Generation ‘P’: Pedophiliac, Perverted & Preposterous

This is a response to the recent 2 articles which appeared in the Straits Times, dated 22 March 2008. In one article, entitled “Generation ’s’: seductive, sensual & savvy”, the columnist was writing about the growing number of girls here in Singapore who are becoming sexually active at a younger age. The article also claimed that one of the reasons girls have sex at a younger age is that they generally attain ’sexual maturity’ earlier; and they also tend to have sex with older men.

The problem with this article, as well as the other one entitled “Girls behaving badly”, is that they are skewed toward a lopsided view of a larger social – or rather pathological – problem. These sort of youth-bashing media reports, I feel, are merely doing a lot more harm than good, and definitely not doing any justice to our younger generation. Why is it that when a young girl, at the age of 15, have slept with more than 50 men, she gets all the negative media spotlights and labelled as ’seductive and sensual’ and even accused as ‘behaving badly’? Why is it that the way these youths are being represented in such newspaper reports put them in a very bad light, as if they are the ones to be blamed for all the problems resulting, supposedly, from their own actions? What, then, about those ’sexual predators’, those pedophiliac, perverted & preposterous freaks who walk among us, without any moral or ethical conscience towards our youth and children? Aren’t they the ones who should be getting all the attention?

In my opinion, education for critical consciousness is still the answer to our social predicaments. Personally, I find nothing wrong in our youths attaining sexual maturity at an early age. In fact it is part of their natural development. What’s more important is for us to educate them by demystifying those sexual matters they should know and breaking whatever existing barriers that obstruct them from coming to us for advice pertaining to any problems and concerns on sexuality.

What’s more problematic in our society is that most of the time, the sexual predators are left scot-free, while the burden is always left for the victims to bear, as reflected in such newspaper reports and articles above. I don’t think it’s the Generation ‘S’ that should be of a concern – rather, those belonging in Generation ‘P’ – those pedophiles and preposterous perverts who should deserve the greatest burden, the harshest punishment and the worst ever form of humiliation.

The media certainly have an important role to play in disseminating information, and sometimes making us aware of things that are happening around us. But there is never one particular medium that is neutral – the movies and advertisements we watched on television, the various programs we hear on the radio, the reports and articles we read in the newspaper – all these media will always, for better or for worse, take a side on any particular issue or problem. Representations in the media have never been neutral – there will always be a group in society that is either over-represented or under-represented.

In the case of the two reports in the Straits Times, we can see how the youth, particularly teenage girls, are being represented. Not that I’m much hyped up with the title, but I think the term ‘generation’ in the report headline itself is very much problematic – it is in a way implying the emergence of a monolithic group in our society that has certain characteristics and ways of behaviour that, as the reports suggested, or at least alluded to, are posing threats to our societal norms and mores. These kinds of reports will consequently drive unnecessary moral panic and irrational fear into the adults’ social imagination, and as a result tighten the stranglehold on our youth and children, imposing on them oppressive regulations that only serve to make our job as adults easier, while smothering their creativity and suppressing their will and freedom to express and represent themselves.

I stand firmly by my opinion that the root of the problem is the one that has to be addressed rather than the symptom – those paedophiles and sexual predators are the ones that deserve the humiliation of being exposed and featured in the media, rather than the victims. In the case of the 15-year old girl having slept with 50 men, I believe that the real pathological problem lies in the 50 men, not the poor little girl.