Monday 13 October 2014

Why preaching abstinence simply doesn't work today

Hello! I would like to respond to a post that my friends have picked up on in social media - it is about a Singaporean parent Ms Kuan Weng Chi who wants school to teach their students abstinence (ie. no sex before marriage) instead of safer sex. Allow me to speak as a person who grew up in Singapore - I have extremely conservative and religious parents who preached abstinence and as part of any sex education I received at school, I was only taught abstinence. Did I believe in it? Of course not. I rejected it altogether and became sexually active as a young person. I shall spare you the details of my rather exciting sex life as an adult, but it suffices to say that it is quite the opposite of abstinence.
Please allow me to offer a disclaimer here: I am not asking or encouraging young people to become sexually active in my post here - I am merely pointing out that young people are going to make their own minds up on the issue regardless of what their parents or educators have to say about the issue, so it is pointless nagging at them. Ms Kuan has made a fundamental mistake in looking at the issue entirely from her point of view rather than look at the issue from the point of view of the students. As someone who has worked in PR and marketing for a long time, I understand how important it is to understand the audience you wish to address if you wish to communicate anything to them. Really, this is marketing 101, it is clearly not an area that Ms Kuan has any experience in.

Ms Kuan waxes lyrical about the virtues of abstinence, but let us take a step into the real world where young people live in today. Firstly, allow me to deliver a dose of reality to the parents out there - your kids may listen to you respectfully, but do they actually respect you enough to allow you to influence their opinions? When I was a teenager, I didn't go out of my way to fight with my parents - I did see them as very ignorant and naive. You see, they worked in a primary school and knew little about the real world beyond the school gates. They had spent decades sheltered in their own little bubble in the safety of a Singaporean primary school, completely unaware of what went on in the real world out there.
My parents preached abstinence. I didn't listen to them.

When they tried to nag at me, I didn't tell them, "you are wrong, you know nothing, you are ignorant, you don't know what you're talking about etc." No, there was no point in making them feel bad about themselves. I would simply keep quiet and give them the impression that I had listened to what they had to say, but in my mind, I would be thinking, "yeah right, you really don't have a clue what the hell you're talking about." I'm sorry to be this blunt, but I'm right - they were woefully out of touch in a rapidly changing world and I had to contend with a massive generation gap which was so huge, I often felt like they were my grandparents rather than my parents.

As for my teachers, well, there were some teachers that I liked and others that I loathed - but that is pretty typical of any student's experience. Go to any school anywhere and you will find some teachers who are respected by their students and others who are despised. I listened to the teachers who have won my respect and I barely tolerated those whom I despised. Whilst I didn't go out of my way to antagonize the teachers whom I despised, they were certainly in no position whatsoever to influence my opinion on any issue at all. No, in order to do that, you would first have to win my respect before I will be willing to listen to what you have to say. This is what irks me: so much focus has been on what you want to preach to these teenagers - yet nobody has even began to talk about how you are suppose to communicate this message to teenagers. Without an effective communication strategy, everything you say will fall on deaf ears.
Do you know how to communicate with teenagers?

This is something which I have talked about in a previous post: perhaps it is in our culture for us Asians to shy away from open confrontation, even if we do not agree with our parents or teachers, we simply keep quiet rather than challenge them. But in this case, silence does not mean consent. In my case, I usually felt that my parents' opinion was so ridiculous and misinformed that I was not even going to dignify it with a response. I simply couldn't be asked to get into an argument with them, I would rather save my time and energy. So each time they preached to me about abstinence, I merely rejected their opinion silently in my head and said nothing. I didn't respect them enough to want to value their opinion and would rather listen to others.

So who were the others who were in a position to influence me as a young person then? I remember my idols growing up in the 80s and 90s, there were a few very successful gymnasts whom I admired; Sylvio Kroll, Daniella Silivas, Li Ning, Elena Shoushounova, Dimitri Bilozerchev, Lavinia Milosovici, Lou Yun - then there were the singers like Madonna, the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Whitney Houston, 2 Unlimited, Kylie Minogue, Jimmy Sommerville, Roxette just to name a few. Then there were the actors; Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Spacey, Rowan Atkinson (aka Mr Bean), George Clooney - too many to name. Now I have been very lucky to have not only met and worked with a few of those people in the list above - not many people have had the opportunity to meet their childhood idols!
Working with the German gymnastics legend Sylvio Kroll in 2006 

