Viet brides bought for threesomes

Posted on October 2, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Childless couple has threesome with Viet bride’, 1 Oct 2011, article in insing.com, translated from Sin Ming Daily

The boss of a matchmaking agency that specialises in Vietnamese brides has come out to share some of his more bizarre experiences with clients. Lin Ma Ke recalls one of his clients, a well-to-do businessman in his 60s, had approached him specifically for a Vietnamese girl to bear illegitimate children for him.

The businessman had approached Lin three times for girls, the latest time only a few months back. According to Lin, the man is married but childless and wants children to hand down his business to. The couple decided to have a Vietnamese girl bear illegitimate children for them.

Through the agency, the couple went through two Vietnamese girls, both of whom packed up and returned to Vietnam after merely two weeks. Lin found out that the girls had left because the couple had tried to have ‘threesomes’ with them.

Some time ago, Lin introduced another 25-year-old Vietnamese girl to the couple, but she also gave up and left after three months. Lin made further queries to find out why the girls were leaving.

The businessman’s 50-year-old wife was said to be a control freak and had insisted on watching when the man had sex with the Vietnamese girl. The man’s wife also controlled when the man is allowed to have sex with the Vietnamese girl and does not allow the girl to be alone with the man. She also confiscated the girl’s passport and does not allow her to make phone calls.

Lin said, “Although the girl liked that the businessman was very kind to her, she could not bear with the way she was controlled.”

Foreign bride matchmakers are usually thorough in screening their bridal ‘stock’, but there appears to be no measures in place to protect helpless brides from abusive clients. These agencies used to specialise in helping lonely, aging men find a life partner if they could afford it, but have evolved into legitimate facilitators of kinky sex slavery. If Lin knew that his client was already married, why allow the trade? What was once a business of ‘finding one’s soulmate’ has branched into unlicensed womb rental, when all he really did was unknowingly pimp out his ‘bride-to-be’ as a sex-slave to be toyed about by a very depraved, decadent elite businessman with an unquenchable sex drive and a wife with a voyeur-dominatrix fetish.

Bride ‘shopping’ is really a more ‘humane’ form of human trafficking, with the formality of marriage thrown in as a guise of decency when the fact remains that these women are paraded like wares in a slave market, are haggled for a price, put through some ‘test drives’ and are asked to be ‘returned’ if deemed to be ‘defective’. For men who desire sex slaves but can’t afford to go through the ‘legal’ channels, there’s the riskier avenue of hunting young  innocent flesh in nearby Batam. But who wouldn’t be tempted by a $4000 price tag for a Viet bride (slashed by 50% in 2008 during the recession)? That’s even cheaper than that Chanel bag local husbands buy for their wives on wedding anniversaries.

The name of the agency was not mentioned in the article, but from  the  boss’s name (Lin Ma Ke), my guess is ‘Vietnam Brides International’, headed by one of the pioneers of Viet bride trading, Mark Lin of Taiwanese descent. Lin started out with ‘Sin Ye International Matchmaker’ and was featured in an ST article almost 10 years ago (Mate-in-Vietnam marriages, 21 July 2002, ST). According to the report, you had to fork out up to $22k for a wedding tour ‘package’, which includes a virginity check, transport, bridal passport application, and of course, a take-home bride. Viet brides also had the reputation of being ‘demure, conservative with simple needs and expectations’, which was perfect for not-so-well educated local men who have problems marrying ‘upwards’, or finding a  Singaporean woman who would give him a foot massage and a warm home-cooked dinner after a hard day’s work. China brides were out of favour by then, presumably because of increasing cases of men getting conned by them and not vice versa. Lin’s shrewd enterprise of combining matchmaking, holiday and wedding banquet all in one package was a godsend to many lonely Singaporean men with cash to spare.

Just a few years later in 2004, Sin Ye had Viet brides ‘imported’ to deal with the competition, with the Vietnamese embassy reporting that at least 300 brides had arrived in Singapore (Four hours – and he finds a Viet bride, 19 Oct 2004). The majority of clients were middle aged, and obviously wealthy, Chinese bachelors, who simply wanted an ‘obedient and gentle’ wife, contrary to the ‘materialistic, independent’ nature of the modern Singaporean woman, whose ‘spoilt princess’ label persists till this day. The Viet brides themselves were also reportedly ‘seeking’ out foreign grooms, in a bid to break away from a hard life of ‘backbreaking rice-planting’. To many, these agencies, and Singaporean men who craved genuine companionship, were lifesavers indeed. It was a hugely profitable win-win situation for matchmakers like Lin.

The dark side of choose-your-bride quickie marriages emerged in 2005, when an agency in Pearl’s Centre was conned by an old cobbler from Bishan and ‘sold’ a Vietnamese bride for $1 instead of the initial price tag of $10,000. It turns out that the client was already married, and sexually exploited his ‘bride’ for a week in a Geylang hotel, a fate worse than if she had been a prostitute instead. But the issue here isn’t the incompetence of the said matchmaking agency’s accounting department, but rather the lack of regulations to prevent men, rich or poor, single or married, from using such ‘legal services’ to fulfill their sicko sex-in-a-dungeon fantasies.

