Pornography debate heats up<\/p>\n
A raging debate on flourishing erotic media has added fuel to
\npublic resentment over mounting unresolved national problems.
\nSome government officials and youth groups are crusading to
\nreverse the media \"revolution\". The Jakarta Post's journalists
\nPandaya, T. Sima Gunawan, and Stevie Emilia and contributors
\nTjahjono Ep and Ahmad Solikhan examine the saucy issue.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): After about half an hour of browsing, Iwan
\npulled two Rp 1,000 banknotes out of his trunks, threw them at
\nthe newsstand attendant and picked up a copy of Pop.<\/p>\n
\"Isn't it great? Spend Rp 2,000 and get lots of saucy pictures
\nand stories,\" he grinned, clambering onto his bike and pedaling
\naway clutching a copy of an \"adult\" tabloid featuring a busty,
\nscantily clad woman posing provocatively on the cover.<\/p>\n
Many newsstands in major cities have been busier than usual
\nlately thanks to erotic tabloids, magazines and illicit
\npublications which have come out in droves over the past month.<\/p>\n
Badri, who runs a newsstand on Jl. Kaliurang, Yogyakarta, said
\nhe sells about 50 copies a week of erotic tabloids and magazines,
\nwhich cost Rp 3,000 to 4,000 each. His regular customers are
\nmostly young women and middle-aged men.<\/p>\n
Publications selling sexual fantasies are thriving amid tight
\ncompetition with the regular news media.<\/p>\n
If sex content, both pictures and articles, is a yardstick of
\npress freedom, then Indonesia has probably just joined countries
\nproud of having free media.<\/p>\n
The unprecedented freedom of the press spurred by Soeharto's
\ndownfall last year has also given rise to pornography. In big
\ncities like Jakarta, the \"adult magazines\" are sold side by side
\nwith children magazines.<\/p>\n
Newspaper boys at busy intersections aggressively offer the
\ntabloids to motorists without fear of being apprehended by the
\npolice. And bystanders are getting used to buying one without
\nshyly looking around.<\/p>\n
Scenes of newspaper boys shoving adult tabloids in the face of
\nbystanders' are common at Harmoni roundabouts, just a few meters
\nfrom the Bina Graha presidential office. Transactions there are
\ndone as if to show that no government authority can stop the new-
\nfound freedom to enjoy erotic reading.<\/p>\n
Some of the adult magazines, such as Pop, Power, Map, Kiss,
\nLiberty, Tragedi and Top, are brand new, and others like Popular,
\nPos Film and Matra are old ones with fresh courage.<\/p>\n
Not all juicy media, it turns out, have the mandatory
\ngovernment publishing license. They have names but no address or
\nlists of journalists, editors or publisher. But they all sell
\nlike hotcakes thanks to flashy pictures and hot stories.<\/p>\n
The growing number of sexy media is often attributed to the
\ngovernment's policy to simplify the procurement of publishing
\nlicense for a publication.<\/p>\n
In the Soeharto era, when the press was tightly harnessed,
\ntabloids would feature soft porn material, and illegal hardcore
\npornography publications were widely on sale, albeit covertly.<\/p>\n
The tabloids and magazines feature topics like how to find
\nchild prostitutes or tips on how to enhance sexual enjoyment.
\nThey also carry explicit accounts of readers' sexual experiences.
