring the revival of a vintage stage show. ‘Showgirls’ probably gets more illegal downloads than both movies combined.

Sukki isn’t the first Asian sensation to seduce audiences with wild, sexy dancing. Malaya used to have her very own ‘Queen of Striptease’ in the 1950s, none other than the late, great Rose Chan. Referred to as a ‘stripper’ in those days, her shows were banned here by the police in view of its ‘improper nature’. She was also badass enough to wrestle with pythons. Today’s burlesque artistes settle for boas instead.

I suppose many Singaporeans have matured since then to accept burlesque dancing as a respectable profession, nude or no-nude, but it’s mostly viewed as a hobby to tone your abs or surprise your husband on Valentine’s Day (for $180 you can have 10 hourly lessons of Exotic Dance/Lap Dance). I’m not sure if albinos or Indians would take offence at Sukki’s use of whitening face cream. I’ve never seen an Indian albino in the flesh, but I doubt they look like Courtney Love as Sukki does. Going ‘Blackface’ for your company DnD with a Bollywood theme, however, is a terrible idea.

Crazy Horse, which bears similarities to burlesque though it boasts as the most ‘avant garde’ all of Paris cabarets, failed in Singapore after just 14 months.  Supporters were quick to denounce the country for being intolerant of such ‘raunchiness’. But it also offended housewives who thought it was ‘pornographic’, ‘derogatory to women’, and promoted all sorts of wrong values. A layman would find difficulty differentiating burlesque, cabaret and exotic dancing, though flashy costumes (and eventual lack of it), ample cleavage, flirtatiousness and feathers are all common elements. Some would call her a ‘high-class’ stripper, and in fact Sukki in her Facebook page has acknowledged her job as a ‘striptease artist’. Here’s a video of her jiggling out of traditional Indian dance costume into a slutty red bikini:

Burlesque dancers tend to give themselves names indistinguishable from adult movie stars or James Bond girls (think Pussy Galore).  Not all have glamorous monikers like Dita von Teese, which sounds like a villain from a 101 Dalmations cartoon. Here’s a quick test to see if you know your burlesque from your XXX stars.

1) Aurora Galore
2) Aurora Snow
3) Lexi Belle
4) Dottie Lux
5) Dirty Martini
6) Summer Haze
7)Lady Beau Peep
8)Vicious Delicious
9)Kalani Kokonuts
10)Calamity Chang
11) Kitten de Ville
12)Lily Labeau

*2, 3, 6 and 12 are porn actresses

Dancers also tend to argue that their art is a ‘celebration of feminity‘, yet  there is an internet magazine for ‘all things burlesque’ named BurlesqueBITCH.com. An organiser for international events like the All Asian Burlesque Spectacular calls itself THIRSTY Girl Productions.  Sukki herself acts in The PEEP SHOW, and performs at a La Bordello Boheme. It’s all in the name of good ol’ naughty fun, of course, but I doubt the folks at AWARE are amused. I’m sure the Esplanade can bend its ‘No Sleazy Uncles’ rule to slot in a Sukki show somewhere.

Incorporating Singapura in her stage name aside, she has also wowed audiences with what she calls The MERLION strut,  a homage to a ‘mythical beast’. There is also the “Sparkle for Singapore’, complete with ‘glistening Singapore orchids’. We should rope Sukki in for the next National Day Parade since we’ve done pole-dancing anyway, and pair her up with Kumar in a Battle of the Divas. With our ailing fertility problems, perhaps sexy burlesque is one way to sizzle up our bedrooms, and no one better to promote it than our Burlesque Ambassador and Superheroine, Sukki Singapora herself.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Art, Clubs, Cross dressing, Fun and games, Nightspots, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Edward Whistler Goh baking cake for underaged prostitute

Posted on April 11, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Accused says he could not get aroused’, 11 Aprl 2013, article by Tham Yuen-C, ST

THE second man claiming trial in the online vice ring case said yesterday that he did not have sex with the underage girl the second time they met because he could not get aroused. In fact, Edward Whistler Goh Ngian Meng claimed he even confided in the police officer investigating the case that he had an “erection problem”, even though it was “embarrassing”.