Take someone like the great Sylvio Kroll for example - he was undoubtedly one of the most memorable German gymnasts from the 1980s and I practically worshiped him as a young gymnast growing up. He first competed for East Germany then for the unified German team after 1989 - he had a very long and successful competitive career in gymnastics.  I had his poster on my bedroom wall as a boy and everything he did fascinated me. He was a strong vaulter with a very distinctive run with straight arms and I deliberately copied the way he ran because I wanted to be just like Kroll in every aspect of my gymnastics. To have met him and worked with him in 2006 was a dream come true.
Perhaps if my parents were a little smarter (which they weren't) and had better parenting skills (which they didn't), they could have understood the importance of my childhood idols and pointed me in the right direction - for example, Li Ning - one of my childhood idols - is a legend in the world of Chinese gymnastics and has been a brilliant role model for gymnasts all over the world. I did pick some very good role model for myself as a child - if only my parents actually could realize that and work with that, rather than just view all role models as a bad influence and a distraction from my studies.

How did I select my role models and idols then? Well, I never sat down at one point in time and tried to decide, "right, who do I admire, who inspires me? Who should I choose to be my role models?" No, instead, these were people who caught my attention and captured my imagination, they did something which captivated and fascinated me. Take Madonna for example - it started with her music, I first became a fan of hers in 1986 when my older sister got hold of a cassette of her album True Blue. I fell in love with Madonna's music first, that sparked my lifelong interest in her and she became a huge influence and inspiration in my life. Now this process is quite random - it's almost like food: one person may like the taste of Kimchi whilst another may find it disgusting. We are all individuals with different tastes and preferences, hence it is almost impossible to try to control this process. Mind you, whilst I liked Madonna very much, I didn't quite feel the same affection for the other bands that my sister liked, such as Fleetwood Mac or Wet Wet Wet.
No, instead our young people consume a large amount of media: TV programmes, pop music, music videos, magazines, films, Youtube videos, advertising, social media and as a parent, you have little control over what they end up finding fascinating. The only alternative is to cut off your child from modern technology, ban everything from TV to the internet from your house so your children cannot possibly be influenced by anything in the media. That is simply not practical - the only sensible alternative is to arm your children with the ability to exercise good judgement and then hope that they will make sensible choices when it comes to the media they consume. Quite simply, you can't turn back the clock to the 1980s, before the days when we have the internet.

So let's understand the context of this day and age, where young people may not be specifically seeking pornographic content but are stumbling upon it anyway. I would like to use two examples: the first is the music video for Miley Cyrus' Wrecking Ball and just for balance, one from Asia - I would like to pick Bo Peep Bo Peep by T-ara. Wrecking Ball was one of the biggest hits from last year, whilst Bo Peep Bo Peep was one of the biggest hits by K-Pop sensation T-ara. Young people who are into their pop music would have certainly have seen these music videos on social media.
Now the music video for Wrecking Ball is quite simply, soft porn. It features a naked Miley Cyrus swinging around on a Wrecking Ball with less than subtle poses - licking the hammer is decidedly tasteless, but hey, that's Miley saying, goodbye Hannah Montana hello sexually active Miley Cyrus. As for T-ara's famous music video, well at least there is a little bit of a plot: a beautiful Korean woman goes to a night club, she picks up a hot guy - they go off and have hot, steamy sex right away. The woman then returns to the club after coitus (presumably this is during the same evening) and picks up another guy for more sex. Like Wrecking Ball, this music video is not subtle at all and some of the members of T-ara were still teenagers when this video was made. Both videos are a blatant celebration of great sex. I could go on, there are so many music videos out there which celebrate sex - from Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke to My Neck, My Back by Khia to Anaconda by Nicki Minaj. When was the last time a song celebrating celibacy or abstinence topped the charts? How about never? Well wake up and smell the coffee, this is the world we live in today. Sex sells. Money talks.
Why is this media obsession with sex then? This is because the media industry is here to make money, thus it has to give the consumers exactly what they want. The consumers don't want to hear songs about abstinence or watch a bunch of women who are celibate. No, the consumers want to watch a series about fashionable, beautiful women in New York who have loads of sex: hence we have Sex And The City, a highly successful sitcom ran for 6 years, spawning two movies (and a third Sex And The City movie has been planned). Sex sells, abstinence doesn't - so even if you are preaching abstinence to your child 24-7, chances are, your child is going to receive the exact opposite message when s/he consumes any kind of modern media from movies to TV to pop music. So who is your child going to listen to then: the parent or the teen idol s/he worships? Of course the parent is going to be drowned out by the teenager's idol.
Teenagers worship their idols - the word love doesn't even come close to describing the kind of emotions a teenager can feel when it comes to their idols. You need to understand the relationship between the teenager and his/her choice of idol. As a parent, you best hope that your child picks an idol who is a good role model (like an outstanding sportsman), rather than some nut case like Justin Bieber who can't seem to stop getting into trouble lately. I'm not saying that all parents should just give up at this stage - but how much influence you actually have on your child depends very much on the quality of your relationship with your child as you are competing with his/her idols to influence his/her thoughts. In my case, I saw someone like Madonna as a globally successful entertainer who has achieved so much as a singer/actor/songwriter as someone I respected and would listen to - rather than my parents who were very naive about the real world outside the safe little bubble of the primary school where they spent all of their working lives. So if my parents expressed a different opinion from Madonna, whom did you think I was going to listen to?

