last word
Prudish and Proud
These days people are willing to stand up for every subset of sexual identities – except for one group , finds Nury Vittachi
What about us prudes ? Our rights are trampled on in the most shocking manner every day . Numerous times a week , something risqué comes on TV and my children shout “ Not suitable for Dad !” I have to race out of the room before kissing , pillow talk or worse appears on screen . The odd thing is that most kids , when they are young , think exactly like I do — but the relentless assault by the media makes them lose their natural modesty somewhere around the age of 12 .
I was at a school drama once at which two performers on stage fell on each other passionately , causing everyone below the age of 12 in the audience , plus this writer , to make a disgusted “ Eewwwwww ” sound .
Why is no one sympathetic to prudes ? I reckon we prudes get a bad rap because the journalism sector has a bias in favour of extreme liberal attitudes and we only make the news when one of us says something stupid .
I give you a case in point . In Japan recently , a professor named Shigeaki Iijima explained why women could never be allowed to join the country ’ s army :
“ In actual combat , if they are under attack from artillery shells or bombs , there is a chance their clothes could be blown off .” Clearly Mr Shigeaki does not understand the physics of bombs . But in his defense , weapons which seem to do nothing except damage female clothing pop up regularly in video games and anime cartoons .
Not to mention every action film ever made . ( One of my colleagues confidently claimed that someone had once actually developed a bomb that blew off clothes and left humans naked , but a Google search revealed he was remembering a 1980
Maxwell Smart comedy movie called The Nude Bomb .)
I was complaining about all the ( shudder ) s . e . x . in the media in the office the other day . “ You ’ re lucky you live in Asia ,” my colleague said . “ Life would be intolerable for you in propornography places such as North America , Europe or Japan .”
He showed me an article which said that earlier this year , the Canadian government ’ s Health Committee extravagantly praised pornography as it “ allowed young people to learn about the different spectrum of sexual expression ”. My colleague , who is fond of Japanese culture , said this implied that lucky Canadian children will be able to learn about things such as “ tentacle sex ” ( Japanophile readers , please do NOT write and tell me what that is ).
Will prudes die out completely ? I called the science folk in my contacts book . “ No ,” said one of my science correspondents , interestingly . Quite the opposite . “ Porn-loving societies see an increase in erectile dysfunction , a loss of interest in sex , and negative birthrates . In contrast , conservative communities , such as those in Africa and South Asia , grow .”
He emailed me evidence . “ Sex is going out of fashion ” was the headline of a US report summarising an academic study of the US population in August last year .
A huge survey by The Lancet , the world ’ s top medical journal , said that people in the UK were having steadily less sex as availability of pornography grew . Swedish researchers found the exact same thing in their country , and extrapolated that the same was likely for the rest of Europe . In porn-awash Japan , a survey showed that one in two young people now have no interest in sex with humans , preferring the company of cartoons , websites , etc .
72 www . playtimes . com . hk