In the same year, a booth was set up an agency at a family carnival featuring ‘Viet brides on sale’ in a ‘fishtank’ . Note that this was 2005 and our quest for foreign brides had somehow thrown us all the way back to the days of Spartacus by putting human goods on display like chickens at a wet market, except that instead of cages we have ‘glass enclosures’. With such demeaning practices it’s no wonder that Viet brides are being treated like sex objects, used not only as nubile, fertile vessels for someone’s heir, but also forced to participate in lewd orgy games.  It’s not easy to have local men change their mindsets on the ‘ideal’ wife and start courting smarter women, or have successful women accept less well-off men to starve off these matchmakers. Or one could set up a watchdog group to keep all these agencies in check and ensure that their ‘livestock’ do not end up being living sex dolls locked up in a rich man’s wine cellar.  Clamping down on dubious transactions also wouldn’t stop rich perverts from taking their dirty business straight to the source, cutting out the middleman completely.  Despite the modern picture of unconditional love, as well as the sanctity and civility of marriage which we have painted ourselves, there are still things – dirty, sleazy, immoral things -  which money, sadly, can always buy. Meanwhile, Lin is already venturing into Myanmese brides as we speak, having milked dry developing countries of their village women. Before you know it he will be casting his fishing line at Laos or Papua New Guinea. As Bon Jovi once crooned: You give Love a Bad Name.

How much is that human in the window

About these ads

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Foreign workers, Marriage, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Abercrombie hires only good looking people

Posted on August 27, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Wrong to hire staff solely on looks’, 27 Aug 2011, ST Forum

(Bryan Chow): IT IS worrisome that the hiring practices of Abercrombie & Fitch have been confined to purely good looks (‘Abercrombie & Fitch on hunt for attractive staff’; Thursday). By choosing to adopt such discriminatory practices, the fashion icon is subscribing to the notion that outward appearance is the key to success.

Idolising the human body should not be institutionalised in any retail outlet. It is wrong for Abercrombie & Fitch to send a message to potential customers and markets that they do not approve of those whom they deem to be less attractive.

The store should understand that its recruitment practices are bound to affect the self-esteem of youngsters and shape their version of the perfect person. We should be trying to nurture a culture where the youth respect one another and are comfortable with who they are and not what society dictates of them.

Should the Government allow such overtly discriminatory hiring practices?

The arguments about job candidates chosen based on being born in a certain way and how unfair this is could go on forever. A n F is a brand renown for its blatant reliance on overt hypersexuality as a selling point. In fact, it’s probably better that A n F is upfront and honest about its criteria rather than wasting the time of unattractive people applying for a position which is basically glorified eye candy.  In spite of how companies like A n F claim to embrace diversity, what really matters, as everyone already knows deep down, is what works for its bottomline, which in this case so happens to be hunks and babes. Work ethic alone doesn’t cut it anymore, because employers have generally  succumbed to the grand illusion that is the ‘first impression’. Much research has been done on how important good looks factor in one’s self-confidence and earning power, and it’s hard to distinguish between cause and effect when it comes to explaining the relative success of attractive or tall people in other jobs in which being beautiful has no apparent relevance to the job at hand, be it law enforcement, business or even politics.

In the case of A n F, if all you need to qualify for the job is a 6 foot frame, a six-pec and a bronze tan, how is this any different from car show organisers  and lingerie makers hiring only lanky models? Why isn’t anyone complaining about the latter then?  Fashion icons engaging in coarse filtering of its staff is nothing new, in fact, you could even say they’re following by example the actions of a respectable public hospital which discriminates openly when it comes to cherry picking staff only of a certain BMI over other traits that make one a good health worker. We all hear of companies , be it public or private, sneakily hiring only family members, members of a certain religious or racial enclave, or fellow immigrants, all of which discriminatory on the basis of staff simply being ‘born this way’, so what’s so shocking or deleterious about hiring people based purely on looks? In fact, one needs to do more work maintaining a figure than simply be recognised by virtue of heredity.

Even if hiring based on superficial attributes is the standard practice here, anyone can even out the competition for ‘face value’ by undergoing cosmetic surgery these days, be it a tummy tuck, rhinoplasty, ab-sculpting or even Lasik if their goal in life is to stand outside the store premises and get ogled at for a living. So, if there are people out there already willing to sell their souls to a lifelong addiction to plastic surgery in exchange for a dream job, A n F’s recruitment policy is merely a drop in the ocean of an increasingly image-driven and self-obsessed society on the downward spiral. You don’t need A n F to foster this harmful ‘perfect’ image, you see it happening for the longest time in books, magazines , film and television.  It explains the booming plastic surgery and self-help industries, blockbuster antidepressants and Tony Robbins. We will continue to be a discontented, envious and chronically imperfect lot, suffering endlessly trying to live up to manufactured ideals, with or without A n F’s hiring practices and their lewd topless Orchard Road posters.