…Goh, 50, who is facing two counts of having paid sex with a minor, had apparently confessed in the statement to having sex with the girl twice, on Sept 29 and Oct 24 in 2010. Taking the stand for the first time yesterday, he vigorously denied having sex with the girl, despite paying her more than $400 for her service on both occasions.

The first time, at Hotel 81 in Bencoolen Street, the police had raided the place before anything happened. “I was very frightened and wanted to get out of the hotel,” he said. The second time, in his Katong apartment, he could not get an erection even after she stroked him. This was because he had just run a marathon, was on painkillers for an ankle injury and had a cold, he claimed.

In fact, Goh ended up baking a banana walnut cake for the girl that day, and they had coffee and chatted.

‘Eddie’ Whistler Goh claimed that he was deprived of the ‘most important meal of day‘ (breakfast) and signed a false confession because he ‘couldn’t think straight’. While most men hope to get at least some cuddles after hiring a prostitute, Goh, if he’s to be believed, ended up making cake and coffee as if he had ordered the ‘daughter for a day’ fetish package from Miss XXX’s pimp.  Either that was he thinks he’s Richard Gere from Pretty Woman.

The marathon part, at least, seems legit, judging from the way he zipped out of the Subordinate Courts after he was charged last year, vaguely resembling Storm Shadow the ninja warrior from GI Joe.

Run Whistler, run!

In 2004, Goh took part in the Stan Chart Full Marathon for a ‘worthy cause’, raising funds for the ‘Make-A-Wish’ foundation. In the 2006 Sentosa Race, he was running in support of the Club Rainbow charity, completing the 10 km all-terain run in 58 minutes. Ironically, both ‘Make-A-Wish’ and Club Rainbow are charities for CHILDREN and YOUTHS suffering from a range of chronic and potentially life-threatening diseases. Well I suppose a teen who goes around selling her body to men old enough to be her father DOES need some serious help, though I doubt a banana walnut cake over coffee would persuade her to get back to her studies instead of pursuing a life of lucrative though wanton decadence.

As CEO of the Ed Whistler International group, Goh seems like a prolific giver, raising tens of thousands for children’s cancer, muscular dystrophy and senior citizens by running all over the place, which makes his conviction somewhat surprising at first glance. Not so much that he has portrayed himself as a kind, generous savior to young innocent children (primary school principals and priests are guilty too), but that he even has the time or energy to have sex at all. Still, I wonder how the recipients of Goh’s contributions would feel if he indeed were found guilty of having sex with a 17 year old girl. For a guy this busy, maybe he has a point about the detrimental effects of skipping breakfast (and libido-killing marathons) after all.

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Sex | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Abortion destroys families and the nation

Posted on April 3, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Abortion destroys nation building’, 2 April 2013, Voices, Today

(Edmund Leong Meng Tsi): It is indeed “Time again to review abortion laws” (April 1), considering the long-term emotional harm on post-abortive women. Some of them are adversely affected and are easier to identify, as they suffer visibly. Much is known about the treatments for them.

Literature on abortion suggests that “unaffected” women harden their hearts instead. Cognitive dissonance hinders their ability to love properly because they had denied love to their closest kin through abortion, and yet must continue to extend love and show compassion to others throughout their lives.

They feared a tiny human so much as to eliminate it, and will subconsciously guard against bigger humans by building walls around their hearts. I believe that when the heart of the family is compromised, the entire family is affected. Emotional strains can tear families apart, and the effects can be passed to future generations.

Singapore’s nation-building efforts are inadvertently being foiled not only because 12,000 babies are aborted annually, but because women are offered an easy way out of adversity.

Abortion is biased towards self-interest by eliminating another’s interest, thereby destroying families and the nation. We must instead utilise all means to keep babies and their mothers alive, physically and emotionally. Adoption is the better choice.

