Stay out of our bedrooms, thank you very much

As news started to trickle out about a proposal to amend the Criminal Code on a host of private conduct matters, it was only to be expected that the dribs and drabs would add up to a flood of misinformation.

"I hear that it's going to outlaw masturbation," one colleague, positively shifting in his seat with excitement, pronounced in the middle of a meeting.

"They'll probably have to put cameras in all the bathrooms," he added, by now almost jumping out of his seat and bleating at all the potential opportunities for some off-color jokes.

"And stop gay marriage, too," another chimed in, leading to a raucous Mr. Evil-like guffaw from our resident intellectual dynamite at the table ("What? Gay people? They're icky").

It turns out that the law covers a lot of very personal things, but, thankfully, it does not get into the matter of taking personal pleasure into one's own hands.

But for the same-sex issue, there was more misunderstanding to come, including that homosexual sex would be outlawed altogether, or the very-open-to-interpretation and forbidding statement that, "Nobody can be gay until the age of 18."

Now that in itself led to some colorful images, such as of sad-faced teenage boys counting the days until they could finally put up their posters of heartthrob Anjasmara and listen to a little Celine Dion with impunity.

Thankfully, one of the officials who helped draft the proposed regulation went on a TV show later in the week to try to clear things up.

It turned out that the proposed gay regulation is an effort to curb pedophilia and molestation from those who prey on youngsters, and does not apply to relations between consenting adults.

The rules outlawing witchcraft and sorcery, which had left many of us scratching our heads (who among us has not wished that we could make someone else spontaneously combust?), are meant to govern those who "advertise" their services, like listing their sinister skills on a name card.

Still, a couple of other proposed areas for regulation, particularly cohabitation and particular sexual acts, still left a strange taste in my mouth (couldn't resist it, really I couldn't).

"What if I wanted to share a house with my friend Budi or Rudi," a young house-hunting colleague lamented to me.

Simply looking for a housemate who can help her pay the rent, she is one of the 20-something singletons who has grown up knowing that not every interaction with someone of the opposite sex will lead to something hot and heavy.

And even if it did happen, the new code would mean there would be some things she had better steer clear of. "Forcing" someone to perform oral sex can land someone in jail for 12 years, for instance, but one wonders why this would not come under the current rape laws.

There is also the uneasy feeling that it could very easily be used by spurned lovers to get back at their former objects of affection.

How to enforce these rules anyway? Well, it may open up a whole new line of work, kind of like the three-in-one program for the "jockeys", with a new morality task force making the rounds to check that everything is prim and proper.

They would probably head off to China, getting the lowdown from the "grannies" who were used to enforce that country's one- child policy, or the former East Germany, to confer with the last vestiges of Stasi on how to set up a trustworthy informer network.

Of course, this being Indonesia, it would also open up a lucrative sector of its own, with affluent housing complexes and apartments able to pay their way out of getting their bedrooms inspected.

But why stop there? Next, the government can start thinking about ways to limit "dirty" talk and juicy fantasies that do not conform to Eastern values.

Hey, I know there is a Peeping Tom in all of us, that there is a prurient side that hungers to know how other people do it. Only the other day, a friend told me about looking out his window to see the next-door housemaid snuggling up to her boyfriend.

"I kept looking through the curtain for an hour, but that's all they did," he said, sounding a bit disappointed.

If he wants a live show, maybe he should head off to the shadier areas of Glodok. But, as for those sanctimonious, self- righteous souls who want to control sexual behavior between consenting adults, find another cause for concern. And stay out of our bedrooms, please.

-- Broto Dharma