Filed under: 2011, Advertisements, Corporations, Orchard Road, Sex, Shopping malls | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Kebaya for beauty pageants instead of swimsuits

Posted on August 6, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Beauty queens and too much skin’, 6 Aug 2011, Mailbag, Life!

(Musliha Ajmain Janssen):…I would not presume to know whose idea it was to include the swimsuit in the beauty pagents but from what I have learnt, it is more than just about showing off one’s best figure.

In Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and Northern Europe where the climate is usually cold, women do not get a lot of chances to wear a swimsuit. When the seasons change and they do get the chance, it is a very big deal, which is why they call it the ‘swimsuit season’. Furthermore, most of them do not have easy access to the beach.

Women there also vary in body shapes (Italian and Spanish women are known to be more curvaceous) which makes watching the competition a lot of more interesting compared to Singapore, where most of the contestants are naturally thin.

Singapore’s climate enables swimsuit wear at any time of the day…so I fail to understand the point of the swimsuit category other than to merely follow the beauty pageant formula…For example, a kebaya would be a good way for the contestants to show off their figures…A kebaya shows off as much, if not more, than a swimsuit does.

This fuss over swimsuits and sexism comes in the wake of organisers of Miss S’pore World 2011 proposing to remove this category altogether, which would surely spell the downfall of the beauty pageant as we know it. Nothing but words being minced around here, with the writer’s final argument being self-defeating because instead of focusing on talent and intelligence as would be the typical stance of feminist swimsuit naysayers, she recommends instead body hugging kebayas as an excuse to ‘show off as much, if not more’ than a normal swimsuit does, though I fail to see how this is possible unless you’re talking about transparent kebayas.

Well to each his own, and call it sexist if you will, but what all men want to see is a teasing flesh parade, not SIA stewardesses on a catwalk. Bikinis are simple and almost anyone with a stunning figure will look good in it, but choose the wrong kebaya and you risk looking like a Nyonya grandmother. What’s left unspoken here, and in fact everywhere else,  is that bikinis don’t just signal figure or complexion, it is also a dead giveaway of bust size, something that kebayas can easily  conceal, or enhance. And no one can deny the harsh fact that being well-endowed does help in the overall scoring for this segment, and hence overall chance of success.

It’s also baffling to say swimsuit contests are unnecessary because Singaporean women get to wear these at any time of the day, as if it were office attire. This is Singapore, Ms Janssen, not Club Med. A woman looking good in a bikini on a beach is as rare a find as one who dazzles in a kebaya on the streets. But the horrible truth is this, men don’t gawk at women in just bikinis anymore. With the internet and Photoshop, nothing is left to the male imagination. We’re not interested in women putting on a sexy show for the sake of it. We’re interested in the context in which their sexiness is presented. A paparazzi shot of an otherwise conservative actress in swimwear intrigues us, whether or not she has a good figure.  But line up smiling bikini-clad women in a contest and asking of a selection like wares at a slave market and you’ve lost our attention.

Although removing the swimsuit category, or anything hinting at nudity from beauty pageants, may encourage more smart, talented, even chubby women otherwise averse to exposing their bodies to sign up for Miss Universe and the like, what’s the point if no one’s interested?  From a purely commercial perspective then, swimsuit contests are a necessary evil, if only for the minority of men who haven’t yet discovered the internet or prefer to snap shots of Miss World in the flesh at shopping malls.

Swimsuit contests in 1954

1965

Still in one piece in 1988

2010

Filed under: 1950s, 1960s, 1980s, 2010, 2011, Beauty pageants, Ms Singapore Universe, Nudity, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Double O’s double standards

Posted on June 28, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Ladies Night Dress Code’, 28 June 2011, Voices, Today

(Shalini Jayaraj and Jerrie Tan Qiu Lin): MY FRIENDS and I regularly patronise dblO, a nightclub, on Wednesdays as women get complimentary entry because of Ladies Night. This practice is longstanding among most nightclubs. My friends and I have never had problems getting in.

However, on June 15, an extremely rude bouncer denied a friend entry, citing an alleged “dress code” that women must follow in order to obtain free entry. Apparently, my friend was not dressed in a sufficiently “feminine” manner.  As this was the first time we had encountered such a refusal, my friends and I protested and asked to speak to the manager. First, such a “dress code” was never publicised nor represented to us.

Second, this “non-femininely dressed” friend never had problems getting into dblO in the past. Granted, she does not dress in a “feminine” manner but is most obviously a female.  The manager claimed this “dress code” had been the club’s practice since it opened. Recognising the futility of challenging the code’s existence, we enquired how we could modify my friend’s outfit so as to meet the requisite standard. The manager was contradictory in what he considered “sufficiently feminine”.

First, he advised my friend to head home to change into a dress before coming back. Upon our pointing out of several women who were dressed in a similar fashion as my friend, and yet let in free, the manager said they were allowed in because they wore make-up. But even after my friends and I asked if she could be let in upon applying cosmetics, the manager was reluctant.