The issue of legalised abortion has been fought over by pro-lifers, pro-choicers, feminists, religious folks, moral philosophers, doctors and politicians for ages, and we will probably never understand enough about the human consciousness or even what ‘life’ means to come to a consensus on the ‘rights and wrongs’ of terminating a ‘potential’ human being. So instead people focus on abortion as a matter of disrupting the natural order of how society traditionally grows. Even more so now that we’re facing a dearth of babies and on surface it would seem logical to assume that one unaborted baby equals to +1 population. If only it were that simple.

In the eighties, loss of babies who could be borne of educated couples was deemed a shame and a loss of productive citizenry. A writer known only as PGT lamented the loss of ‘educated genes’ which would have given rise to ‘smarter babies’. Husbands whose wives went for revenge abortions decried them for ‘the break up of an otherwise happy marriage and family relationship’. Our ‘over-liberal’ abortion laws would also supposedly encourage more people to ‘change bed-partners without any sense of responsibility’. The fact is we have been promiscuous and having unwanted babies way before surgical abortion even existed. The difference is being skewered with a blade on an operating theatre vs drinking some awful tasting folk remedy concocted by your witch-doctor that would scramble your foetus into a bloody pulp before you shed its mushy corpse out through your genitalia. Even today, you’d find dead or barely alive infants in toilets, rubbish chutes or buried in the ground. We always had a means of killing the unborn if we wanted to, with varying success, but nations didn’t get ‘destroyed’ and families still thrived.

If one could ‘destroy’ a nation by depriving it of babies and have abortion turning us all into promiscuous devil-may-care lunatics who scrimp on condoms, neither is it a good idea to have children borne out of mothers who wanted them eliminated out of their uteri in the first place. The simplistic answer to unloved babies would be adoption, but that’s assuming every rejected baby will automatically be shuffled away from a ‘hardened’, emotionless mother and nurtured in a warm, loving home where stepparents make them Eggs Benedict for breakfast everyday.

There are as many complications of reluctant birth as there are to terminating pregnancies. What if no one wants your baby? If your chronically depressed mother told you she had wanted to abort you but was forced to relent at the last minute, and she couldn’t find anyone to take over maternal duties because you were such an ugly infant with all sorts of respiratory problems, how would that make you feel? Even if you found yourself a home, what if your foster parents, though initially enthusiastic about the whole adoption thing, turn out to be really terrible people who wish they had picked someone else from the orphanage? What if you found out that you were conceived after your mother was gang-raped and she couldn’t bear to put you down? Neither choice is, as the writer proclaimed, an ‘easy way out of adversity’, nor do women who face the abortion dilemma necessarily FEAR that tiny human like it was the devil’s spawn. Tell that to the rape victim, the single unemployed mom with quintuplet foetuses, or the mother who realises her baby’s got a monstrous physical defect or severe Down’s syndrome.

We can do little about sex-starved teenagers and religious attitudes towards contraception, but it’ll take more than a nasty pre-abortion video, or haranguing anti-abortionist men who speak about post-abortion psyche as if they’ve been through it themselves, to keep the deaths of the unborn in check.

Filed under: 1980s, 2013, Babies, Funerals/Death, Parenting, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

SIA steward arrested for smuggling heroin

Posted on March 24, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘SIA steward arrested in Sydney for alleged drug offence’, 24 March 2013, article by Ng Jing Yng, Today

A Singapore Airlines (SIA) cabin crew member was arrested last Sunday at Sydney International Airport after he allegedly tried to bring in 1.6kg of heroin.

Nicholas Tan Ngat Liang, 50, was a leading steward who was believed to be on duty during the flight from Singapore to Sydney. In response to TODAY’s queries, a spokesperson from the Australian Federal Police confirmed that a 50-year-old Singaporean was arrested on Sunday and has been charged with “importing a commercial quantity of a border controlled drug, namely heroin”. “The man was arrested for attempting to import 1.6kg of heroin into Australia,” the spokesperson said.