Lastly, Ms Kuan has taken issue with the way the student has chosen to use social media to voice her displeasure, drawing attention to the fiasco instead of addressing the matter internally via "proper channels" - thus saving the HCI principal from embarrassment as a result of this episode. It is unbelievable that Ms Kuan is far more concerned with the principal saving face (oh this is so very Chinese, isn't it, this concept of 'losing face') rather than the fact that a FOTF are promoting a kind of rape culture, undermining the rights of women, where no means yes? You could try to wrap it up in Chinese culture or dress it up however you like but Ms Kuan's stupidity is unreal and it is parents like her that the education system has to protect the students from. Parents should be putting the welfare of their children first, rather thant the 'face' or 'reputation' of the institution. Let's always make sure we get our priorities right, please!
What are your priorities Ms Kuan?

Imagine if Ms Kuan had a child who was bullied at her school (say the child was badly beaten up by her classmates) and talks about her experiences on social media. The school comes to learn about the bullying episode through social media - what should be the school's priority? Should the school punish the student for tarnishing the reputation of the school by talking about such episodes on social media? Or should the school deal with the welfare of the child, check what harm has been done to the child and punish the parties who are guilty of bullying behaviour? Any rational adult would put the welfare of the child first - only someone who is as warped Ms Kuan would put something like 'face' first. Like what is wrong with this woman, is she a product of the Singaporean education system? Oh dear.

Whether you like it or not, you have to accept the fact that the next generation are going to do far more of their interactions online than their parents who grew up without the internet. You cannot turn back the clock and pretend that the internet doesn't exist in this day and age - in any case, this is not even the first major cyber-media involving teenagers in Singapore. Eight years ago, in October 2006, scholar Wee Shu Min, the daughter of MP Wee Siew Kim got into big trouble after having attacked another blogger with the words, "get out of my elite uncaring face". Whilst this was an opinion that was only voiced on her blog, it still went viral and mainstream, leading to a groveling apology by both father and daughter. Far more recently, another teenager NUS scholar Sun Xu got into big trouble with his online comments about there being "more dogs than humans in Singapore" and another teenager Lai Shimun also got into trouble over her racist comments on Twitter. We are not in uncharted waters here, this is nothing new for Singapore.
This is 2014 - teenagers prefer to communicate online.

Instead of telling teenagers, no you can't voice your opinion on the internet, that is not how it should be done, you should address your grievances through proper channels, you cannot just broadcast your unhappiness so irresponsibly online - hey, Ms Kuan, newsflash. They are doing it already and nothing you say at this stage is going to change that. You're trying to shut the stable doors years after that horse has bolted. If you live in a modern society like Singapore, you simply have to embrace technology and adapt your communication methods. Young people are going to use social media to express themselves anyway so if you want to engage them, then you jolly well get on social media and meet them there or risk becoming irrelevant in their lives. Besides, going onto social media give you a much clearer idea of what kind of world these young people inhabit online and would help reduce the generation gap.

So what is the alternative then? Ms Kuan is proposing abstinence, what is the alternative I am proposing then? First, we have to look at the adult population because that is what children eventually grow up into. There is a spectrum when it comes to sexual behaviour amongst the adult population - you have adults who have an exciting sex life, adults who practice monogamy within marriage, adults who do not have any sex at all and everything in between. Ms Kuan, here's something you'd rather not know: during my NS days, a surprisingly high number of the men were sexually active: they were either having sex with their girlfriends/boyfriends, seeking random  encounters with strangers or visiting prostitutes.
Oh the stories I can tell you from my NS days...

Now we're not just talking about your Ah Beng bad boys here - we're talking about mild-mannered JC types who are thrown into an environment, far away from the school environment and even further away from the scrutinizing eyes of their parents. They go from a student routine whereby they have to call their parents if they are going to be slightly late for dinner to a lifestyle whereby their live amongst their peers, work amongst their peers and often party with their peers. Well, since Ms Kuan never had to serve national service, she probably has no clue what goes on in a typical army camp and if she had any boys, she would have no idea how to prepare them for the NS environment.

