O Winterson, long live gays & lesbians!

__

Winterson has a new book out! Actually it's a short story collection by various writers, including some of my other favourite authors: Andrew O'Hagan and Ali Smith. 

Winterson has made her short story publicly available here. As usual, the classic Wintersonian story: fragmented narrative, contemplative rhythm, story without a plot, only full of light, love, and poetry.  So I'm getting the book! 

Actually last year there was a book of love letters, and Winterson contributed a very lovely piece. But I didn't think it worth getting as the other writers' pieces weren't as good. Maybe I'll get it if there's a paperback edition. Anyhow, check it out. In any case, try to get hold of Winterson's piece. Is very lovely.

And another favourite writer of mine - a poet - has been named poet laureate of England! No small matter given Carol Ann Duffy's a woman, and a lesbian, and she joins the ranks of Dryden, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Day-Lewis, Ted Hughes. 

Winterson doesn't really qualify for poet positions, but hopefully she might one day become Nobel Laureate! Hehe!

The Name 
By Carol Ann Duffy 

When did your name 
change from a proper noun 
to a charm?

Its three vowels 
like jewels 
on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants 
brushing my mouth 
like a kiss.

I love your name. 
I say it again and again 
in this summer rain.

I see it, 
discreet in the alphabet, 
like a wish.

I pray it 
into the night 
till its letters are light.

I hear your name 
rhyming, rhyming, 
rhyming with everything.

__

And this is really amazing. I hope there'd be more of such events in Singapore! It actually makes it look more like a country than a ... factory??

Sex education

And so the inevitable has happened: MOE has suspended AWARE's sex education programmes. Excerpts from MOE's letter: 

"... In particular, some suggested responses in the instructor guide are explicit and inappropriate, and convey messages which could promote homosexuality or suggest approval of premarital sex. ...

Parents are ultimately responsible for inculcating values in their children. MOE's sexuality education programme aims to complement parents' role in helping students make informed, responsible and values-based decisions regarding sexuality."

-- MOE, Straits Times Forum, 7 May 09

__

First of all, MOE's accusation that AWARE is 'promoting homosexuality' is moronic. If you're a straight man and loves women to the hilt, no amount of gay movies and gay novels and gay porn and hanging around with gay people will turn you gay. Just as if you're gay, no amount of straight movies and straight novels and straight porn and straight people will turn you straight. If you're gay or straight, you're gay or straight. You just are. One's sexual orientation is not like a credit card to be promoted. duh. What AWARE's programme does is to encourage everyone to be understanding and tolerant of one another's sexuality, amongst other things which I will talk about below. Because only when people are understanding and tolerant of sexual minorities can discrimination against gay people be eliminated. And it should be eliminated. Or is the MOE trying to encourage discrimination?

When people say things like "but Singapore is still a conservative society", they forget that they themselves constitute society. They forget that they are 'conservative' because they are 'made' conservative. They forget that society changes, and that they are part of that change, whether they like it or not. Just a few decades ago, women weren't allowed to attend school or hold a job. Arranged marriages were the 'norm'. So were having multiple wives and mistresses and domestic violence were aplenty simply because the men could get away with it. Stretch society back a few more decades and you get Chinese women with bound feet, colonial subjects forbidden to enter certain premises, and you lived a life without freedom simply because you were of a certain race, gender, and subject to a foreign Queen. These changed because your forefathers fought off the "this is simply the way things are" justification and fought for their rights, against racism, against injustice, against inequality, against colonialism, against oppression. They fought for what is right. Come think of it, during my great-grandmother's, even grandmother's time, it was normal for girls to be married at 15, 16, and start having kids. I believe in today's parlance, that is called teenage pregnancy. Anyway I'm rambling. The point is society's value and norms are constructed by ourselves, and they can change, are always changing, and will change.

I hope MOE will reinstate AWARE's sex education programme. The following are my reasons:

First, it is precisely because parents DO NOT talk to their own children about sex, or that parents themselves are ILL-INFORMED about sex (Ha ha ha. But I'm not kidding) that the responsibility has been pushed to schools to provide sex education. Sure, it is a sensitive topic, and every family has its own sets of moral values it wants to uphold. For example, how I bring up my own kids would be very different from how my friends or other families bring up theirs (obviously I would be a very, and I mean VERY, liberal parent). But the point is someone has to do it, because like it or not, students are very curious, and rightly so, and they're also very eager to experiment.

Second, I would rather students be fully informed about sex than to adopt (and for parents to insist that schools adopt) what is still a don't-ask-don't-tell method of conducting sex education, peppered with neanderthal scare-tactics, e.g. "If you engage in premarital sex the girl will get pregnant and will have to go for an abortion and/or you will contract STDs, or worse, AIDS!!!" [followed by bombarding the poor student with lots of gory pictures of foetuses and disease-ridden penises oozing with pus]. Scary, you bet, but are these informative and educational? No. Have these arcane methods prevented students from experimenting with sex? No. Rather, this is what happens: the problems associated with teenage sex remain unresolved, and everyone - students, teachers, schools, parents, and ultimately society at large - buries their heads in the sand, pretending everything is well in their make-believe world of asexual parents and virginal students. 