In Australia, the offence carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and/or an A$825,000 fine (S$1.1 million). Tan’s case was first mentioned in a New South Wales court on Monday.

It’s not reported how Tan carried his stash, all 1.6kg of it, but he is only one of several  Singaporeans who have tried their luck with drug trafficking Down Under.

In 2008, a Singaporean drug mule was caught by Australian authorities with 91 packets of heroin in his stomach (net weight 286 g of heroin), and was forced to defecate the goods over 2 days in a hospital. In 2009, two of our countrymen were raided whilst in a taxi carrying $4.5 million worth of the stuff. Last year, one was caught by Melbourne police smuggling 5kg of the same substance in a heap of Chinese books, while another 2 Singaporeans were charged for stowing 4.5kg of it in a vehicle and a service apartment (Sydney). The most sensational Aussie drug bust to date involving a Singaporean was that of Tan Wee Quay, who was part of a North Korean ‘Pong Su’ ploy to ship in 150kg of heroin in 2003.  According to reports, he was born in the ‘Golden Triangle’ and once blasted his way (with the help from some friends in the heroin business) out of a Danish prison in 2001. He was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment and remains there till this day, being ‘held in high regard’ for his skills as an interpreter. Tan would have been gone in a whiff if he was caught in his home country.

At the rate of our own citizens being hauled up by Aussie police, the perception of government-fearing, law-abiding Singaporeans making perfect drug mules doesn’t hold anymore, even if you’re part of our prestigious airline crew. In the 1980′s, SIA crew members were detained for suspected smuggling of GOLD, once in Seoul, and another incident in Kathmandu. But bad behaviour wasn’t restricted to sneaking in illicit drugs or precious metals. In 2008, A PILOT captain was snared for having child pornography on his laptop (again in Australia, Adelaide to be precise). A chief and leading steward were arrested in Denmark for using a passenger’s credit card to go on a shopping spree in 1982. In 1995, steward Zaini Jeloni was charged for the rape and murder of his female colleague (and alleged lover), Chang Yu, in Los Angeles. There’s even a hint of the paranormal about Chang Yu’s murder and some spooky association with the SQ006 crash in 2000, Taipei (the deceased was of Taiwanese descent).

Maybe it’s the long hours spent airborne and psychological stress of jetlag, or the wrangling over salary and leave entitlements that have plagued the airline of late that drives some SIA personnel to desperation and wilful wrongdoing.  If I were a jetsetting cabin crew myself, I would imagine my experience with immigration checkpoints giving me an edge in couriering contraband too. But why Australia, with its hefty penalty of life imprisonment and its experience in apprehending Singaporeans? The last count of Singaporeans in Australia stands around 50,000. Nobody knows how many of those residing are dope fiends or crime lords, but if you’ve got connections, and you’re an extreme risk-taker at your wits’ end, Australia was probably still a better bet than, say, the chance of execution by firing squad in Vietnam.

Incidentally, Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van was hanged in Changi Prison in 2005 (the first to be executed in more than a decade) for carrying 400g of heroin into the country. Tan Ngat Liang had 4 times that amount with him in Sydney.

Filed under: 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2013, Drugs, Funerals/Death, Justice system/Lawsuits, Sex, Singapore Airlines, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Wallet fetish thief jailed for 13 months

Posted on March 23, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Leather fetish lands serial wallet thief in jail…again’, 23 March 2013, article by Elena Chong, ST

A SERIAL thief with a fetish for sniffing women’s leather wallets was jailed for 13 months yesterday after a judge decided he had already been given enough chances to mend his ways. Low Ji Qing also took “upskirt” pictures of a woman bending over in Kiddy Palace toy store, the court heard.

The 48-year-old, who becomes sexually aroused by the smell of the accessories, has been in and out of court since 1986 – spending a total of 16 years behind bars. He was spared prison in May 2011, when he was placed on probation due to his psychiatric disorder. However, he breached the order repeatedly, stealing again and insulting a woman’s modesty.

