I Write Letters
Jan. 5th, 2009 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaI just sent this off to the Star newspaper.
Dear Editor,
In light of the fact that sex parties are held to usher in the New Year, moralists have come seeping out from under coconut shells to express their appalled amazement that people like to have a lot of sex (!) with a lot of other people (!!) and, possibly, an audience (!!!). Why, I ask, are we invested in what other people do with their own bodies? The idea that people participate in such events is a problem - if you think sex is a shameful act that should happen only behind closed doors, rather than a fun-filled activity between consenting adults.
Sure, sex can be an intimate, monogamous act, but that is not the only way it is peformed, and getting angry because other people have sex in other ways than you do is ignoring the variations of human sexuality. Even then, there is always willful ignorance of what's happening with other people's bodies, a mental state unfortunately more often used for issues such as economic disparity and human rights.
And the blame games! What simplistic notions we buy into! "Blame the West!" cry some, as if only Westerners condone sexual activities, completely ignoring the fact that the United States of America has poured _millions_ into abstinence-only programs to discourage pre-marital sex among teenagers, only to fail in preventing teens from having sex before marriage. (They did succeed in one thing: said teens are less likely to use contraceptives.)
"Blame the parents!" cry others, completely ignoring the fact that most parents, for all their flaws, do their best to raise children in an expensive world, in societies that encourage self-sufficient nuclear family setups that are neither sustainable nor supportive to young families, in economies that make it impossible for parents to earn a decent living without leaving their beloved children at home for long hours, just to earn enough so said children can have the best possible starts in life through an education system that runs on money. And that's being optimistic.
Which leads us to the group that cries "Teachers must do their part too!", forgetting that many teachers a) are bogged down with ridiculous administrative tasks that hamper them from the actual job of teaching; b) are trained to spoonfeed children facts and formulas instead of encouraging mental facility and curiousity; and c) are miserably underpaid for the grand task that is Making People.
People are going to have sex anyway; the best thing we can do about that is to encourage safe, sane and consensual sex. We have more important, highly complex issues to worry about than some random people whom we don't know having lots of sex with other people and an audience.
If they publish that entire thing like how they've been publishing the dribble from the moralists, I will treat anyone interested to lunch. Anyone in Malaysia, that is. And it would have to be a cheap lunch. Like, RM1 nasi lemak.
Dear Editor,
In light of the fact that sex parties are held to usher in the New Year, moralists have come seeping out from under coconut shells to express their appalled amazement that people like to have a lot of sex (!) with a lot of other people (!!) and, possibly, an audience (!!!). Why, I ask, are we invested in what other people do with their own bodies? The idea that people participate in such events is a problem - if you think sex is a shameful act that should happen only behind closed doors, rather than a fun-filled activity between consenting adults.
Sure, sex can be an intimate, monogamous act, but that is not the only way it is peformed, and getting angry because other people have sex in other ways than you do is ignoring the variations of human sexuality. Even then, there is always willful ignorance of what's happening with other people's bodies, a mental state unfortunately more often used for issues such as economic disparity and human rights.
And the blame games! What simplistic notions we buy into! "Blame the West!" cry some, as if only Westerners condone sexual activities, completely ignoring the fact that the United States of America has poured _millions_ into abstinence-only programs to discourage pre-marital sex among teenagers, only to fail in preventing teens from having sex before marriage. (They did succeed in one thing: said teens are less likely to use contraceptives.)
"Blame the parents!" cry others, completely ignoring the fact that most parents, for all their flaws, do their best to raise children in an expensive world, in societies that encourage self-sufficient nuclear family setups that are neither sustainable nor supportive to young families, in economies that make it impossible for parents to earn a decent living without leaving their beloved children at home for long hours, just to earn enough so said children can have the best possible starts in life through an education system that runs on money. And that's being optimistic.
Which leads us to the group that cries "Teachers must do their part too!", forgetting that many teachers a) are bogged down with ridiculous administrative tasks that hamper them from the actual job of teaching; b) are trained to spoonfeed children facts and formulas instead of encouraging mental facility and curiousity; and c) are miserably underpaid for the grand task that is Making People.
People are going to have sex anyway; the best thing we can do about that is to encourage safe, sane and consensual sex. We have more important, highly complex issues to worry about than some random people whom we don't know having lots of sex with other people and an audience.
If they publish that entire thing like how they've been publishing the dribble from the moralists, I will treat anyone interested to lunch. Anyone in Malaysia, that is. And it would have to be a cheap lunch. Like, RM1 nasi lemak.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 05:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 08:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 09:31 am (UTC)Changed my mind because of the lunch thing :P
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 05:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 09:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 08:49 am (UTC)Though NST did print a letter of mine responding to a very silly woman (and head of a blood disease NGO) who claimed that giving out condoms to young people led to less blood donations, which disadvantage her NGO! O_o
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 09:34 am (UTC)That's about as bad as pro-lifers in America claiming that BC pills cause cancer and abortions.
If this doesn't get published by tomorrow or Wednesday, I won't know if it was published, since I'll be going down to Singapore. XD People will have to let me know!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 10:18 am (UTC)Free condoms -> casual sex -> [STDs] -> inability to donate blood [she also claimed that just having premarital sex PERIOD makes you ineligible to donate blood] -> no blood for blood disease people
My letter went mainly "condoms help PREVENT STDs, and your sexual history vs marriage isn't a concern with blood donations. you should know that, given you HEAD the org."