Third, even if parents do talk to their children about sex, it does not necessarily mean that what parents teach is right. Often, personal prejudices and mis-information are fed to their children, thus perpetuating ignorance. Parents do not have all the answers all the time. That is why parents send their children to school - that their children be educated by professionals and specialists. AWARE's sex education programme is developed according to international standards and ratified by experts, the classes are conducted by trained personnel, and aim to provide students with as much information as possible, and in a non-judgemental manner. This is because AWARE believes that only when one has as much information as possible can one make sensible decisions pertaining to sex, as well as form judgements about issues and about other people. For example, some teaching points from the AWARE programme:

A) people might place pre-marital sex as negative, but it is really neutral. The key is whether the couple is aware of the consequences and the responsibilities and is ready for them. Sex with girls under 14, with or without her consent, is considered statutory rape. Sex with girls under 16, with or without her consent is considered carnal connection.

B) Homosexual - people have different preferences for their partners. Homosexuality is perfectly normal. Just like heterosexuality, it is simply the way you are. Homosexuals also form meaningful relationships, and face the same emotional issues that heterosexuals do. The Singapore law does not recognise homosexuality and deems sexual activities as unnatural. 

As far as I can see, it aims to provide information to students as objectively as possible, and it steers away from moralising (because, if it does, liberal parents like ME would be furious! "Who are you to teach my child that homosexuality is wrong??? No one wants to be gay, and if he or she is, then he or she is! There is no fucking right or wrong!!!") More importantly, it aims to dispel the many myths perpetuated by PARENTS as well as by society. 

This is crucial, because when teenagers start to discover their sexuality from 12 years and up, the straight ones would discover they're straight (i.e. take an inexplicable, but natural liking to those of the opposite sex), and those who're gay would discover they're gay (i.e. take an inexplicable, but natural liking to those of the same sex). To deny teenagers the right to acknowledge who they really are is damaging to them. Try telling straight teenagers to stop looking at those of the opposite sex is difficult enough. Now try telling them to STOP being straight. It's not a far-fetched scenario - that's what gays are told to do, and have to live with. And that is wrong.

This is why, while I may agree with MOE's stand that the inculcating of moral values are ultimately the responsibility of parents, the onus is then precisely on schools to inculcate other values, values that parents don't necessarily practise, let alone teach: values of tolerance, diversity and open dialogue. More often than not, parents' ignorance and prejudices and bad habits are passed on to their children that schools would then have to correct. Sometimes it would have been too late. 

Hopefully, professional lessons and advice that are provided through schools' sex education programmes can help nurture the next generation of Singaporeans who would be less ill-informed, prejudiced, and bigoted, and who would be more welcoming of differences and diversity. Not just regardless of race, language or religion, but also of sexual orientation too. This is what the AWARE sex education programme sets out to do. 

If parents object to it simply because of their own conservatism or mis-informed views, then it is their own children who shall be the worse for it. Because like it or not, their kids will still be curious about sex, will still be sexual beings, and will be wont to experiment with sex - with themselves or with other people, whether they are boys or girls, straight or gay. Because, as I've tried to emphasise, this make-believe world of asexual parents and virginal students and where everyone is straight and happy simply does not exist.

AWAREness

I think yesterday's AWARE meeting is a historic moment in Singapore [more weblinks here]. And reading the 'live' updates on twitter and the various blogs, and then watching the video clips on Youtube afterwards, for once I wished I were in Singapore, in Suntec witnessing that great occasion. 

It was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and objected to deeds that had been carried out according to the law, but were not not necessarily legitimate, not necessarily right. Because sometimes, the means don't justify the ends. Because the law can bring about injustice too. Especially when the law is being exploited for sinister ends, something the PAP government has perfected into an art. So it was no wonder the grand mastermind 'Feminist Mentor' thought she and her minions could get away with it. But alas, she lacked the brilliance of that other Great Mentor, Lee Kuan Yew. 

It was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and denounced religious zeal - in this instance, a certain Christian fundamentalism - that had been misused, that is misguided, and can do more harm than good. This is on a personal note: I've read the bible from cover to cover (King James' version), and occasionally dip into it, always for its beautiful prose and calming poetry. I think the bible is one of the greatest piece of English literature there is around. I respect its teachings as a non-believer, just as I respect the myriad interpretations individual believers, disparate priests, denominations, and theologians can have - and that they ought to have. This is why I am suspicious of anyone who proclaims to tell the 'truth' about the bible. I respect the fact that you believe in God and that you put immense faith in Him as much as I expect you to respect me as a non-believer. Respect being the key here.

The AWARE saga somewhat turned into that tired gay/anti-gay debate, and if anyone of you is unconvinced that Christianity is not against homosexuality, email me and I'll attempt a sweet and precise deconstruction of the scripture, relevant verse by verse (King James' version) to tell you once and for all that homosexuality is not a Sin. (Or read Winterson). To those who say they cannot 'accept' gays and lesbians: other than because of their own ignorance, prejudice, and bigotry - Why? Gay people are just like everyone else - they live, they breathe, they fall in love. They wish for the little mercies that everyone receives daily, they too struggle for their breath of fresh air - perhaps more than any other people. 

Love is love wherever you find it, in whomever you find. As long as it is true. Why should one's love be predicated on hate? 

I can go on and on about this, about religion, gender/racial/sexual discrimination. 

But the Aware saga was an occasion where Singaporeans came together and demonstrated just how wonderful, and precious it is, to be inclusive by celebrating diversity - in ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. It was an occasion where I witnessed true fortitude and maturity in a people, not those stage-shows of patriotism on NDP. And because of all these, it was one rare occasion I was proud to be a Singaporean.