Yesterday, District Judge Soh Tze Bian decided not to give him another chance and handed him the jail sentence.

Sending a wallet sniffer to jail for repeat offending isn’t going to cure his compulsion, unless the punishment was intended as a form of cold turkey when psychiatric treatment doesn’t work. In 2011, it was  revealed that Low got hooked on women’s wallets after nosing around his sister’s personal belongings when he was just 7. He later embarked on a snatch spree, pleasuring himself while looking at photographs of strangers. An Economics graduate and previous holder of executive to director level jobs, Low’s life fell apart when he succumbed to his olfactory obsession and was diagnosed with ‘fetishism’. Other experts in the field prefer to label it ‘paraphilia’. In the Tintin comics, there’s a character who pickpockets wallets for his own personal collection. Such behaviour would be viewed as, at best, ‘an unusual hobby’ in stories for teenagers, but condemned as ‘sick’ and ‘perverse’ in real life.

There seems to be a gender bias when it comes to fetishism or paraphila. It’s OK for women to be compulsive hoarders of shoes like Imelda Marcos but if a man does the same for stiletto heels,  lingerie or used panties, it’s called a sick fetish and it’s usually assumed that the same shoe-hogging ‘sicko’ goes around sucking people’s toes too, though he could very well be a normal working adult contributing to society like any one of us. A woman who steals branded goods because she can’t help it is a kleptomaniac but a guy who runs around hostels robbing hanging students’ underwear from clotheslines is a nutcase. This probably explains why men make up the majority of fetishists; Compulsive women hug their objects of desire to sleep or snap a hundred versions of the same thing on Instagram. Men stuff their noses or rub themselves with it.

The word ‘fetish’ is used rather fast and loose these days to describe any abnormal attachment to activities or objects. What was once maligned as ‘fetishistic’ like making adult women dress in schoolgirl uniforms have become merely ‘kinky’ to even banal since ‘Back to School’ became a DnD staple theme. Fetishes are also used to sell men’s magazines, like the ‘FHM Fetish Finals’ held in 2008, to promote designer shoes in your neighbourhood shopping mall, or couple events to celebrate Valentine’s Day (2004′s LOVE FETISH).

Who’s the most fetishist of them all?

It has also been trivialised to describe a strict preference for specific mate qualities. Supermodel Bar Rafaeli insists that she has a ‘fetish’ for men with nice teeth. Caucasian men who come to this part of the world for its ‘exotic’ women have an ‘Asian’ fetish. I have a fetish for women who can recite the value of Pi up to 17 digits.  If I keep my workplace table tidy I have a fetish for cleanliness, likewise I have a fetish for blue if it so happens to be the colour of my bedroom and iPhone cover. But seriously, this overuse and undermining of a mental disorder isn’t new. An article in 1934 labels people who over-indulge in exercise as having a ‘fetish’ for it, an addiction which is still rampant today, judging by the rate people are posting their run timings and distances on Facebook and making the rest of us look like we have a fetish for sleep, junk food and TV.

Today, it might be deviant sexual behaviour to go around sniffing people’s armpits, but who knows, when it becomes mainstream this may become part and parcel of perfectly healthy foreplay (if it isn’t already). It may be gross now to view videos of women stepping on pieces of bread, but nobody says anything about people drawn to continuous video loops of Nigella Lawson kneading dough. Before you know it, anything from hugging and your hairstyle of choice to mundane activities like eating, Facebooking or putting a favourite song on repeat may be inflated to ‘fetish’ status just because you appear to be a slave to it. I can have potatoes for lunch everyday but that doesn’t mean I have a tuber fetish. That would imply that I tickle my erogenous zones with french fries.

Filed under: 1930s, 2000s, 2013, Justice system/Lawsuits, Sex | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Sembawang Drive forest becoming a brothel at night

Posted on March 16, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Sembawang raid:Forest by day, brothel by night’, 16 March 2013, article by Wang TianJie, TNP

The dense forest along Sembawang Drive looked innocent enough in the day. But come nightfall, dozens of women allegedly offered paid sex in a makeshift brothel amid the trees. The brothel was discovered in the forested area along Sembawang Drive in the direction of Admiralty Road. It was about a kilometre away from Cochrane Lodge Two, a workers’ dormitory.