I suggest that the management at dblO be more transparent about this “dress code” requirement for Ladies Night. While I do not want to question the management’s reasoning behind the requirement, it would certainly be fairer to the public if such a “dress code” were plainly set out.  Only then will my friends and I have the option of deciding whether to adhere to the required theme or head to another nightclub – especially when the alternative to complimentary entry is a payment labelled on the signboard as being the cover charge for “males”.

This ‘dress code’ is nothing more than a formality substituting for what’s basically a subjective, inevitably sexist assessment of how ‘ladylike’ a patron is, which varies from bouncer to bouncer. A  tomboyish celebrity would be granted entry even if she were in sneakers and a T-shirt, and such biasness is an inevitable catch of Ladies’ Night, an event with long established discriminatory practices; demanding that girls wear lipstick, are not handicapped, and that they must be entirely female. Some clubs like Overeasy even match the number of free drinks you get with your brasize. As a business and with a reputation to maintain, clubs have every right to be discerning in its clientele, otherwise bouncers would be plying their trade as professional gymrats or PE teachers (They’re too bulky to be football players, not big enough to be sumo wrestlers). But it’s an unfortunate fact that if you’re not hip, physically appealing or dressed to kill, as compared to the rest of the socialites savvy with the ‘unspoken rules’ and spent the last 2 hours dolling up, you will be the brunt of euphemistic excuses when the truth is something no girl ever wants to hear, that no amount of make-up will ever earn you that right to a free drink.

It seems that ladies night is more discriminating towards its own sex than paying males, despite what some ads tell you about how ‘discrimination works’ to a lady’s advantage. It’s all part of that exclusivity mythos that distinguishes boutique clubs from your run-of-the-mill pubs, and as maddeningly condescending as it is to put on make up just because a bouncer says so,  it’s worth nothing that we men do things we’re not exactly proud of to gain acceptance into social circles all the time, whether it’s wearing a tie, wearing shiny shoes, or shaving every morning. Of course, if you’re a fiercely independent woman who doesn’t need anyone to tell you what to do or clubs patronising your sex with freebies, you can exercise free will, hit another joint, and tweet about your humiliating experience so no one will ever step into DblO again, since that is the risk clubs are willing to take rejecting women who don’t fit their ‘client profile’. Double O was more blunt in its reason for rejection back in 2005 (See below, ‘Female, but not welcome at a Ladies’ Night’, 4 Nov 2005, Voices, Today), whereby a ‘butch’ was turned away. Hence the politically correct but ambiguous ‘dress code’ 6 years later. Perhaps some definition of what clubs mean by ‘Lady’ is in order, since we’ve been using ‘lady’ far too loosely in daily conversation when we really mean ‘woman’ most of the time. The terminology may have changed, but everything else about Double O’s Ladies Night that makes it still successful, however you want to label it a winning, sexist ‘anti-butch’ formula, hasn’t changed one bit.

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Clubs, Customer service, Dress sense, Nightspots, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Abercrombie ad hints at nether regions

Posted on June 26, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Orchard Rd topless ad causes stir’, 25 June 2011, article in insing.com translated from LHWB

A topless billboard ad along Orchard Road has caused a stir for its giant display of a chiselled male body. Only the model’s upper body can be seen, with a pair of extremely low-slung jeans hinting at his nether regions.

Abercrombie & Fitch is known for its body-beautiful models and has no qualms using sex to sell their brand. Many of its ads display handsome young men wearing nothing but their hipster jeans. The ad has caused quite a stir with people who have seen it.

STOMPer Dees-stracting said she was “embarrassed” when she saw it. She commented that a friend of hers had posted the picture online, asking whether it was too “vulgar”. Dees-tracting admitted that while it was common for underwear ads to feature sexy stars or models, she found it overtly sexy.

“From what I see in this picture, this ad is just of a body. Really, it’s just selling sex. And I can’t even see he is wearing clothes until I look waaay below at his waayyy too low jeans.”

A n F is NSFW

A complete picture would have qualified the ad as a Playgirl Magazine cover of the year. Deliberately scintillating and head-cropped to enhance the theme of sexual objectification, with a chiselled torso and a pelvic V line drawing the viewer’s attention towards what lies beneath the jeans rather than the jeans themselves. The product makes up less than 20% of the ad frame, a common visual strategy employed in topless female lingerie ads as well. But what makes A n F stand out from other retail giants, and hence succeed, is the mass sexual appeal of almost-naked studs in their ads, to both heterosexuals and gays alike.  A n F understands that even alpha-males no longer gaze longingly at Guess girls or celebrities anymore, and uses the lure of a perfect torso to get their attention rather than a handsome Caucasian face. If there’s a woman in the picture, A n F adds in a half naked man to further taunt male audiences. The use of black and white also eliminates the most salient visual racial signal; skin colour.