Let me tell you a story just to bring this back down to earth for you: I had this moral dilemma when I was in the army. One of my camp mates, let's call him Anderson (since he was from AJC), was your typical mild-mannered, somewhat geeky JC student and he was going out with a former classmate of mine from VJC, let's call her Victoria. I knew Victoria well and she would often tell me to keep an eye on Anderson, lest he "kena bullied" in the army. Anderson was very keen to get accepted and get along with the people in camp, so he started hanging out with them on the weekends as they went on these trips to Johor Bahru. Now I found out that these trips often involved trips to brothels which masqueraded as massage parlours and yes, no trip to JB was complete without a "massage with extra service/happy ending."
Does Ms Kuan know exactly what guys get up to in NS?

Victoria was studying in NUS at that time, blissfully unaware of what Anderson was getting up to in the army. She was struggling with her studies and didn't mind not seeing Anderson on the weekends as she couldn't spare the time to go on dates with him. As this time, Anderson was going to JB weekend after weekend, seeing countless number of prostitutes - now, I didn't have a moral issue with Anderson visiting prostitutes, he was an adult and a paying customer, it was consensual sex,  - what I found very disturbing was the way he told me, "please don't tell Victoria, she just wouldn't understand, she needs to be protected... it would destroy her world if she knew, she can't deal with it."

I felt that Victoria needed to know but I was worried that she wouldn't believe me as Anderson was so seemingly sweet, innocent and geeky. It was hard to reconcile his image with what he got up to in JB with the rest of the army guys. I have no doubt that his parents probably preached abstinence to him too, but when placed in a situation where sex was readily available, he chose sex over abstinence. I thought there was a high chance that Victoria would simply choose to believe Anderson instead of me if I told her what was happening - it was a moral dilemma. In the end, I chose not to tell Victoria what happened as I didn't want to risk falling out with Anderson (whom I had to work with in camp) - she still has no idea today and I do feel ever so guilty for not telling her. Would you have told Victoria the truth if you were in my shoes?
I chose to look the other way and not say anything to Victoria.

My point is simple:even someone like Anderson became sexually active during NS and his experience isn't unique - I have encountered plenty of other guys like Anderson  during my NS days and such is the Singapore we live in. We're not just talking about temptation coming in the form of a sexy Britney Spears music video - we're talking about an environment where young men want to prove their virility and manhood. Most of all, we're talking about a culture where the men want to at least "protect" the women from the truth of what they really get up to. Thus you have Singaporean women like Victoria and Ms Kuan who are blissfully ignorant of the reality of the situation and actually believe that you can preach abstinence to youngsters these days. Oh dear Ms Kuan. What would you think if you knew have the shit that goes on in NS... I swear Singaporean women really have no clue at all about NS. 

What can we do for the young men who will follow in Anderson's footsteps? Well, you need to inform Anderson what he needs to do to protect himself from STDs if he is going to have casual sex with strangers (like prostitutes). Telling Anderson that he should not do something like that is not going to stop him - the next best option is to at least give him the information he needs to make an informed decision if he is to indulge in sex with prostitutes. If you have a son, let me put this to you: imagine you are Anderson's mother. When he walks into that whore house in JB, would you rather if he was totally ignorant about STDs and safer sex, or would you at least prefer if he has had enough sex education to prevent himself from having unprotected sex with a prostitute in such a situation? Welcome to the real world.
As always, I am always keen to hear what you have to say about this issue. What have your experiences been regarding sex education in Singapore? Please feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you very much for reading.

23 comments:

  1. Abstinence doesn't work at all, zip, zero, nada, zilch. It does not work even in a controlled totalitarian country like PRC, which censors it's internet and doesn't teach sex education. It sure as hell won't work in a slightly more connected country like Singapore which has a free-er internet and huge access to Western media.

    And since both countries have very conservative views most teens will rather see their peers opinion on matters of sex rather than their parents. I know most of them watch Japanese AV to learn a thing or two about sex and I'm sure Singapore teens with easier access do so too (heck i remember watching my first Western porno flick back in Secondary school when internet was still not available).

    All these abstinence and hush on topics of sex does nothing to stop the very high rates of unplanned pregnancies and in fact PRC has the highest abortion rate in the world. I'm sure Singapore would have a similar problem if they had access to cheaper budget inns or a higher student population who live in student dorms.