On Tuesday, at about 10pm, the illicit activities came to an abrupt end when police officers raided the brothel and arrested about 40 men and 10 women. The women, mostly clad in revealing tops and skimpy shorts, were led away to police cars. Several of the men were topless when arrested.

When reporters from Shin Min Daily News visited the scene on the same day, the grassy area where the arrests were made was in a state of disarray. The ground was littered with tissue paper, water bottles and open condom wrappers.

Tarpaulin sheets were hung up to create three small rooms in the makeshift brothel. Each “cubicle” was further divided into three to five sections of about four square metres each. Thin mattresses were laid on the sandy ground in each section.

Stories about illicit sex in the wild are a New Paper specialty. In 2009, a similar open-air brothel was raided somewhere in Woodlands, where the state of amenities made the Sembawang one look luxurious in comparison. Instead of mattresses, this brothel offered CARDBOARDS as makeshift beds. It was also set up in the Kwong Hou Sua CEMETERY. If kinky open-air sex among the dead is your kind of thing, then this was the place to be. A foreign worker who stumbled upon the site told the reporter that ‘his colleagues have been COMING (for the girls’ services) for the past two months. This guy was there to pluck durians. In the middle of the night. He could have killed someone if he ever dropped the King of Fruits into an occupied cubicle.

Another hotspot is Lim Chu Kang in 2008, where tents big enough to house 10 people were erected in forested areas less than 100m from the main road. In 2010, TNP again exposed a sex den in Yishun (again located near northern Singapore), where the pimp charged $20 for a ‘short time service’ lasting no longer than 10 minutes. That’s just $8 more than my 10 minute haircut at QB House. I wonder how much of that time is spent lighting mosquito coils or swiping red ants off of your groin. For a budget brothel, you can’t expect to be put in the mood for love. No frollicking among daisies and lavender, nor blankets to cuddle in. You only have the stars above and a disgusting sheet separating your naked body from the soil and worms below. Time is of the essence, even if it feels like sex on a bed of nails.

Forest whoopie

Our foreign workers don’t mind such no-frills prostitution, of course. A 2008 survey found that an astonishing 50% of Thai construction workers visited Geylang while 10% went for the budget alternative. To many who frequent such places, sex is a treat after a hard day of physical labour, even if it means cheating on your wife back home. But getting caught with your pants down in the bushes on your off day is a small matter compared to other more serious social issues involving foreign workers caught in sexual relationships. Like murder for instance.  Perhaps it’s about time the ST sent their reporters into the woods for a change, instead of TNP having a field day with such vice raids all the time.

With more green spaces and cemeteries being squeezed out, forest brothels may become a thing of the past. There’s a chance our foreign workers may flock in even higher numbers to various beaches gawking at women in bikinis, while the rest consider their options with our red light districts where one can indulge with at least a roof over their heads. But why risk dengue romping in the woods off Lim Chu Kang road, or upsetting spirits by leaving bodily fluids all over their graves? If one is having sex by the barest of moonlight, you might as well hump a lubricated tree trunk with a hole in it for free. Just make sure you check for termites first.

If MOM doesn’t do something to keep our foreign workers entertained beyond carnal pleasures, even our locals’ favourite sex haunts, the carparks, the stairwells, the gazebo in the park, may be overrun with condoms, used tissue and army groundsheets in no time (There’s still hope for Beach Road army shops). I also realise there is a candidate for worst job in the world: Picking up this filthy mess at forest brothels after a raid. But I suppose you’d only get a foreign worker to do that sort of thing, wouldn’t you?

Filed under: 2000s, 2013, Foreign workers, Sex | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Satanic soldier having sex with 11 year old cousin

Posted on March 12, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Soldier jailed for sex with two minors; told one minor that he was a Satanist’, 12 March 2013, article by Elena Chong, ST.