By removing everything else,  leaving a snippet of the jeans itself, and focussing entirely on physique, A n F is tapping into the most reptilian parts of the envious male brain, hoping that somewhere along the way the neural circuitry that triggers the buying impulse gets activated as well. So, the trick is this; the curious male walks in to see what’s the fuss over topless male models, bringing his female partner and sticks with her out of natural protective instinct, which raises the chances of a double sale (girl buys something for herself and her reluctant shopper male). So there’s nothing controversial about this really, just slick marketing banking on our  brain’s automatic sexualisation of masculine identity, though Singaporeans would do well to recall A n F’s Brothers Wong US campaign which depicted Asians as slitty-eyed laundry men in the early 2000s.

They got it all Wong

Some fashion retailers decide to do away with their clothing altogether, as seen in United Colours of Benetton Aids drive in the 1990′s, which depicts a butt cheek being stamped ‘HIV positive’. Huge international furore over this obviously, and it would be ironic if an ad that serves to educate audiences on the fatal blight that is AIDS also causes motorists to get into accidents from getting distracted by it.

This ad is anything butt cheeky

Jeans ads weren’t always sexy, though. In fact they were once celebrated for their utility at work or play rather than sex appeal, originally cut from the canvas tops of wagons and first worn by Californian gold miners in the late 19th century, or so the story goes (See below, ‘Jeans- standard wear for the fashionable young’, 2 April 1978, ST). Still, the titillative potential of jeans was recognised even then, in the form of a ‘Texwood fashion rock opera’ (‘More skin than jeans shock at fashion show’, 6 Jan 1976, ST), which featured semi nude models stripping down to their underwear, performing ‘vigorous and often indelicate gyrating movements’ at the Singapore Hilton. Unbelievably, earlier in the seventies, a sexist article on tight jeans ‘leaving the boys panting’ was published in the ST (See below, Jeans That’ll Leave the Boys panting,  10 Dec 1972). If that headline were read in today’s context, you’d have thought it referred to how tight jeans were worn by boys instead. Whether it’s on a topless celebrity or a headless stud, you could say no apparel in the history of fashion sets tongues wagging like a pair of jeans can.

Look! These jeans models are actually doing stuff!

Postscript: The ad was eventually deemed to have ‘breached of the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice guidelines on decency’ on 28 Sept 2011. 3 MONTHS after it was first plastered over Knightbridge. Three  bodies are involved in the call to suspend the ad, the ASAS (Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore), the MDA (Media Development Authority) and the BCA (Building and Construction Authority), and all this fuss over a gigantic male pelvis. This is really a question of scale not so much as abject obscenity. If the ad were reduced to the size of a poster, it’s unlikely that it would be blown to current proportions.

Here’s what Dr Tan Sze Wee, chairman of ASAS has to say about the decision to pull down the ad on 1 Oct 2011 (Advertising watchdog denies claims of ‘double standards’, ST)

…Asas chairman Tan Sze Wee told The Straits Times that the ad was put up in a prominent location at the Knightsbridge mall in Orchard Road. He noted too that the ad was big – being plastered across the four-level shopfront – and exposed ‘a bit too much’ of the body.

…Dr Tan, commenting on the issue of public ads featuring semi-nude lingerie models, said Asas had reviewed the placement of such an ad at bus stops a few years ago, following public complaints.

‘But Asas found no issue of indecency. Sensitive parts of the body were not overly exposed in the ad,’ he added.

What does Dr Tan mean by ‘exposure of too much body’ here? Has the threshold of the tolerable ratio of flesh to fabric been crossed? If instead of a giant AnF Pelvic Man we have a giant Cleavage Woman, would people still complain?

Filed under: 1970s, 2011, Advertisements, Nudity, Orchard Road, Sex, Shopping malls | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Naked sushi dinner is a culinary renaissance

Posted on June 19, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Secret Cooks Club’s novel dinners spark interest’, 19 June 2011, article by Amelia Tan, Sunday Times, and ‘Secret cooks club lets diners eat sushi off naked woman’, 18 June 2011, article in insing.com

BORING is certainly not a word that can be used to describe a dinner hosted by the Secret Cooks Club. Since its inception in February, it has organised suppers that required every dinner guest to send in saliva samples, with meals subsequently created based on their DNA.

Last month, it served a dinner for six inspired by the Japanese practice of nyotaimori – serving sushi on a naked woman’s body. This food club’s novel nosh has also been featured in British newspaper The Guardian recently, with the paper describing its efforts as a ‘culinary renaissance’.

…(DR DENISA KERA, NUS professor and co-founder of the Secret Cooks Club):’Every dinner is unique and based on some new experience and idea we want to test. The main purpose is networking over food with new people and getting inspiration for the next dinner.’

(Comment by Elizabeth Leong on insing.com): How degrading will men get just to “experience” this? Can’t you try eating sushi off your own wife’s naked body? Even if you are a single guy, I am sure most men have enough brains to know this kinda “alternate” dining experience is nothing but almost an orgy. Shame on the people who thought this up. Next they will maybe place a still almost alive brain of a monkey which is still beating inside the monkey’s sliced off head (a la Indiana Jones)?

