project rain

By: Zaim Al-Amin

As a kampung boy like any other, the topic of sex has never been in any breakfast table talk in my conservative family. It’s considered taboo. No one would be surprised if this innocent kampung boy would someday ask his mother to eat more so that she could get another baby, thinking pregnancy is, after all, a result of over-eating.

Ah, the bliss of ignorance.

Parenting during that time was a strict, regimental exercise that sometimes can even put Hitler to shame. Televisions are locked most of the time (yes, they did have built-in locks). Even telephone sets have padlocks, with Dad (or, more realistically, Ayah, Abah or Bapa) having the only key. So kids were, in every way, protected against the `evil outside world’.

But I was not to be deceived for long, and some self-made discoveries later, I was all the more wiser. Which, with the benefit of hindsight, was a feat in itself, considering the absence of the internet and Astro back then. And, yes, the court cases.

Kids nowadays are luckier (or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it) when it comes to sex education. While education in itself carries a positive connotation (even when coupled with sex), there’s always the possibility of abuse of knowledge. Not unlike knowledge of atoms; you could produce limitless energy out of it, or you could choose to produce bombs.

The internet made a forceful presence here sometime in the late eighties, offering limitless information at the fingertips. Of course, after typing a few boring URLs, one would soon be tempted to be a little bit more adventurous. It won’t take long before pornographic sites are found and downloaded. Thus is born another sex seeker internet geek who, in normal life, would not even know where to get a copy of Playboy or Penthouse.

Before long still, the satisfaction of feasting one’s eyes on photos and short films would wane. Some action needs to be done, and somebody introduced a more exciting way to while away time over the internet. Enter the chat rooms.

Originally known as IRC (internet relay chat), these chat rooms sprouted, bearing different names and websites, each suggesting what they have in store. It could be Teen, Veteran, Mischievous or Married But Still Cheeky. They are basically websites where one can assume a nickname, find another partner by nickname, then type in messages via his computer which will be relayed and displayed in real time on the other person’s computer.

It became quite a craze. Soon lots of people were chatting; irrespective of age, race, sex and location. In a way it was good; it opened up venues for friendship between people whom may not lift an eyebrow should they have met casually on a street. But on the internet, they become best friends, buddies, soulmates etc. And more often than not, they also happen to be someone else’s husband. Or wife. And more often than not, what began as a harmless, platonic relationship turns out to be otherwise.

Then came Astro, a subscriber television network that offers round the clock entertainment via satellite, providing programmes that made a mockery of the National Censorship Board. One would still remember how, just a few years down the line, some artists were blacklisted just because they sported long hairs which was, at that time, regarded as having a bad influence on kids. How far have we gone since.

As if all that were not enough, we were later bombarded with lucid details of sexual misconducts via court reporting by the newspapers. Details that made even seasoned husbands blush. Oral sex, anal sex, fetish sex, bondage and what have you. One of my friends once mentioned to me that he was beginning to wonder whether it’s those details that were outrageous, or it’s the sex in his marriage that was lacking. He later proudly confided to me that he has since 'deviated' from his otherwise 'normal missionary position', and I begged him not to tell what he meant by that.

Suddenly Malays have become so modern. We are now the race who work hard, fly up the corporate ladder, get paid high salaries and have a fair share of after office unwinds like spas, pubs, night clubs. And girls.

And so accommodating is our attitude that we allow positive connotations to be attached to them in place of what used to be 'dirty words'. Something like Pusat Istirehat or Pusat Kesihatan instead of massage parlours. And nowadays nobody go to discos or cabarets anymore. They just go 'clubbing'. And we no longer have agogo dancers to entertain us anymore. Now we just have some boring sounding officers like those Guest Relations Officers (GRO). Or for the expatriates, Sarung Party Girls (SPG).

So what does an open minded modern Malay parent do in the midst of all this? I’ve got four kids to look after; two boys and two girls, and already they are way beyond me when I was their age in terms of knowledge. How do I shield them from the notorious outside world that now and again rears its ugly head, either through the internet, media or from seemingly innocent but equally corrupted peers?

The next time the kids pop up questions that we think they shouldn’t have asked, should we look at them in disbelief, in total resignation, and painstakingly tell them what they really should not know, or hush them up with the false hope that it would eventually get out of their minds? I dread that frown on my eldest daughter’s face which I know would be accompanied by a sparkle in her eyes, meaning that she’s about to ask another 'brilliant' question.

Now, as I look up from the dark rows of parking lots underneath my condo unit and gaze at the brightly lit Kuala Lumpur city skyline in the distance, it suddenly dawns on me that the phrase 'Sex And The City' brings a whole new meaning…