Salt * Wet * Fish

Recently a small article appeared in the Straits Times in which SCV was fined by the MDA for airing lesbian acts on TV. My friend Eileena wrote a letter to ST forum today. I hope it gets printed.

MDA’s statement misleading and insensitive

I refer to media reports on Starhub Cable Vision being fined by the Media Development Authority (MDA) for showing footage of lesbian sex and bondage on Zone Reality Channel’s reality series Cheaters.

I take issue with the callous and misleading language used by the Media Development Authority, an act which would perpetuate discrimination against lesbians, who are already marginalised in Singapore.

This is what the MDA wrote in its press release on the 23rd of October about the programme:

“It contained footages of a woman engaging in lesbian sex acts with another woman. While pixilation was used during the sex scenes, it was still obvious to viewers that the women were naked and engaging in unnatural sex acts. The programme also showed the woman tied to a bed in a bondage session with two other women. The visuals were deemed to be sexually suggestive and offensive to good taste and decency.

The programme also promotes lesbianism as a lifestyle, which breaches the Programme Code. The woman manages to get her boyfriend to accept her lifestyle and to invite other people to engage in threesomes with them.”

I do not condone or condemn the programme in question. But I am appalled by the way the MDA sinisterly equates a “lesbian lifestyle” with having both men and women engaged in mixed-sex threesomes. It shows a complete lack of understanding on the sexual dynamics of certain heterosexual couples, some of whom identify as heterosexual - not homosexual - but choose to engage in this alternative sexual arrangement. More dangerously, it assumes that all lesbians engage in threesomes - with the opposite sex to boot - and this is part of their lifestyle. This presumption is particularly offensive because many lesbians - just like heterosexual couples - form long-term monogamous unions even though they are not allowed marry under the law.

Bondage is not part of this so-called “lesbian lifestyle”; it is merely a sexual preference that certain people choose to engage in. Someone reading certain local women’s magazines would be dazzled by the array of sex acts - including bondage acts - that their readers are being taught to perform on their male partners. Should we then, based on this, say that bondage is part of the heterosexual lifestyle too?

While the MDA is entitled to police what it deems to be sexually explicit programmes on TV, it owes Singaporeans far greater sensitivity in its use of the language. An inclusive Singapore is a Singapore that is aware of, and sensitive to the needs of all its minorities. Many lesbian women in Singapore already have a tough time trying to undo years of damage brought on by a society that constantly told them it was wrong to love another woman. It would be a great shame if the Government perpetuates such homophobia by misrepresenting the lifestyles of this sexual minority.

Ms. Eileena Lee Wann Yuen

This is the original article in Straits Times

24 Oct 2006

SCV fined $10,000 for airing lesbian acts by Lee Sze Yong

STARHUB Cable Vision (SCV) has been fined $10,000 for airing what the Media Development Authority (MDA) has said to be ‘footage of lesbian sex and bondage’.
In a statement uploaded yesterday on its website at www.mda.gov.sg, MDA said the cable TV broadcaster had breached the Subscription TV Programme Code by airing scenes of women having sex in an American reality TV show called Cheaters.

The show is still airing on Zone Reality Channel (Channel 83). The channel is produced by British company Zone Media.

The show exposes ordinary people who, their partners suspect, are having affairs.

MDA says SCV has breached the ‘guidelines which disallow the promotion, justification and glamorisation of lesbian lifestyles and their explicit depictions’.

In the episode aired between May 22 and 26, a woman was seen having sex with another woman. There was also a bondage session involving three women.

Although the scenes were pixelated, MDA found that it was obvious to viewers that the women were naked and engaging in unnatural sex acts.

It also considered the fact that the channel is in SCV’s Family Plus Tier, which is aimed at a general audience.

The Programme Advisory Committee for English TV and Radio Programmes was consulted and it agreed with MDA.

Although SCV had paid the fine, StarHub’s corporate communications manager Caitlin Fua told The Straits Times yesterday it is disappointed with MDA’s decision to impose the penalty.

She explained Cheaters has been aired in countries including China, India and Indonesia, ‘without any difficulty’. Besides, the episode in question was shown at midnight, past young viewers’ bedtime.

However, she said that SCV understands ‘the authority’s concern, and will continue to work closely with our content providers, to ensure that there is no repeat of this incident’.