Fine Art Cannibals

What better use of a female body could one think of? Think of all the time saved washing crockery! ‘Nyamatori’ is nothing revolutionary. In fact, people eating off naked bodies has probably been going on for ages, usually behind closed doors; it’s one of the reasons why whipped cream is still sold in supermarkets. This has been glammed up as an ‘exclusive’ experience that only Yakuza mobsters used to enjoy, when in fact you could get a better deal buying takeaway from a sushi deli and a willing partner to share the delicious decadence with (and more fun too). Hyped as a ‘culinary renaissance’, this is nothing more than a reenactment of the kind of sordid bacchanalia Roman emperors engaged in millennia ago, so that modern diners can pay to pretend that they’re Nero, Caligula or some other fetish-loving tyrant of the time. So ‘Elizabeth’ is not so off the mark there that this resembles some kind of controlled ‘orgy’, though her comparison with monkey brains is more applicable to a different kind of ‘adventurous eater’ altogether.

Personally, I wouldn’t eat food off a stranger, with all the hair, secretions and sweat clinging to raw food, and treating the human platter as if she weren’t there is just awkward. I wouldn’t even feel comfortable talking to  people knowing the dish is listening to my every word. How on earth is this a social event for networking professionals when it’s a deliberate clash of the two most basic primal impulses, food and sex, that all intelligent discourse is impeded as all you can think about is  whether those strategically placed rose petals are supposed to be eaten as well? How can you eat in this situation with a straight face and not feel obliged to ask the model if ‘she’s OK’, ‘does it tickle’, or ‘Do you want some?’ (Probably not a good idea lest her digestive movements, or trying to make her laugh, causes sushi to fall off). Nyamatori requires decorum and restraint, the two greatest hindrances to an enjoyable feast.

Being a table centrepiece, of course, isn’t the only job around where women pose naked without moving for prolonged periods of time. Think nude modelling for art students, which, despite the full-on nakedness, is ironically less reviled because it feeds a more sophisticated creative ‘appetite’ than nyotaimori lovers, though members of the Secret Cooks Club would insist on labelling it culinary art of the highest order. I mean, I could arrange some MnMs on my very naked hand in a tasteful manner to have someone eat off it and call it ‘culinary art’ too.  In any case, just wait for the flurry of angry females writing in to decry the discriminatory,  moral turpitude of this dining concept, and then link it to prostitution, human trafficking,  beauty contestants parading in bikinis in front of dirty old men and topless car wash attendants.

Filed under: 2011, Art, Local food, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Wives’ duty to make love better than prostitutes

Posted on June 13, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘S’poreans set up local Obedient Wives Club’,  13 June 2011, article in Sg yahoo news.

Three Singaporeans have taken it upon themselves to pioneer a local branch of the controversial Obedient Wives Club (OWC). Dr Darlan Zaini, a literature professor, Hamidah Ari and her brother, Azman Ari, are representatives of the newly-formed club in Malaysia that teaches wives to be more subservient to their husbands.

The OWC has been slammed by critics everywhere, saying that it degrades women by saying that it is the wives’ duty to make love better than “first-class prostitutes” to solve familial problems.

According to The New Paper, Dr Darlan believed that with obedient wives, husbands are more likely to behave themselves and would be more responsible towards their families.

The 7o-year-old said: “Some people agree, while others don’t. More importantly, we believe that obedient wives can avoid various detrimental social problems such as prostitution, divorce, gambling, domestic violence and others.”

What the hell is this OWC, a bordello run by pimps with degrees? Are these the same people who brought you the Polygamy Is Great! Club? (Incidentally there REALLY is a polygamy club called Ikhwan. Who would have thought it would be Malaysian too?) Of course it would be NICE if our wives were a little submissive, perhaps ONCE IN A WHILE, but to have women ingratiate themselves not because they would love to but because it supposedly keeps the man’s hands firmly in his pants is a flawed concept that involves one partner’s sacrifice and another’s not doing anything at all. Neanderthals had better equality of the sexes compared to this antediluvian nonsense; making a Singaporean woman join the OWC is like training a woolly mammoth to give a man a back massage. With its foot. The idea of an accommodating wife may arouse some men, which explains mail order brides, and by all means, to each his own. But as much as this idea  may work in societies where servant-like behavior and voluntary oppression is a mark of respect and a career builder, we’d like our ladies to made of sterner stuff, and not beg for treats when we come home from work. Let’s say for the sake of experiment we embarked on the OWC’s prescription of everlasting love. It would be nothing more than a little master and slave roleplay which we would all get bored with pretty easily, even if the club supplies a lifetime supply of whips, handcuffs and chastity belts as part of their membership package.

