High society sex scandal with underage prostitute: A young man speaks his mind

Dear readers: ,

I am typing this article in order to express my growing anger and indignation at the irresponsibility of the mainstream mass media regarding the current underage prostitute saga , as well as to vent out my grievances and arguments I have always had against the current ruling government of Singapore and its skewed policies and doctrines that have served to put us local citizens at a detriment position.

Firstly, I wish to get a rock off my chest about the recent underage prostitute saga. Speaking personally as a man, putting aside all arguments of morals and ethics about the men involved in seeking commercial sexual services from women, I find the charges against the men lawfully unable to stand, and as a matter of fact the information that has been available mostly points to a very sloppy work-up of prosecution charges by the prosecutor in charge of this case.

In an earlier interview by lawyer Subhas Anandan he has made statements attesting to the lack of information about the exact details of the prosecution charges against the men, specifically the name and age of the girl involved as well as her identity, and how this put him and his clients in a difficult position trying to defend their position, what with the girl being a “hardcore prostitute” according to Lawyer Subhas who “didn’t need any protection from the law”.

Following the saga, although I cannot attest to saying that the men were necessarily morally right in seeking sexual exchanges outside of their marriages or in their personal life, I feel that the current media attitude in reporting out the full names and ages, and in some cases even their occupations and past connections to past organisations unsettling and to be frank, extremely underhanded with great potential to do harm and humiliation against the subjects involved.

[PHOTO: One of the men charged trying to escape the prying eyes of the media]

Speaking from a personal point of view, I can feel their distress, anger, and shame at being rightfully or wrongfully exposed to such scathing media spotlight in such a saga involving so many people as I have been in a similar position before, of which I would elaborate in the future if there was a need to.

I also feel great indignant at several comments by Members of Parliament Dr Halimah Yacob and Teo Ser Luck on the subject of keeping the female “underage” prostitute’s identity a secret and not pressing any charges against her, in the blind hope that such anonymity can allow her to have a clean start in life later on without vice or crime. I feel strongly in my heart as a male adult, that in this whole saga the female prostitute was equally to blame as anyone else involved.

Does it mean that you can take being shamed rightfully or wrongfully in the public eye because you are a male, and you are allowed preferential treatment in personal privacy in the same situation just because you are a female? Such sentiments have been echoed repeatedly online by both genders, with calls to name her as a witness or even shame her publicly in the media as they are doing with the men being made. I would not go to extremes to advocate such actions explicitly, but I can and I will pledge my implicit support for more transparency with regards to the saga, especially on the part about the females involved.

For one thing, the court’s stand on not revealing information on the girl involved, evokes particular suspicion as to whether she is as of the present time, even still considered underage, which is to say, younger than 18 years old. And even in the unlikely scenario that the females involved are still currently underage, then it calls even more question as to the whole nature of the vice ring operated by the convicted pimp who has already been charged. Were the girls coerced into selling their bodies?

How did they even end up in such a situation? Was it by their own choosing or were they possibly blackmailed or arm-twisted into their current situation? And if it was by their own choosing, how could they have chosen such a twisted path to riches? Where was the social and moral safety net that was supposed to prevent such things from happening?

All evidence points to a willing and complicit participation by the female party involved in this saga, and this would evoke even more moral and ethical questions about protection of the girls under the Women’s Charter. Is the prosecution fearful of AWARE, the local feminist rights groups, which is why they refuse to rightfully disclose information about the female prostitutes involved? And speaking of which, is it not a hypocrisy to call our country a meritocratic country without sexism when we need to have gender equality groups existing to lobby their own agendas to the government much like the lobbyists for big businesses in America? Or even more so, that the open solicitation of commercial sex deals by females or males is illegal, when one can take a walk down Geylang every night and observe how many legal brothels there are in Singapore?

To me I Feel that this whole thing about the law punishing freelancing sex workers is much more motivated by inability to track and tax incomes of subjects involved than anything else, including public moral good and crime rate control. And I am pretty sure that I am not the only person who feels this way. Call me a chauvinist if you wish, but if you have a womens’ rights group in Singapore, surely there should be a Mens’ rights group as well to protect men from women who misuse the Women’s Charter to sell their bodies, make quick money, and then withdraw behind the protection of their gender and sexuality?