    However due to stricter regulations on getting abortions in Singapore I believe most couples who ended up with unplanned pregnancies would rather go through shotgun weddings (even if they weren't actually planning on getting married) rather than seek abortions. This introduces a whole host of problems (as if the government's social engineering in allowing only married people to own HDB hasn't brought enough problem of it own) but that would probably be a story for another day. In fact up till today I am still amazed at the huge proportions of people in Singapore who think that male condom use is the be all, end all of contraception (even when pregnancy rates have clearly dis-proven it).

    So based on personal as well as anecdotal evidence I would say that abstinence only education is clearly not working. In fact the reverse adopted by certain Western societies appear to be working much better; access to good sex education as well as ready access to good contraception services.
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/13/drop-teenage-pregnancies-success-story-children
    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2012/07/preventing_unwanted_pregnancies_forget_sex_ed_and_compare_the_pill_to_iuds_.html

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    1. Hi Choaniki, thanks for your comment. You and I are certainly on the same wavelength here. I think though, that sex education should go far beyond preventing unwanted pregnancies. There is the issue wider issue about sexual health to consider and if young people are going to be sexually active, then they need to be aware of the range of sexual practices out there which range from safe to very unsafe in terms of the potential exposure to nasty STDs and we have to steer them towards the safer end of the spectrum.

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    2. I agree that sex education should seek to educate and not preach values. Hence safe sex and contraception should be taught.

      However the current conservative thinking in MOE is that if safe sex is taught it might encourage youths to go out to have more pre-marital sex (even though we know its not true). So it is unlikely to happen while PAP is in power I'm afraid.

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    3. Well, the internet is a double edged sword in this case - at least teenagers can go online to try to get information. But one only hopes that they access reliable, useful information about sex education rather than just look at loads of hardcore porn.

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  2. Well, Ms Kuan likely preached abstinence instead of safer sex probably because she felt that having sex before marriage was morally wrong. There are many actions in life that are not illegal, but there is always a grey area whether it is moral a not. So for having sex before marriage, prostitution, or having multiple sex partners might be deemed by some as being morally wrong, albeit it is not illegal. This is perhaps why they had advocated so despite knowing that youngsters are exposed to the digital age and having full access to a lot more information.
    The environment can change, but morals do not need to adapt to such changes or be changed in its value. Therefore, I think that preaching about abstinence is fine even in a dynamic age we are in now.

    About young people having their own minds so nagging doesn’t help-I think that each nagging session has a ripple influence in them although it might not result in a 360degree change. So if many people nag on someone over the same issue repeatedly, it will likely influence the person’s decision. Take for an example- teachers, parents, tuition teacher and the principal repeatedly nags a young person to study for his O’levels and its importance. Will this young person not be influenced?
    This is what I think....hmm.

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    1. Hi Heidi and thanks for your comment.

      Who is to say what is morally right and wrong? I would like to point out to you please that everyone has a different stance on the issue - I happen to think that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with sex before marriage as long as both parties are consensual, know what they are doing and are adults - what they get up to behind closed doors is nobody's business. Whilst it is your right to say "no thanks, not for me, I don't wanna have sex before I get married", it is wrong of you to say that it it immoral per se for everyone. Do not impose your personal choices on others.

      Let's take a less emotive issue for example: in Singapore and Malaysia, it is acceptable for adults to smack their kids. In Sweden, it is illegal to hit your child and recently, a Malaysian expatriate couple in Sweden were jailed for smacking their children. This demonstrates that laws and morals can vary from country to country - the law in Sweden reflects the fact that Swedish people think it is immoral to hit a child, whilst in Malaysia & Singapore, people think it is okay to do so.

      Your statement that morals do not need to adapt to such changes is just ignorant - you're no better than an ostrich with its head in the sand. You need to consider what environment we live in now, what new challenges technological advances present and then consider how we should adapt to this new environment, rather than just say "oh we don't need to adapt".

      Furthermore, you're a woman - clearly, you have no idea about what kind of environment NS is like. Good grief, half the population have to do NS and the other half know so little about the NS environment. There is so much SEX SEX SEX and more SEX in NS. I just hope you don't have a son because you would not be able to prepare him for the kind of environment he is thrown into with your kind of ignorance.

      As for the issue of nagging - let me put on my marketing/PR hat. It's not what you want to say to teenagers, but it is HOW you convey your message. If you are effective in your method of communication, you only need to say it once and your child will get the message. If you are going to be IGNORED by your child, then saying it 100 times a day over 10 years is still a waste of time because your child has already rejected your message the first time, what makes you think that it is going to work the next 100 times?