A wife transforming into a maid-chef-masseuse cum sex slave overnight will not guarantee that men won’t stray if the marriage is almost broken or if she has lost all sex appeal and attractiveness to her spouse, or if he spends most of his time overseas. I  also don’t see the link between a submissive wife and gambling problems; A man begins a gambling addiction out of boredom, or as a desperate attempt to ward off debt. What he needs is a RICH, or at least a SUPPORTIVE wife, not an OBEDIENT one. If it’s a sexual problem it’s also a communication problem, when neither partner is willing to divulge what tickles their fancy, either because it may be construed to be too ‘dirty’, or one party keeps pretending to enjoy the proceedings to avoid hurting the other. I suppose the OWC is as much an insult to men as it is to women, for suggesting that we are all sex starved misogynists  without any discipline or willpower, and would turn to the nearest streetwalker the moment our wives go ‘Not tonight, honey’. I wonder what Sumiko Tan, Tiger Wife, has to say about this. Of course, there are educated women out there who, with sound reasoning, make a choice to submit to their husbands, arguing that this gives the man a ‘sense of responsibility’ (To love is to obey, article by Frances Ong, 28 June 2005, Today). No mention of sex here, but oh well, whatever works, as long as you don’t proclaim that slavish obedience will rid the world of prostitution.

Here’s the best that the OWC Facebook page has to offer. The Prophet would be so proud.

'Sex lesson is good thing for health'

Filed under: 2000s, 2011, Marriage, Religion, Sex, Singaporean men, Singaporean women | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

The Carnal Prayer Mat in 3D

Posted on March 31, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘In 3-D Harmony’, 30 March 2011, article by Boon Chan, Life! ST

Desire, debauchery and dirty sex are not the three Ds in Korean erotic drama Natali that will catch the attention of movie goers. It is its 3-D effects that will likely get tongues wagging…Tentatively scheduled for an April 28 release is 3D Sex and Zen, an update of the 1991 hit Hong Kong film based on the 17th century Chinese erotic novel, The Carnal Prayer Mat.

…Of the penchant of horror flicks to send sharp objects flying your way, film-maker Chai Yee Wei says: ‘Having things pop at you on screen is actually bad because it tires the eyes.’

(Vincent Lee, art director): The selling point of romances and dramas are the acting and script. In these cases, 3-D is a waste of money. I won’t watch a rom com in 3D.

After a slurry of sub standard offerings failing to meet the bar raised by Avatar, it’s inevitable that softporn’s next in line to jump head on into the 3D orgy. For what is already a one-dimensional narrative, stretching a cheap skin flick to a 3D experience which features nothing more than in-your-face bumping and grinding just means extended, plodding sex scenes and a script with as much dialogue as the opening credits have words.  Or scene after scene of unimaginative items being flung at the audience in excruciating slow motion. I suppose 3D is fun for kids encountering it for the first time, but unless adult Singaporeans still get a thrill out of reaching out to grasp things or ducking when spears are chucked at them, I just don’t see the long term appeal of what is essentially a juvenile capitalization of an accidental, though rather nifty, optical illusion.

Softporn, or slowporn, is like nibbling on bad junk food, and is best downloaded online for the juicy bits just so you can play the ‘pause and guess if they’re really doing it’ game, or appreciate the subtle masking effects of strategic lighting.  If films with titles like Sex and Zen weren’t given the stereoscopic treatment, they wouldn’t have made it to the major theatres at all, due to exploitative themes usually reserved for the less discerning Yangtze crowd. Now they’re suddenly elevated to mainstream status after being injected with the technological equivalent of girlie mag airbrushing, suggesting that this is all a money spinning gimmick banking on a insatiable appetite  for larger than life POV heaving and jiggling at the expense of decent film-making, not to mention a throbbing headache and splurging off a extra dollars which could otherwise be spent on a larger popcorn combo. I guess 3D movies have traditionally been the poor man’s virtual reality theme park, and they’re really more ‘romp-com’ than ‘rom-com’, to address Vincent Lee’s aversion towards seeing any part of Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan popping out of the big screen.

Incidentally, the first 3D film to hit Singapore was the 1953 horror flick The House of Wax (see the EXCITING, SENSATIONAL trailer below), and though poorly received initially as we were busy complaining about the prices of 3D glasses, Warner Brothers’ chief at the time Wolfe Cohen was prophetic with his prediction that 3D is here to stay (3D Film chief says Singapore audiences are lucky, 3 May 1953, ST). And so are overblown trashy films along with it, whose artistic merit one may overlook in exchange for the precious  experience of ‘sensing the chilling menace of kisses’.

Filed under: 1950s, 2011, Film, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Women slowly unzipping their tops in bra ad

Posted on March 29, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Was bra ad appropriate?’, 29 March 2011, Voices, Today

(Tan Chor Hoon): At 10.45 on a weeknight, as I was tuned in to a Mandarin current affairs programme, Focus, on Channel 8, I was appalled to see an explicit advertisement for a maximizer bra of a renowned lingerie brand.

The approximately one-minute commercial featured shots of women slowly unzipping their tops and close-ups of cleavage.

I wonder, firstly, if it satisfies the Media Development Authority’s (MDA) criteria of appropriate advertising and, secondly, if MediaCorp has any internal benchmark for corporate social conscience in terms of declining advertisements unsuitable for a free channel popular among family viewers.