A family friend who's a doctor got really pleased and contacted me to say so, while my mum goes "...oh dear. looks like you're really an adult now if you know all that much."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 12:00 pm (UTC)And your mum, wow. I mean, you'd think "condoms help prevent STDs" be standard common sense by now. Apparently not!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 12:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 01:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 01:14 pm (UTC)My dad still can't get his head around the idea that i have a boyfriend. Sex? WHAT IS THAT WORD IT DOESN'T EXIST.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 12:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 01:09 pm (UTC)Hi, btw. I don't believe we've met! ^^
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 01:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 02:24 pm (UTC)What you and the other Malaysian bloggers have been up to with your crusades for equal rights for women and freedom of speech has always been interesting to me and I completely support everything you guys have been doing. Keep it up!
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 09:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 09:35 am (UTC)Next time you cook rice, just throw in a bit of salt and coconut milk.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 04:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 02:55 am (UTC)Or, yeah, I guess it is, but I mean it in a slightly different way.
I should LJ it. Hmm.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 04:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 12:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-05 05:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 12:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 02:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 08:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 09:35 am (UTC)Seems a lot of trouble though. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-06 11:30 pm (UTC)His idiotic idea was that women who have abortions and their other children are more likely to just randomly murder other people. Of course he had no properly obtained facts to back up this assertion.
In other news: I highly recommend "The Cartoon Guide to Sex" (http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-Sex-Larry-Gonick/dp/0062734318/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231284357&sr=8-1). Factually informative, humorous, very sex-positive, and IMHO completely appropriate for the instruction of children from about the age of 10 (as long as their parents aren't messed up about sex like most Americans). Check it out.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-08 10:08 am (UTC)Also, the Pill causes abortion. How? By preventing the natural process of insemination. Go figure.
How they manage to get through life without being reduced into a quivering mass of fearful moral superiority complexes, I don't know.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-09 03:18 am (UTC)My brother has 12 (yes, twelve!) kids. Why, you may ask? "We're going to have as many kids as god lets us have."
Unfortunately this is using religion as an excuse to do whatever you want. My sister in law LOVES babies. Children, not so much. Don't misunderstand me. They're actually very good parents and the children are happy, well behaved, and well fed. But their whole life revolves around whatever baby is newest and she is constantly pregnant.
My problem with the whole thing is more practical. My brother is in construction. He makes pretty good money, but with the economy the way it is (or if he should ever hurt himself where he can't work) they're screwed. I certainly can't help support them, and neither can our parents.
Quivering mass of fear and moral superiority describes them nicely.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-10 10:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-10 01:21 pm (UTC)Plus, you can tell they just hand off the youngest kids into the care of the older kids. I suppose that's more feasible than parenting ALL the kids yourself... but still *shudder*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-10 05:17 pm (UTC)And yet, they all have many opportunities. Most of them are studying some musical instrument, guitar or piano, some of them have taken dance lessons, and some of them have participated in sports. I've taught the eldest to use Photoshop and Illustrator and she enjoys graphics. Some of the others draw or write. Unfortunately, due to the home schooling, most of them do not read or do math at their age level.
And yeah, my sister-in-law is not healthy. She's not horribly overweight, but she looks like 200 lbs. of bread dough all the time. Her method of birth control is breast feeding, and the average time between her births is about 1.5 years. The longest time was 2 years.
I get a look into that lifestyle that most people don't.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-11 10:58 am (UTC)I remember someone once told me that being pregnant is like having a parasite in your body willingly.
Btw, breast feeding is not a method of birth control (can someone please tell people who have brains this?) - you can still get pregnant even though you're breast feeding and/or if you don't get your periods while you're breast feeding. I had a friend who got pregnant about three months after having her first baby because of this misconception. Needless to say, she learnt her lesson well.
While it is good for older kids to learn to care for their younger siblings, helping out and doing Mum or Dad's job are entirely two different matters. Children should be free to mingling with other kids - the fact that you pointed out that she is closely chaperoned and doesn't get to mingle with other children her own age is worrisome especially for someone at 15. Home schooling is the other - how are kids going to learn to mingle with other kids if all they see are their siblings and parents?
But I'm with you on the financial part. Already with one income and a baby on the way, I'm worried about what should happen if hubby were to lose his job (touchwood)? So what more with 12 mouths to feed?
And thanks for sharing! Thanks to you, I get an insight into that lifestyle as well! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-12 01:04 am (UTC)Other than that, I'm with you 100%. Their kids do not have appropriate social skills. When introduced to a group of other children they are very shy (with the possible exception of the oldest,) and tend to play with each other instead of the other children in the room. This is getting better, because they're starting to host bible study at their home and doing some church related child projects. However there's a lot they are missing out on and don't know how to do.
OTOH, why should I be allowed to have an opinion on any of this? I don't have any kids, and am unlikely to have any. I need to choose one (or more!) of my nieces and spoil them rotten. That way I'll have someone to take care of me when I'm old and decrepit.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-12 12:34 pm (UTC)Btw, what's OTOH? XD
(no subject)
Date: 2009-01-12 11:05 pm (UTC)OTOH: On The Other Hand. (http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20050321.html)
I know I'm going to grammar hell for that.