A 21-year-old army regular was jailed for 20 months on Tuesday for having sex with two minors. Neither the accused nor the two girls, then aged 15 and 11, can be named as there is a gag order. A district court heard that he was initially given a 12-month conditional warning for having sex with his girlfriend, aged 15, at his home in November 2008. He was then 17. The girl, now 19, became pregnant and underwent an abortion.

He breached the condition of the warning to remain crime-free for the next 12 months by committing similar offences. This time, he preyed on his 11-year-old cousin. Claiming that he was a “Satanist”, he told her in October 2009 that since she was the first person to touch him, she must have sex with him or else “Satan” would “come after her”.

The girl became disturbed and later on, began to believe him as she started seeing “figures” in her bedroom. She was often scolded by her mother and she attributed the incidents of “bad luck” to the fact that she did not have sex with the accused.

Satanism is one way to use alleged powers of the occult to frighten gullible girls into sex, but the Horned One and the blood rituals committed in his honour have gone out of fashion in recent decades, which makes the victim’s fear of the Prince of Darkness rather surprising. Telling a kid horrific stories about Satan these days is as good as wriggling your fingers in a creepy fashion and summoning the Boogeyman. Parents no longer use scare tactics to send children to bed or ‘be good..or else’, when sometimes the threat of imaginary monsters may be more effective than a stern wagging finger and ‘rationalising’ with a brat who refuses to let go of your iPad.

There seems to be a trend of boys taking liberties with evil deities to deceive innocent girls. A certain ‘John’ fell into a trance in order to make girls succumb as he channeled Yan Luo Wang, the Chinese God of Hell back in 2011. Just earlier this month, Simon Wong Choy Chuan pretended to be possessed by ghosts whilst chanting and speaking in a different voice, calling himself ‘Gasura’, which sounds more like Godzilla’s bumbling arch nemesis than an embodiment of pure evil. For his theatrics he got 5 girls to submit to him, his hisses, fits and sputters probably more convincing than any of the professional actors on Channel 5′s Incredible Tales. But even blessed angels and saints aren’t spared from lecherous pretenders. You have fake monks ripping you off your ‘donations’ and priests touching boys where they shouldn’t be touching. If drawing inspiration from the pits of hell doesn’t work, there’s always the other side of the ‘supernatural’ to turn to.

The ‘medium con’ was first brought into public awareness by the shocking trial of serial rapist-killer Adrian Lim, who was an ‘ardent believer of the goddess Kali’. In 1983, he related to the courts how he SOMERSAULTED and rolled to the front of an altar, mimicking the ‘voice of an old man’. But it’s not just playing a vessel for spirit possession that makes people piss their pants. Conversely, you may trick someone into sex by convincing her that she herself is the one who needs a special brand of ‘exorcism’, taking ‘sexual healing’ to gruesome extremes. Lying alone is useless without a little persuasion, authority, plenty of charisma, and perhaps some gravity defying acrobatics for authenticity. You also have to choose your avatar wisely. It would be embarrassing to channel Hades, mythic Ruler of the Underworld and get a blank stare instead of reluctant undressing.

As customary as it is to symphatise with any victim of such a ruse, you’d have to wonder what good a little common sense and skepticism could do to save a child, or even an ADULT for that matter, from trouble. We teach our kids how to solve complex Maths problems but fail in our duty to protect them from malicious superstition or predators. Even if you’re the sort to be fooled by eyeball rolling and scary gibberish, at least ask yourself what our army is doing letting these wild, incestuous Satanists serve the country, what with their blood rite nonsense and heavy metal music and all. Let’s see what the Dark Lord has in store in return for this follower desecrating a nubile and blood relative like a good Satanist should. A hot tub in hell would be well deserved.

Filed under: 1980s, 2013, Army, Justice system/Lawsuits, Kids, Religion, Sex, Superstitions, Violence | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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