There is a New Taliban, and its Capital is Manila. A private plurk pointed me to John Silva’s thoughts and deeds on the anti-obscenity and pornography law filed by Villar. I shall be direct: Senate Bill 2464 is idiotic, provincial and is religious fundamentalism at heart.
Seriously?
On top of everything else that needs our attention, this is one of those things our senators are busing their brains off on? Don’t we have better things to do with our time than to think about these things? Troubling financial markets, unemployment, education, health care not to mention, figuring out how best and how quickly to unshackle this nation’s dependence on Oil as well as freeing our people from the bondage of political enslavement.
Come on!
Maria Clara has one of the world’s most beautiful smile, if not the most beautiful. What she needs is the same as every other Filipino— economic freedom. Give her opportunities to use her brain. The answer is education, not obscenity laws.
Raise our people’s intelligence, please! Don’t blind our people to ancient ways. Let them decide for themselves what is obscene. Let parents be responsible to police their own kids. Let us create a people that can discern for themselves. Trust them to discern for themselves what is right and what is wrong.
The question of morality isn’t for the state to decide. It is religion. It is fate. It is about individual parents and families. The state needs to take care of things that individual people can’t.
Then again, I often forget how idiotic, shortsighted our politicians are. On the other hand, how often does the Filipino forget, in a democracy, sometimes, people get offended?
Oh, one more thing, Manny Villar will not be getting my vote for any position whatsoever.
Popularity: 1% [?]
i’m not an avid supporter of villar but i wouldn’t call his proposed bill “idiotic”, “provincial” or “religious fundamentalis(t)”. i know, i know, in this libertarian, what-makes-me-happy-is-the supreme-law, political-correctness-at-any-cost world, anything that suggests old-fashioned civilized conduct is anathema.
not everyone in a society has got it together like maybe you, cocoy. but there is direct correlaton between pornography, obscenity, moral depravity, obsession with illicit sex on the one hand, and rape, sexual assault, incest, and disrespect for womanhood. things that stimulate the prurient interests and bestial instincts of individuals are within the power of the state to regulate, regardles of religious or morality considerations.
when you get to my age (assuming you still will have a “society” of which you can be a part then) , your children will probably say and demand the things you are saying now. i can only wish you good luck.
Whoever is behind this bill is doing it mainly to curry the favor of the Bishops for 2010. No one seriously expects it to impact the epidemic of incestuous rape, sexual assault and other crimes. (Seven to eight on average every day.)
But am curious Bencard, how do we know of this “direct correlation” you speak of?
I know for one that a fully dressed member of the opposite sex, indeed, even a non-existent member of the opposite sex, can excite me. There are natural formations that turn people on (Mt. Makiling’s suso ng dalaga comes to mind…) Imagination hardly needs any help from artificial sources.
Legislation is the wrong way to go on this because it is too blunt an instrument for something so subtle and inexplicable.
As Blaise Pascal said, the heart has reason, reason knows nothing of. I guess so do the gonads.
Besides, remember when Jaime Cardinal Sin banned “Toro” and the Manila City Council prohibited the “da Vinci Code”.
Both movies showed to SRO crowds!
While well-intentioned such legislation is not only futile, the collateral damage to art, science and the credibility of the justice system is unacceptable.
djb, assuming you are of a stable mind and emotions, not easily pushed over the edge, you may get turned on by a fully-dressed female body or natural formation such as “susong-dalaga” but i’m sure you would not act out your devilish fantasies and ravish the first prey that crosses your path. prohibitions are usually meant for the pushovers.
just because laws are constantly violated doesn’t mean they are unnecessary, rape, sexual assault, incest, etc. will always be committed – so is murder,robbery, etc., but the laws punishing them are by no means “futile”.
Bencard, we all know what happened to Galileo, right?
All it takes is to look at shanty towns and see where all this obscenity law comes from. It is easy to say, we should regulate this or that. we can do very little for the adults— but their children, the only way to bring them out of poverty and an environment like that is through education. that’s where i’m getting at. the one after. the one place we can do much good for everyone.
thanks. if ever i do have kids, i’m certain they will demand everything you said. I hope to have the wisdom to trust that what I and my wife have taught them to be adequate tools to get them some footing in life.
i agree wholeheartedly.
Bencard,
Pornography is not itself rape or incest, the laws against which we are not here contesting.
I would agree that a law against something is necessary if a “direct correlation” is established between that something and these uncontroverted crimes.
Where is that direct correlation you claim exists?
djb, are you trying to deny the correlation between child pornography and pedophilia; between lewd depiction of sexual acts and disrespect for womanhood; between depiction of anal sex between two or more men and sodomy?
if you are waiting for me to make a scientific demonstration of such correlations, you can wait till hell freezes over. use your own resources and intellect.
btw, all the acts i mentioned that are punished by law are not theoretical and not subject to argument. you can ignore them at your peril.
bencard,
YES, I most emphatically deny any direct correlation, like cause and effect, between pedophilia and child pornography. Just like all those violent cartoons we watched in childhood or the current raft of video game carnage, do not necessarily lead to us becoming serial murderers.
Both are reprehensible effects of something else. I’m not ignoring anything. By the way many of these things are already against existing laws. Unfortunately there is an undelineable spectrum of things from even child pornography to less malevolent portrayals of children and juveniles that we must be careful to tread upon.
The Law must be wise, not shrill and foolish.
AFAIK, sexual crimes are most extreme in very conservative countries (think of Saudi Arabia, where straight men rape other men they deem feminine looking. Or sheep) as opposed to uber-liberal Japan (where all porn is legal just as long as the genitals — and only the genitals — are pixelized) where rape is almost unheard of.
See this: http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html
Thus I disagree with the direct correlation. BUT I do not propose that we go by Japan’s example.
I will tend to agree with DJB here: this is a “kiss the religious nuts’ asses” law to get their nods of approval.
jon, are you saying that going the japanese way is not the way to go?
Jester,
No, I am saying that:
a) I’m not comfortable going that way
b) I don’t know which way to go, but I definitely don’t go by Villar’s way
I am really disappointed by MV here. I was hoping that he would be a good bet come 2010 but coming up with a bill like this takes the cake.
From her experience working with a Japanese firm, my Singaporean colleague says that Japanese men are ‘horny’. And yesterday, another Singaporean colleague (who has been to the Philippines) made the observation that Filipinos are ‘family oriented’ which is why he often sees them having more than one family.
cvj, that last one of yours was a classic and left me in stitches. :D
hehee, good one, cvj
cjv, that’s stereotyping and i understand where they’re coming from.
more responses to this post here.
my bad. just a point of minor clarification, on September 16th, 2008 6:58 am—
for the record that should be “future and yet to be named/known wife”.
carry on.
cocoy(at 7:53pm), ok we’ll take your word for it. :-D
>Do you know why rape is almost unheard in Japan?
It’s because the excuse is the culture. They never get found out because the grip of the law is loose on such acts. If orgies are so common, then what’s the use of filing a case of rape, when the accuser can simply give an alibi that the other party is just making an excuse after the incident occured.
> Correlation of pornography to Sexual Offense:
Directly proportional. Why? With a high market on porn, more products must be released. Meaning increase labor. How to increase labor? By using deception and terror to control mass of pretty youthful people for film and photography.