Pornography

Pornography can be defined as any form of material which depicts the exploitation of sexual matters explicitly with the sole intention of arousing the viewer sexually. However, pornography can also be seen as the free expression of sexual desires, which would be culturally acceptable in many countries. Since pornography is speech, words, and pictures about sexuality, in terms of speech, there is a certain form of protection due to freedom of speech.

However, this brings us back onto the debate of whether pornography, although protected by freedom of expression, is infringing the viewers’ freedoms by making them uncomfortable. Many people argue that pornography is only for arousing sexual excitement and for no other purpose, furthermore, those who wish to view pornography are usually people who are not offended by it and who choose to view it for their own viewing pleasure. In some special cases where people do not have the chance to be involved sexually, they find solace by merely viewing pornography, be it on magazines or on the Internet. For these people in society, pornography is merely another means of fantasizing about the sexual pleasures that they cannot have with their own partners. Furthermore, whether or not pornography is disturbing depends solely on the viewer, and since the viewers are fine with it, pornography can be accepted as a form of art.

Pornography materials often depict women as wanting to be sexually exploited and this therefore degrades women and their moral standards. However, from another viewpoint, we can see that women who are involved in the pornography business actually enjoy the process and they often make a profit out of it. There are those that become famous after being labeled a “porn star”, who go on to become a famous figure in the modern world. Therefore, pornography is not completely immoral in the present society.

Despite all that, there are also downsides to pornography. Over the past few years, where pornography has become readily available, it has been linked to all sorts of crimes and public perception is that if someone watches porn, that person must have committed a crime and it is unwise to get close to him. The downgrade of women into sex objects is another cause for worry. Due to pornography fuelling male fantasies, many males tend to get overly excited, and not satisfied with only watching pornography, they decide to act it out on those sex objects. This is the major cause for many cases of rape of women and children, where the men who rape them see them as no more than an object that can be manipulated to fulfill their sexual desires. As a result, pornography becomes the fuel for crime because they impart the wrong morals into the viewers’ minds.

In conclusion, pornography can be accepted as a form of art if it does not infringe the viewers’ rights, but it is also the main cause behind rape cases and therefore not completely morally right.  

President’s Star Charity Show- is there a need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations?

President’s Star Charity Show- is there a need for artistes to perform stunts to milk the public’s compassion for more generous donations?

Over the past few years, we have seen numerous charity shows which are able to raise millions of dollars for all kinds of organisations which range from hospitals to cancer foundations to homes for the disabled and retarded. It is therefore unanimous in public view that charity shows are a great help to those who are unfortunate and not as well-off as most of us are. However, recently, a debate has been raging over whether charity shows need to have famous artistes from Mediacorp and even overseas perform dangerous stunts to milk the public’s compassion, so as to get more donations.

On one hand, there are members of the public who believe that compassion comes from within our hearts. They argue that performances by celebrities and dangerous stunts which show that artistes are risking their life to appeal for donations are redundant and do not serve the purpose and mission of the President’s Star Charity Show. I feel that even if there is no show whatsoever, people who are willing to donate will donate. These kind Samaritans do not need a reminder in the form of a charity show to donate as they have the correct mindset in their hearts, which is the fact that they are donating because they wish to support the less fortunate, rather than donating because they are touched that celebs are performing stunts that risk their own lives for helping the less fortunate. I feel that the charity shows have misguided us in our aims, because we are now donating more because the songs are nice, not because we are more compassionate. This can be seen in many reports that list the most popular song, dance, or performance items in terms of the number of donation calls that came in during the performance.