      This is why people like you frustrate me because you do not think your methods through - that results in very, very poor parenting skills. Good grief. Nagging is stupid, nagging doesn't work. If your child doesn't respond to your message the first time, you need to take a step back and think, okay that didn't work, I will need a brand new, different strategy in order to get the message across properly. Then you try a different approach and if it doesn't work, you come up with a different strategy until you find one that works.

      Now that is now it works in the commercial world when it comes to marketing/PR - you do not waste time and money using a strategy that has clearly failed and hope that it has a ripple effect. Hell no, you would be sacked a long time ago.

      Sorry if this sounds harsh, but in the commercial world, you would not survive a day with this kind of attitude: you are oblivious to failure and are unwilling to change your tactics in the face of failure. So if you want a child to study hard for his O levels - you do NOT nag at him 100 times a day over 10 years, good grief. No, you find a way to communicate that message super efficiently to him so that he gets it once and remembers it forever.

      Duh. Marketing 101 Heidi. Clearly you do not have a commercial/business brain at all.

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    2. Heidi, no one said parenting was easy, but you need to work smart, you need to be a lot more intelligent in terms of coming up with an effective communications strategy with your children. You are just working hard without employing your brain, without ever questioning if your strategies are working or failing. Duh. Good grief. If you behaved like that in the commercial world, you would've been sacked a long, long time ago. We don't tolerate failure like that in the business world. We value bright people who know how to adapt themselves to challenging circumstances and keep changing their approach until they find the best method to can work. This ripple effect bullshit is just so plain stupid, good grief. Come on Heidi, surely you're not that oblivious to how ineffective it is. How can you ignore what is clearly a dumb mistake like that? Duh? Open your eyes lah. Aiyoh.

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    3. Oh gosh! Nagging did squat for me. My mother nagged at me to study but gave me zero support. I did poorly. I failed every single Mandarin exam even though she nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged some more. The more she nagged, the more I tuned her out. My son quit Mandarin last year after 5 years. I helped him every step of the way as support. He still hated it. Eventually, after a spat with his last Mandarin teacher, I let him quit because he was not happy. He was top of his class, but he just hated it. If I were to nag at him and forced him to continue studying Mandarin, he would resent me. Now he is happy with just French at school. Recently, he picked up photography. I let him. No nagging, but I was happy. You see, I do influence him a great deal, but I gave him options. I may joke about my dreams for him --- if you know me, you would know that I have big dreams, but in the end, it's really up to him. I only provide the opportunities and support. I influence by sowing seeds. Deep down, I know I have no control when he is not with me. So, Heidi, it's really very naïve to think that nagging works. Tutors? Teachers? Principals? Gosh, they have that much influence in Singapore? And about sex, no less!

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    4. Hear hear, and that's coming from a real mother raising an 11 year old son! Thanks for your dose of reality, Di!

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  3. I think you need not result into name calling(ignorant, dumb) and being judgemental(commercially failing, definitely failing) about others just because others have a different viewpoint from yours. If you are not open to opposing viewpoints, why are you asking people to comment?

    As you have said, who is to say what is morally right? But in the case of Ms Kuan, perhaps she has felt that having sex before marriage was morally wrong which was why she advocates abstinence. So tell me, what is so ignorant or wrong in doing that?

    And what's with morals having to adapt to technological advances and the evolving world. Take filial piety for example, are we going to be less filial just because the world has become more dynamic and technology has advanced? are we going to be less caring because the world seems to be more materialistic? This is what i meant, so please reserve all those mean judgements of ostrich in the sand and commercially failing what nots for yourself.

    About nagging. Perhaps I have missed out your point of the word 'Nagging'. What i meant was if many people advice someone over something repeatedly, it will have a certain influence on them.

    Seems that you are so quick to judge someone by their few thoughts. Disappointing, really.

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    1. OK Heidi let me respond to the points you have made:

      1. I did point out that one's decisions when it comes to sexual behaviour, whether to remain abstinent/celibate, practice monogamy or have many sexual partners is an individual choice - it is no different from whether or not you like Kimchi or not. If you like Kimchi, go ahead and eat it, if you don't then no one is forcing you to do so. But for you to label someone else's choice in that matter as 'immoral' is overstepping the mark - you don't like it when I judge the poor, ineffective methods you have when it comes to nagging - well, I don't like it when you pass judgement on others who have a different take on the issue of sex & sexuality as well.

      What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander as well.