I personally feel that the current high-strung emotions surrounding the saga is due to the fact that to all of us the public, the main character in this whole saga, the female underage prostitute herself, has supposedly been able to get away scot-free and stay out of media scrutiny, while the men are unduly exposed to the world by the mainstream media which is acting too much like private investigators.

I do not see the point in exposing so much detail about their education histories, their personal lives, or even their connection with various organisations and schools and I do not feel that such information serves a purpose of reporting objective news to us the public. Here I shall have to put in a well-deserved bemoaning of the state of the local mainstream media which I Feel is no better than or even worse in terms of news integrity and professional conduct than compared to online social media.

To top it all off for my anger and indignance at the handling of the saga, a psychologist who was interviewed by a Chinese tabloid went so far as to say that it was the parents’ responsibility to teach the right moral values to their children, and in this case the parents of the underage prostitutes should apologise to their own daughter for “failing them” in this respect. Really? Seriously? Sometimes you have to consider the fact that parents can only do so much to help their own children, and when their own children choose the road of rebellion against their parents during their growing years there is little that can be done by them to stop any slippery descent into the depths of crime and debauchery short of declaring them as Beyond Parental Control.

The prostitute involved opened her legs to forty over men for consensual sex in exchange for money, of which we can assume a significant portion going to fund her own lavish lifestyle and the rest going to the pimp himself. This is no innocent kid who has been failed by her parents that we are talking here. I do not see the point of protecting her so hard especially under the current situation of the crucifixion of the men involved. At the very least, the mainstream media and the law should take a closer look at the female prostitutes themselves as complicit partners in crime, rather than just mindless innocent sheep waiting for the slaughter by the hands of evil preying wolf men. And since the ladies involved did their trade in the freelance escort way, which is clearly illegal under local law (open solicitation), they should be prosecuted for that in tandem with the men who supposedly had underage commercial sex with them!

Here I See fit to turn my verbal venting to further analysis of the current saga with respect to the general domestic situation in Singapore. Given the extremely sloppy handling of the case by the prosecution as well as the undue spotlight attention given to the saga by the media in Singapore, it is perhaps food for thought to think that barely 24 hours before the saga broke a few days ago, the news was dominated by a far more important news, that of the start of the public inquiry into the MRT system breakdown back in December 2011.

Perhaps there is a conspiracy to create a massive smokescreen by trivializing and sensationalizing this whole underage prostitute sex saga out of proportion, in the hopes of diverting public attention from the more pressing matter of getting the truth about the MRT breakdowns, as well as answers and remedies for the breakdowns that happened? It is everybody’s guess, but given how past scandals involving sexual scandals between government employees and private company employees for commercial benefits as well as the failed extradition case of the Romanian diplomat have been swiftly swept under the carpet without due explanation from the government or the parties involved, I Cannot help but suspect that the conspiracy theory holds more water than it initially seems.

We have created a generation driven only by dreams of material wealth gained by any means possible, and this has resulted in a breakdown of morals in society where what used to be taboo is now the norm. As they say, in the land of lies, telling the truth is considered high treason. Why has this happened? It is a common known fact that the local education system has been more geared towards a “winners take all” model than a more inclusive “everyone gets a share” model.

Short of preaching communism in education here, I as a concerned young Singaporean call strongly upon the Ministry of Education to take a close hard look at its education structure, and revamp it in such a way that takes the emphasis off pressure-cooker dog-eat-dog style of education to one of a more holistic and moral “roundedness” so to speak, model. Clearly civics and moral education should be taken a lot more seriously than they are now, and also the media should do its part by being more objective and responsible in reporting news and portrayal of dramas locally.

We cannot expect a healthy society to exist in an environment where we see in the newspapers day after day some news about extramarital affairs, or dramas that involve sex and violence in a way that glorifies them. However, I am not calling on blanket censorship of materials, as that would be too infringing on our freedom to information and freedom of speech. I am just calling out to society to take more responsibility in its actions to other sections of its own and not just do or say things for the sake of sensationalism, drama, and ultimately, money and profits.

I have written this article partly to vent out my inner frustration and anger regarding the current situation in Singapore, and also partly to share my views with you viewers and create constructive discussion about the issues involved. I am open and I welcome constructive debate with me over the points that I have made in my written article, and I do hope that this article will be the first in a future series of articles that I will make to commentate and analyse local news and trends. Thank you for reading.

WONG MING JUN

* The author is a 18 year old young man waiting to be enlisted for National Service