Sex and the City of Muck: I say hey babe, take a walk on the wild side…

By Regina Lim, 5 May 2011

Sex, like politics, is a question of power and domination.  Don’t you agree?  Week after week, sordid images and descriptions of the Datuk Trio sex tape are taking over the content of the media, social networking debates and cyber blogging domains.  We can’t undo it; it is so difficult to ignore it, so let’s just talk about it, hopefully for the last time.  Whilst the main focus of the sex episode falls upon Anwar Ibrahim, the unfortunate victim of a vicious and mysterious political machination, I can’t help but notice how the woman in the tape has been dehumanized, objectified, categorized­ - as the Chinese prostitute or China Doll etc.  Maybe I’m wrong, maybe the woman has been empowered by it, who knows?  I want to take the focus back to the question of power and domination and relate this to the politicization of sex and human morality.  

Sex is a gift of nature.  It is a highly ticklish subject, a very personal and for some very sacred experience.  Sex is the source of life, we are created by its energy and we continue to live life on this cycle of creative energy.  Hence there is no way for human beings to be separated from sex, heterosexual or otherwise.  Nonetheless through the various establishments of institutions – especially the universal ideals of marriage and family - and belief systems humans somehow manage to isolate or even create an enmity toward ‘sex’.  This is especially true in the mainstream religious theology where the talk of ‘sex’ outside of the norms of pro-creation and marriages becomes a social taboo and at worst, a parody of our basic instincts.  

Caricaturing our basic sexual instincts has now become a popular discourse in our political culture.  Although it is not the most important bread and butter issue of the day, we are somehow sucked into the political vortex of popularising our dirty laundry at the national level. Whilst the Middle-East is experiencing the most significant political revolution in the history of the world, Malaysia triumphs in underwear politics.  I think Calvin Klein would happily use our underwear politics to advertise the latest derrière support for soggy bottom boys. Having said that, the Malaysian political culture has not really gained any progressive mileage on articulating the real issues that are making life difficult for citizens who do not belong to the mainstream perception of how gender roles should function.  

We live in a male-centred world where the dominant perception about gender roles and sexual mores are neatly constructed and sustained by the mainstream theological interpretation of the ideal of social order.  The popular culture is also responsible for perpetuating the myth of gender dynamics, in which men tend to think and women are generally an emotional machine. The separation of the mind from the heart becomes a popular explanation for why men behave differently from women, which generally goes unchallenged.  Then the Other sexualities emerged and increasingly, these people are treated as artefacts of modern social diseases, even women with wit and intellectual capacity who do not subscribe to the mainstream sexual norms are not spared from the pathological view of transgressing gender roles.  In this male-centred culture, these are considered the destabilizing factors in our so-called authentic ‘Asian’ Century. Anything wayward must be Western import, even liberal democracy.

So when these destabilizing elements are present in our society, those in power must reclaim the moral high ground.  After revealing everything sordid and humiliating about Anwar’s sexual instincts, those responsible for the distribution of the sex tape, aka Datuk Trio, tried to absolve their ethical misconducts by taking religious oath - Sumpah Laknat.  Surprisingly even the Prime Minister Najib Razak condones such act by stating that ‘Everybody has the right to Sumpah Laknat’

 

I do not claim to understand what this is all about nor to be interested in the content of the oath.  It just seems to me that the public recourse to religious oath-taking denigrates the moral force of any political argument validated on the grounds of religious convictions.  From Saiful to Eskay, I think the whole Sumpah affairs actually desacralized the places of worship in this city of Muck.  We have a justice system that is already jaded, a political system that actually encourages racism and intolerance, and now sacred places that are becoming legitimate laundry machines for those who failed to connect and have a sense of real understanding about ethics and moral issues in their political conducts or misconducts.  So when politics is replaced by sensationalism, the ethical content of political debates is then diluted.  What is there left to talk about politics but the inversion of the personal, the parody of the id - the ‘pleasure principle’ at all cost, the politicization of sex. I’d take a Walk on the Wild Side, so help me Lou Reed… .