      2. As in the case of Ms Kuan, I have made it clear that she has the right to decide for herself what she wants to do with her sex life - abstinence, celibacy, monogamy or whatever she chooses for herself. But when it comes to sex education for the next generation, we're not talking about a personal choice here: we are talking about preparing the next generation for the big bad world out there and making them aware of what they need to do to protect themselves. In the case of Anderson (my case study in the post above, my army buddy), I just hope that his peers gave him enough information about what he should do to protect himself when having sex with a prostitute in JB because he sure as hell wasn't going to get any useful info about that from his parents or educators at school.

      Ms Kuan has the right to practice abstinence or celibacy of course, but if her children are going to become sexually active in their teenage years, then she is clearly failing them as a mother if they end up pregnant or worse, with some kind of nasty STD because she was so stubborn on her moral high horse to consider the point of view of young people today.

      3. The concept of filial piety has evolved a lot in modern times whether you like it or not! In the past, people used to have many children because they perceived it to be necessary to make sure enough children survived till adulthood to support them in their old age. The birth rate in Singapore has plunged to one of the lowest in the world and people no longer view children as their pension fund - this has been replaced by complex financial planning instruments instead. The fundamental roles of parents and children have changed from that point of view as parents are now continuing to support their adult children as they struggle in a very competitive job market. The definitions of filial piety have got to change as the society, the context where it is applied has changed so much in the last few decades - if you do not evolve concepts and ideas with society, then you risk them becoming out of date and irrelevant in this day and age.

      So what it means to be filial in 2014 can be very different than in 1984, because the world we live in today is very different indeed. This is what I mean when I talk about finding the most effective means to achieve an aim - you don't seem to be prepared to challenge your way of thinking, you seem very stubbornly stuck in your ways and that's your problem: you risk becoming your own worst enemy in a fast evolving society.

      And you still have missed my point about the 'nagging' issue - it doesn't matter how many people repeat the same advice over and over again repeatedly, if the subject has decided to reject the message, then no amount of repetition is going to make the message any more acceptable. That's just plain stupid - when you make a mistake with a strategy that doesn't work, only a fool would repeat it over and over again hoping for a different outcome.

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    2. Einstein said, "insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". If your message is not receptive the first time, then deliver it in a different manner with a different strategy. Duh. Your attitude renders you almost impossible to succeed in the commercial world and would render you terrible as a parent.

      As for rushing to judge you based on what you have said, allow me to point out to you that I am only responding to what you have said here and if you wrote some really stupid crap that shows me how warped your reasoning is, don't expect me to be polite about it. Your reasoning ability sucks, bad. I may be blunt to the point of being rude, but you are at best illogical and unsuited for the business world, at worst, downright stupid.

      I have many readers who post responses here on my blog - I have had over 6.17 million views on my blogs and have had plenty of readers over the years interact with me like that on my blog. I am not here to sayang-sayang you and give you 'face' when you spout something that is illogical and silly, if you don't make sense, then I am going to tell you that your strategy is salah and you're barking up the wrong tree. I can only judge you on what you write here and if you don't want me to think that you're a bodoh who is out of touch with the real world, then kindly post a more intelligent response, thank you.

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  4. Wow, comments seem to have blown up while i was away.

    Like I said abstinence is not working and won't work. Let this not be a liberal vs conservative argument because it will drag into something ugly like pro-life vs pro-choice.

    I certainly hope that institutes of higher learn actually educate our youths and let them be the judge of what is right. Please don't play moral police and start passing bigoted judgements just because someone has pre-marital sex.

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    1. You see, this is where I had a problem with the way Heidi presented her argument - she insisted on using the word 'immoral' when I think that is way too judgmental, that's why I launched a counter-attack and now she has the cheek to accuse me of rushing to judgement. #Irony

      Allow me to use an analogy: say I don't like the taste of oranges. I would just say, "I don't like oranges, I don't eat them because I don't like the taste." Fair enough - but I would be crossing the line if I labelled oranges evil, disgusting or even immoral. No, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with oranges even if you don't like them. Try seeing it from the perspective of someone who actually does like oranges.

      Likewise, if you would rather practice celibacy or monogamy, fine - that's your choice and I hope you're happy with it. But don't start using words like 'immoral' to label others who do not choose celibacy or monogamy - to each his own and it is a free world: as long as we're all consenting adults, what we get up to in the privacy of our bedrooms is nobody's business thus no one should have the right to use labels like 'immoral' to describe someone else's sex life. Don't kaypoh.

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  5. I really need to agree with what you said limpeh. During my childhood years, my mom always nag with me that cartoon is for kids or those with childish mind. She keep nagging me when i started from primary 6 all the way to my university life.