\nOne tabloid goes so far as to tell readers where to get call
\ngirls in various towns in Java.<\/p>\n
A Surabaya-based magazine, Top, gives names, physical features
\nand particular sex \"skills\" of favorite call girls in a brothel
\nin Bojonegoro a small town in East Java.<\/p>\n
Editors and advocates of adult media insist that what they
\npublish is not pornography but, rather, \"artwork\" or sex
\neducation, which people cannot obtain at school.<\/p>\n
\"Can anybody criticize us, give me the definition of
\npornography?\" asked Slamet, a marketing executive of Pop. \"All
\nthe contents in the tabloid are true stories that people can read
\nwith their heart beating faster,\" he said with a nasty chuckle.<\/p>\n
He said he knows many people are hypocritical about adult
\nmagazines because they enjoy reading them but they will say the
\nmedia must be killed for promoting pornography.<\/p>\n
Sex objects<\/p>\n
Obviously, not everyone is happy about the presence of the
\nmagazines. Women's rights activists, for example, charge that the
\nmedia portray women as \"sex objects\".<\/p>\n
Smita Notosusanto, a member of the Jakarta-based Society
\nagainst Violence toward Women, said that the exposure of
\nrevealing pictures stains the image of women.<\/p>\n
\"Women are treated as a commodity, not as human beings with
\npersonalities. They are exploited to make a profit. As for the
\nwomen, I don't blame them. They need money. But isn't it fair if
\nthey then receive such treatment?\" she asked.<\/p>\n
Traditional critics of such media are Muslim groups that do
\nnot want to see publications carry any articles or photographs
\nthey considered obscene.<\/p>\n
Wave after wave of Muslims have demonstrated their disgust of
\nthe media that they say are \"threatening the morality of the
\nyoung\".<\/p>\n
Last week, adult media enjoyed a spurt of free promotion when
\nthe city police summoned top model Sophia Latjuba for a five-hour
\nquestioning on her nude picture on the cover of the May edition
\nof Popular magazine.<\/p>\n
The magazine's photographer and executives were also summoned
\nfor questioning. The police action, apparently, did not harm the
\nadult media business. Popular enjoyed greater sales with agents
\nreporting a sellout. People became aware of soft porn
\npublications at newsstands in their neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
In a show of concern, senior Cabinet ministers made a media
\nshowing last week, telling journalists that the authorities would
\n\"take stern action\" against anyone deemed responsible for
\npublishing pornographic material.<\/p>\n
To prove they are serious about their threat, the police have
\nset up a special team in charge of monitoring the media. As has
\nthe Ministry of Information.<\/p>\n
Under Article 533 of the Criminal Code, anyone showing or
\noffering sexually arousing objects are punishable by two months
\nimprisonment. The Criminal Code has no definition of pornography.
\nBut it does have articles covering obscenity and indecency.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, Minister of Information M. Yunus Yosfiah, who
\nhas won major adoration for allowing greater press freedom, said
\nthat pornography was not his cup of tea. Because pornography is a
\ncriminal case, the responsibility for handling it lies with the
\npolice, not his office.<\/p>\n
But this does not mean he is among those who are happy with
\nthe mushrooming erotic media. In a Cabinet meeting at the Bina
\nGraha presidential palace on Wednesday, ministers gleefully
\nreceived tabloids carrying pictures of partially clad women that
\nYunus distributed to show that media freedom has been misused.<\/p>\n
\"Many of the publications can be classified as pornography and
\nthey are freely traded in by children on the street,\" Yunus said
\non a separate occasion.<\/p>\n
The increasing pressure on the government to take action
\nagainst the erotic media has forced the media people to lay low
\n-- at least for now.<\/p>\n
\"You have to duck when you come under public scrutiny,\" Slamet
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
Media observer Ana Nadhya Abrar theorized that the flourishing
\njuicy media is spurred by pornography on the Internet. They
\npublish erotic material to gauge public reactions.<\/p>\n
\"The trick turns out to be effective,\" she said. \"It cannot be
\ndenied that the media make a lot of money.\"<\/p>\n
As the sex-oriented media stay under heavy attack, debate is
\nraging over the definition of \"pornography\". The media and
\nadvocates insist that the disputed pictures are \"works of art\"
\nand the articles are light matters that people are supposed to
\nenjoy in leisure.<\/p>\n
Th. Gieles, an ethics teacher at Sanata Dharma University,
\nYogyakarta, said the pictures in licensed erotic magazines
\nlargely fall in the \"sensual\" category, which does not aim to
\nsexually arouse readers. While pornography, as unlicensed media,
\nis aimed at sexually arousing readers.<\/p>\n
\"Generally the pictures in licensed media are sensual-artistic
\nin their design,\" he said.<\/p>\n
According to Gieles, what needs better government control are
\npornographic video compact discs, not erotic magazines and
\ntabloids, which can be properly controlled by the public.<\/p>\n
Defining pornography, it appears, is not that easy now that
\nthe public is flooded with sex publications.<\/p>\n
\"Everyone has a personal interpretation and different point of
\nview,\" Ana said. \"The issue must not be blown out of proportion,
\nso that Indonesia can focus on more pressing issues.\"<\/p>\n
Some advocates of media freedom say the government's threat to
\npunish erotic mediums is just another trick to silence the media
\nin general and to put the brakes on media freedom. Or to divert
\npublic attention from mounting crucial issues that the government
\nis unable to handle.<\/p>\n
Now that the war against pornography is ensuing, erotic media
\nlovers are wondering if they still can have those \"stories that
\nthey read with their heart beating faster\".<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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