I ask the MDA to comment on whether such a commercial was suitably aired and how it ensures that advertisers do not cross the line.

I also hope MediaCorp will comment on how such an advertisement made its way to a programme aired at a family viewing hour and whether it imposes any controls over the nature of advertisements it accepts.

I haven’t caught the ad on TV myself, but it’s highly likely to be the ‘Sexy Cushion’ one above, judging from the complainant’s description of in-your-face boobies and some hot, slow and sexy unzipping action, which to my dismay turned out to be nothing at all like a striptease or an invitation to foreplay. Instead,  this  unzipping business is in fact a calculated ploy by women to swivel men’s heads and have them collide into each other using the oldest trick in the book of seduction: lifting and flashing cleavage. And all it takes is a fraction of the time needed for putting on make-up, checking their hair, spraying their Rexonas, or adjusting the length of their skirts. The ad, of course, naturally skips the rest of the less immediate ‘looking good’ bits, and transforms the otherwise sleazy act of unzipping your top into something akin to rubbing a magic genie out of Aladdin’s lamp.

Unlike the usual ads where the models are almost naked to begin with, this one boasts of a rather refreshing twist; a hint of a narrative. And the women have their skirts on (for most parts).  But Ms Tan here isn’t complaining about sexism or how the ad teaches women to flash their way up the corporate ladder. Her concern is that the suggestive,  explicit imagery of women engaging in some covert peekaboo and having their assets zoomed to eye-popping dimensions incurs a dent on television’s ‘corporate social conscience’, despite the fact that children are mostly asleep by 10.45 on a weeknight, if not playing with boobie apps on their iPhones or even surfing porn as a reward for homework completed. Similar sentiments about yet another naughty Triumph bus stop ad here.

 

Filed under: 2011, Advertisements, Local TV shows, Nudity, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Semi-nude lingerie model wearing only panties

Posted on February 16, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Does lingerie ad show women in right light?’, 16 Feb 2011, Today online. Thanks to quirkyhill.

(Grace Leong): I saw a big lingerie advertisement near a bus stop along Pasir Ris Drive 1. It shows frontal view of a bigger-than-life semi-nude model, wearing only panties, her bare chest covered by her arms.

…Are there are any decency guidelines for public advertisements to adhere to?

As such advertisements are easily accessible to children and teenagers, how can parents protect their young children and teenagers from being exposed to such images? Where does one draw the line?

If the purpose was to sell ladies’ panties, I am not sure how successful it is considering that most ladies are probably too embarrassed to look long enough to find out what is being sold.

How should lingerie companies advertise then? Ask your customers, whom I assume are mostly women, what is tasteful and what is taboo?

Women like to be seen as sensuous and beautiful but not objects that gratify sexual lust. It is a fine line and it may backfire if the line is crossed.

Double happiness

Not only does the writer imply that all women are prudes like herself by suggesting that such imagery do not work because they are ‘too embarrassed to look long enough’, but she’s hopelessly naive to the fact that lingerie ads are not girly Sex in the City movie posters designed to capture only female attention. Lingerie ads are a classic example of collateral seduction in advertising, where the actual consumers of the product are of a different sex from those whose attention the ads were  really designed to capture, namely male audiences with female counterparts, who upon noticing that their aroused male partners are drooling over topless women in panties, are subliminally fed with the magical, irrational association that wearing such panties would make them more attractive to their men. If this planet were made up of nothing but women, we wouldn’t have Guess models and Victoria’s Secret would be just be called The Bra Shop. And if the major brands were to let women decide what to put on an ad from the very beginning, granny panties would never have gone out of fashion.

I believe women, unless they’re lesbians, don’t wear designer lingerie to impress other women. That job is done by shoes and bags, not lacy underwear. And I believe women  today are resilient and mature enough not to be so affected by topless ads they have to shield their burning eyes from it. I believe they are smart and independent enough to embrace sexuality as a confidence-building weapon to wield control over the lust-driven visual automatons that are men, and perhaps the writer should spend some time frolicking in the garden smelling daisies  instead of sequestering herself in an iron tower spending her free time browsing chastity belt catalogues.

In fact, the reasoning of ‘women too embarrassed’ to identify the product is a presumptuous excuse for what is clearly a cry against blatant sexploitation and an overzealous and misguided ‘preservation of moral fibre and conservative Asian values’ stance so skewed to monastic nanny proportions to be taken seriously. Kids probably spend more time in front of the TV watching nasty trailers or on their iPhones playing with naughty apps than nursing erections at bus stops. So complaining about bus stop ads being too sexy is like lamenting about seashells washed ashore on a beach having edges so sharp you can cut your feet on them i.e useless. Sometimes even a harmless image in the national papers ( with naked men, mind you. Does that show men in the ‘right light’, then?), or a Rolling stone magazine, would get misinterpreted as a conspiracy to bring out the perverts in all of us. But then again, in the light of our flailing fertility rates, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

Filed under: 2011, Advertisements, Nudity, SBS Buses, Sex | Tagged: , , , , , | 8 Comments »

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