    What happens next is that i stumbled on hentai when i was in secondary 1 while surfing the net. So whenever my mom nag me on cartoon is for kids, my mind will always think of hentai. At that time, "AXN" was not in cable show where "Anime" is not really well known. "Doraemon" was considered as cartoon and comic and that is already have nudity from the comic and most parents are not aware of the nudity in the manga.

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    1. Hahahaha, you should have a chat with Choaniki about Hentai - he is big on Japanese technology and culture (well, you can tell from his nickname here) and he has left a few comments on this topic already!

      I'm familiar with Hentai/Yaoi content - and yes, Japan has a huge porn industry, the biggest in Asia in fact.

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    2. Well it's the same story for anime. Lots of parents are still in denial and think they are innocent cartoons only meant for kids when there are themes like unknown mass serial killers (Death Note), vampires with lots of sex and violence (Hellsing Ultimate), mental illness (Paprika), incest and cannibalism (Requiem for the Darkness) and the list goes on.

      In fact is was only just about 1 year ago which a self-righteous church going old lady called the cops to report a cosplay for her "sinful" attire. She was cosplaying the main character Ryuko from anime Kill la Kill. So it really takes a huge stretch of imagination or massive ignorance to think that anime consists of only cartoons for little children.

      Hentai just happens to be the Japanese AV branch of anime. In fact the profit margin is so much higher since they don't have to pay huge premiums to get A list AV actresses into the shoot.

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    3. Oh yeah, it's a very, very big industry not just in Japan, but with fans all over the world!

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  6. In case your 6.17million readers start slamming me as a moral police, I need to really clarify that I was merely trying to view things at Ms Kuan's point (poor Ms Kuan!). I have never said that my own personal stance was that having sex before marriage was immoral pls. I have so many friends who had premarital sex. Did I judge them as being immoral? of course not! In fact, if I have a son, I will educate him to be a responsible and sensible individual who does not go around having unwanted pregnancies. I couldn't possibly expect him to still be a virgin at like 25 years old? !

    OK as for your other points, I get it. Come on, I like reading your blog as it has very interesting insights (except for the jumping to conclusions about me part).

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    1. Well Heidi, firstly, thank you for the clarification. Ms Kuan has made her stance pretty clear in her letter and like I said, she is free to believe in whatever she wants to believe and make her own decisions about her sexual behaviour - if she has children, then she is free to say whatever she wants to say to them as a mother but that is when the school has to step in an plug the gaps as we cannot rely on parents to always reliably educate all their children adequately when it comes to the important medical facts concerning STDs, unwanted pregnancies etc. In fact, Ms Kuan is free to preach abstinence to her own children - that's between her and her children - but (and it's a big but) the role of the school is different from the role of a parent. Ms Kuan makes a fundamental mistake in confusing the two by claiming that the school should take her stance as a conservative parent and that is where I find fault with her logic. So don't sayang Ms Kuan - she wants to xia po chua (write to the papers), she should be held accountable for what she wrote.

      As for the other points you've made, thank you for clarifying them.

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  7. Abstinence preaching does not work. I was educated in a convent for 9 years. Then Catholic school for another 2 years. Let`s just say I know first hand all the preaching in the world fell on deaf ears when I was there. Every sex education program should include safe sex and birth control. Leave the morality issue out of it unless you are a religious institution. While I have not had the complete sex talk with my son, I have already planted ideas about safe sex and unwanted pregnancy. It is overwhelming to cover every aspect of sex education for the child (ok, for me too, I admit), but when we build it into the conversation over a period of time, it gets easier. My own next step is to talk to my son about the actual act of coitus (thank you, Dr. Sheldon Cooper!), but I can do it. I know my son already knows about it from his teacher, but I am sure she left out many details. He goes to a Catholic school, after all!

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    1. Well Di darling, I would hope that as your son is in a Canadian school, they would do a pretty decent job of sex education... yeah? No?

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  8. Yes, they do a decent job. However, he goes to a Catholic private school. They do preach abstinence. I do not blame them. I chose to put him there. I want him to know about birth control and STDs --- how to prevent them. Not just the dangers, but HOW to not get a girl knocked up and ruin his entire life or get STDs. Not enough to say that STDs sucks. That's like saying cancer sucks rather than teaching a healthy lifestyle. Public sex education has no place preaching abstinence. That's like saying a public school teacher has the right to preach that God exists. That should come from the family and the pastor. Even then, there is no way to force a child to believe in God. Same with abstinence.

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