However, some people believe that artistes do indeed need to perform to increase the overall effectiveness of the charity show. We cannot deny that performances like songs and dances and amazing stunts do attract and increase the number of people watching and therefore donations, they also encourage the captivated audience to donate for simply because of the fact that they are putting so much hard work into pulling off a stunt which looks as if it could cost their lives. By seeing that even famous people are giving their all for a charity, it silently inspires the audience to call in and donate more. However, I realise that instead of celebs dancing around on poles, a more effective way would be to play more clips about the beneficiaries as well as the challenges the less fortunate are facing, so as to appeal to the audiences’ emotions to achieve more generous donations. I remember on a charity show some years back, I was really and only touched by the story of this teenage boy who had a rare disease of which his bones would shatter every time he sneezed. Therefore, I think that celebs performing on charity shows are redundant and not very effective.

In conclusion, the aims of a charity show should be to touch the audience emotionally and appeal to them for donations, and I do not see how artistes performing stunts would help to achieve that. That being said, this is only my personal opinion, so I am open to criticism and comments. 

Regulation of political commentary on the Internet in SG

Regulation of political commentary on the Internet in Singapore

Over the past few months, there has been a debate over one of Singapore’s most sensitive and controversial topics – whether online commentaries about politics should be banned. As we all know, politics in Singapore are often mentioned in hand with its restrictions due to sensitivity about the issue.  However, over the Net, we can still find many satirical websites that provoke and mock the government such as talkingcock.com and Mr Brown’s blog. These websites feature various articles that can be viewed as having a joke about Singapore’s current affairs and they often make fun of local issues that are usually political.

With new regulations, political podcasts, which are part of political commentaries that make use of the streaming of videos for entertainment or advertising, are now banned during election periods. On top of that, individual bloggers that post political commentaries will now have to register with the Media Development Agency if they are to continue their blogging about politically biased views. Also, they are banned from advertising anything to do with politics and political parties during the elections. During non-election periods, they can continue to post but bloggers who step over the line of political harmfulness will be given a warning and subsequently a serious fine or jail term.

The government has banned political podcasting during elections due to the fact that they are worried that these podcasts would potentially spell trouble for the election fairness. Their main concern is that bloggers use their anonymity on the Internet to amass huge crowds of people to be politically biased. Therefore, the ban is there to make sure that there are no political podcasts and advertisements during the election period to act as propaganda and that bloggers who hide behind the veil of the Internet cannot use similar tools to manipulate the opinions of a large amount of people to be politically biased.

In my opinion, the ban is justified. Since Singapore is not North Korea, our government must allow us some freedom of speech. The definition of that is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation. So, the government, over the past few years, has aimed to give us an increased bubble size in which we can freely comment and even mock the way the government is handling issues. However, what I feel is that this ban is put in place just to ensure that we Singaporeans do not go over the board and step over a boundary into territory that can be potentially dangerous for the fairness, governance, and ultimately safety for the country. Furthermore, the ban on political podcasts only come in during the elections as the major concern of the government here is that these podcasts will affect public opinion and therefore affect the total fairness and authenticity of the election and the election results. In view of this fact, I feel that the government is doing this not because they are afraid that political podcasts might smear their reputation, but rather because of the benefit of the whole country. Therefore, I feel that this ban is reasonably justified and while bloggers will be disappointed, they should not be too upset due to the reasonably loose restrictions of this ban.

Next, the main reason why this ban was enforced is because the Internet has become a frequent source of abuse and attack. This is mainly due to the fact that when someone goes onto the Internet, his or her identity is anonymous as long as he or she does not want to reveal it. Furthermore, even if the individual does want to reveal his or her identity, it might not even be real. These are why the government has enforced bans in the cyber-technological area, since every person has as much chance as being Osama bin Laden as the next. To ensure the safety of our country, the ban is a must to deter anonymous bloggers to continue to post comments harmful to the cohesiveness between government and people, which is why they must now register with the Media Development Agency if they want to post anything like that.

All in all, this ban ultimately protects the justice and fairness of our country and I do not see how it is harmful to our lives, apart from the fact that just a little bit of daily entertainment is taken away.

Hi all, 

This is an English blog strictly for English only. 

Feel free to comment. =D

Kerry