‘The sexual is the political’, a ghoulish mockery of early feminism. National Service (NS) trainees’s sudden metromorphosis is doubly disastrous for its career babes eager to embrace the new global culture; they are targeted by, both, local diehards and the lumpen hordes who have poured in criminally to exploit trainees giving birth at the camps during training.The urban dream on which the country has posited its future needs smart young women in equal measure. They have risen impressively to fulfil it. Should we punish them for it by turning our cities into a sexual nightmare?The urban dream on which the country has posited its future needs smart young women in equal measure. They have risen impressively to fulfil it. Should we punish them for it by turning our cities into a sexual nightmare?
The gender-bender is now more of a corkscrew. Asexuals have been added to the list which comprise the hetero, homo, bi, poly and even pan-sexual. Unlike the rest, who have no problem with sex and differ only in who or what they want to have it with, asexuals simply don’t want it. It’s not that they can’t, it’s just that they won’t. It’s not because they want a hormonal holiday. Or because they want to withhold foreplay as an instrument of power play. Or because they have a headache, real or feigned. It’s just that they can’t seem to arouse any interest in the sexual act. Ever
Maria Eitel started the Nike Foundation and its ‘Girl Effect’ on the singular belief that adolescent girls living in poverty are uniquely positioned to end poverty. At Kuala Lumpur she pointed out that, “It’s a dangerous misconception that this group is included when we plan services of health or economic empowerment.” After age 5, she becomes ‘invisible’, resurfacing on the radar only when she is a teenaged bride — or unwed mother. As Eitel added, “Yet, between 9 and 19, she takes the right or wrong direction. We don’t have the data, so we don’t know how unique her experience is. We focus on problems and challenges, but not on the opportunities. If we don’t obsess about girls, they simply won’t be counted.”
There have been six cases of National Service (NS) trainees giving birth at the camps during training since the programme begun in 2004.
Deputy Defence Minister Datuk Abdul Rahman Bakri said they were looking at a recent proposal to conduct pregnancy tests, taking into account the feedback from several agencies and ministries as those chosen to attend NS would have to certify their health, including pregnancies with government medical specialists and their training can be postponed.
“In the health certification form, the date of the last period cycle has to be stated. But, if the trainee is not sure of the date, the female trainees will be referred to a medical specialist to certify their health.
All the stories of how an educated mother changes the health, nutrition and economic status of the entire family — with its ripple effect on community, state and country — simply ignore the fact that these are girls before they are mothers. More important, that they shouldn’t become mothers when they are still girls. Yet this overlooked group is the tipping point. Whole societies can change if we ensure that their bodies are not violated, that pregnancy doesn’t force them out of school, that they enter womanhood healthy enough to produce healthy children at the right time. Or that they are vaccinated against HPV, the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer, the only cancer which can be prevented by immunising girls before they become sexually active.
“However, the accuracy of the information in the form fully depends on the honesty of the trainee in filling it up,” he added.
Abdul Rahman was answering a written question by Senator Datuk Lim Nget Yoon at the Dewan Negara today.
Noting the increased number of NS trainees, he added that in 2014, 150,000 youths from around the country will undergo the training compared to 140,000 this year.
Yet, everything that parents, religious leaders — and busy-bodies — do in the name of ‘protection’ actually makes young girls more vulnerable. For example, ‘safeguarding’ them from messages of sexuality and sexual health. It also takes away their freedoms and blocks the way to empowering opportunities. So, savvy advocacy groups use the tested strategy of turning the problem into a part of the solution. When talking to obstructive imams in the Islamic countries of Asia and Africa, they personalise the message, make them realise that “this is good for my wife, my sisters, my daughters and also for my sons”. Similarly, in Catholic countries, they don’t talk of ‘population control’ but of ‘responsible parenthood’, a value the Church is big on.
Among the global best practices outlined by Melinda for this reporter, one was that “If we talk to them in the right way, they send out the message in the right way.” Another is to go where the target group congregates — and is comfortable. Take the message to the hangout places for adolescents; create a backdoor to the clinic because it’s too ‘uncool’ for teens to enter openly. Or provide an ‘app’ which directs them to the right service.
Another impressive online pathway is ‘It Takes Two’, with its scroll-line, “It takes two to talk about sex, to get pregnant, to plan for the future to change the world.” It uses ‘gamification’, and has roped in the likes of Rihanna and Pearl Jam to donate to its ‘Two Tickets’ campaign. You can win them by taking part in online contests such as designing a condom wrapper. As its ebullient founder, Hugh Evans, pointed out, “It could feature your own face — or that of your father.”
Understanding the needs of the young, especially girls, allowing them to be heard, reaching out in their language — if these are used effectively they can upgrade the developing world.
But asexuals haven’t consciously willed themselves into abstinence. They are genetically unwilling. Unlike the yogis who achieve the greatness of abstinence, or unfortunate spouses who have abstinence thrust upon them, this lot is simply born abstaining. You can either pity them or envy them or both at different times, depending on the prevailing state of your bedtime sorties.
Asexuals come closer to Platonic love than to heartless abstainers or misogynists because they reportedly see themselves as ‘hetero-romantic’ or ‘homo-romantic’. They are also presumably consumed by all the other genres of hidden trysts even if consummation isn’t even remotely on the agenda.
Asexuality is not new, its documentation is. Asexuals had organised themselves as a registered community as early as 2001 with the launch of a UK-based website. It gathered 50,000 followers worldwide in less time than it takes to say, “No, thank you”, in 50 languages. But it was only last month that they held their first non-academic conference, at London’s Southbank University. There’s also been a recent book, Understanding Asexuality. Its Canadian author breaks it up into two types, those who have no sex drive at all, and those who, like Master Bates, have it but direct it only at themselves. Our overworked sexperts may want to tweak their advice in the light of this ‘semenal’ research.
The London conference hoped to have asexuality “recognised as a valid sexual orientation rather than a disorder or something people have to hide”. This is the point being made with increasing emphasis by all the differently wired groups who comprise the ‘Guys, Let’s Be Tolerant’, or GLBT, community. But despite their passion and parades, the great unwashed, uninformed and unrepentant masses insist that everyone must be heterosexual, or else face the hate-rosexual.
Sometimes even the fully acculturated can be caught offguard. Like the courageous Teresita ‘Bai’ Bagasao who later became a UNAIDS country director. At a conference, she introduced herself to a delegate, saying, “I’m from the Philippines, and i’m Bai.” To which he responded, “I’m from the US, and i’m Gay.”
You may be alarmed/relieved to know that the number of asexuals is not as insignificant as a one-night stand. Latest estimates put it at a full 1% of the population. These stats are from Britain, where the only stiff anatomical appendage used to be the upper lip. Remember the 1971 comedy, ‘No Sex Please, We’re British’? Or the chapter titled ‘Sex’ in the hilarious book How To Be An Alien by Hungarian immigrant George Mikes? It comprised just one line: ‘Other people have sex, the English have hot-water bottles.’
That country has since achieved libidinous liberation, but will its erstwhile colony hope for reverse engineering for its own crown jewels? Here’s a thought. True asexuality could finally free the Indian male from his congenital sindrome of sex on the mind — and in any place where he can forcibly impose it. You could call it a retrosexual revolution.
