Deviant
Deviant
Posted 00:18am (Mla time) Mar 16, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 16, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE FIVE anti-smut bills in the House of Representatives have their counterparts in four anti-smut bills in the Senate. These are Sen. Sergio Osmeña's SB 480, Sen. Manuel Villar's SB 753, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada's SB 877, and Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr.'s SB 1186. They variously call for the prohibition of the publication, sale, distribution, demonstration, performance, exhibition of lewd, indecent and pornographic materials and acts.
I've said my piece on the dangers of these bills, posing as they do a threat to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and democracy in general. I need not repeat it. It needs only be said that its premise is prior restraint, a most frightening idea, putting as it does the burden of proof on creators to prove their creations are not smutty rather than on their detractors to prove they are. They invert the natural order of things in a democracy. Its equivalent is presuming a suspect guilty unless he can be proven innocent. That is an engraved invitation to tyranny.
I skimmed through the Senate bills, and when I got to the part about what constitutes pornography, I had the impression, as with the House bills, that their authors had much, well, fun "researching" it. Osmeña's bill has five whole sections on it. They include: "masturbation, oral and anal sex, autoeroticism, excretion such as urination and edema materials; sadomasochistic sex, bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, bondage and sex with sacrilege, sex acts between and among children"; “nudity of the human body and its various parts such as male and female genitals, pubic region, buttocks, female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola, male genitals in a discernibly turgid state," etc. etc.
At least it has a nice turn of phrase, "male genitals in a discernibly turgid state." Though one must ask what a "discernibly turgid state" is. Is it a rod stuck out at a 45-degree angle, or more (super turgid?), or less (semi-turgid?)? I am reminded again of DiCaprio/Hughes in "The Aviator" demonstrating before the American Film Association Censorship Board with the aid of a mathematician that Jane Russell's breasts are no more prominent or shockingly exposed than those of other actresses that have appeared in movies the board approved. We are reduced to the same primitive state.
The others are more of the same. I was particularly amused by Jinggoy's bill, which has a special section on "sexually deviant acts," which include: "1. buggery: sodomy, bestiality, pederastia, 2: algolagnia: sadism or active algolagnia, masochism or passive algolagnia, 3. necrophilism, 4. fellatio or irrumation, 5. cunnilingus, 6. anilungus, 7. urolagnia, 8. coprophilia, 9. masturbation.” I really must borrow his XXX tapes! Or pirated XXX DVDS!
But you get an idea of where this is going when masturbation and oral sex get to be qualified as sexually deviant acts. And pity their spouses.
The reference to X material isn't completely a joke. That is where you will find most of these things. They are never, or almost never, depicted in movies for general distribution. The only aboveground movie where I've seen all of the above under Jinggoy's classification of "sexually deviant acts" is Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses." It was shown in the Manila International Film Festival way back in the early 1980s, which caused a stir not just because of its seemingly pornographic elements but because it ran counter to the sexual prudishness of the martial law regime (I tell you those things are allied, prudishness and tyranny) -- and Imelda was the patron of the MIFF. I remember that the "FF" in "MIFF" took on new meanings. For those born yesterday, "FF" means "fighting fish," the old term for hardcore material.
"In the Realm of the Senses" is now considered a classic. The 4th Edition of Film Guide says: "The film celebrates their [a couple in pre-war militarist Japan] passion, steadfastly confronting even its most alarming implications. But it's also the most involving [and therefore disturbing] film about voyeurism since 'Rear Window.' As ever, Mishima broaches taboos not in a spirit of adolescent daring, but in the knowledge that the most deep-rooted taboos are personal, not social."
But otherwise, as I said, you will find the acts described by Jinggoy as deviant only in movies that are not shown in movie houses. Not even in the province, home to "insertions" -- not unlike the "insertions" Malacañang and Congress like to make on the budget, which are more obscene. You will find them only in material that lies in the furtive corners of Quiapo, Greenhills, Marikina Riverside, and Makati Square. Normally with someone even more furtively proclaiming its existence and offering to lead you through a maze to a secret lair.
Which is where the authors of these bills probably got their, well, research materials. Which they have kept and added to a growing library, classified alphabetically or by porn star, in aid of legislation.
Frankly, I don't know why Congress is wasting our money on these things. "Bomba," "bold," "ST," "pene" movies or photos -- call them what you will, they've been with us for a long time and will be with us for a long time. They have a way of surging and ebbing naturally like the tides. Not quite incidentally, I don't know where the legislators got this idea that the sight of "nude or scantily-dressed photographs of a woman or man," as Magsaysay's bill puts it, induces rape, as some of the bills suggest. I have yet to know of a scientific study that showed this. It's mere speculation. I can argue just as speculatively, though probably more convincingly, that masturbation lessens rape and other sex crimes.
I'd be more scared of those who don't. They are more likely to be, well, deviant.
Posted 00:18am (Mla time) Mar 16, 2005
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 16, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE FIVE anti-smut bills in the House of Representatives have their counterparts in four anti-smut bills in the Senate. These are Sen. Sergio Osmeña's SB 480, Sen. Manuel Villar's SB 753, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada's SB 877, and Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr.'s SB 1186. They variously call for the prohibition of the publication, sale, distribution, demonstration, performance, exhibition of lewd, indecent and pornographic materials and acts.
I've said my piece on the dangers of these bills, posing as they do a threat to freedom of expression, freedom of the press and democracy in general. I need not repeat it. It needs only be said that its premise is prior restraint, a most frightening idea, putting as it does the burden of proof on creators to prove their creations are not smutty rather than on their detractors to prove they are. They invert the natural order of things in a democracy. Its equivalent is presuming a suspect guilty unless he can be proven innocent. That is an engraved invitation to tyranny.
I skimmed through the Senate bills, and when I got to the part about what constitutes pornography, I had the impression, as with the House bills, that their authors had much, well, fun "researching" it. Osmeña's bill has five whole sections on it. They include: "masturbation, oral and anal sex, autoeroticism, excretion such as urination and edema materials; sadomasochistic sex, bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia, bondage and sex with sacrilege, sex acts between and among children"; “nudity of the human body and its various parts such as male and female genitals, pubic region, buttocks, female breast below a point immediately above the top of the areola, male genitals in a discernibly turgid state," etc. etc.
At least it has a nice turn of phrase, "male genitals in a discernibly turgid state." Though one must ask what a "discernibly turgid state" is. Is it a rod stuck out at a 45-degree angle, or more (super turgid?), or less (semi-turgid?)? I am reminded again of DiCaprio/Hughes in "The Aviator" demonstrating before the American Film Association Censorship Board with the aid of a mathematician that Jane Russell's breasts are no more prominent or shockingly exposed than those of other actresses that have appeared in movies the board approved. We are reduced to the same primitive state.
The others are more of the same. I was particularly amused by Jinggoy's bill, which has a special section on "sexually deviant acts," which include: "1. buggery: sodomy, bestiality, pederastia, 2: algolagnia: sadism or active algolagnia, masochism or passive algolagnia, 3. necrophilism, 4. fellatio or irrumation, 5. cunnilingus, 6. anilungus, 7. urolagnia, 8. coprophilia, 9. masturbation.” I really must borrow his XXX tapes! Or pirated XXX DVDS!
But you get an idea of where this is going when masturbation and oral sex get to be qualified as sexually deviant acts. And pity their spouses.
The reference to X material isn't completely a joke. That is where you will find most of these things. They are never, or almost never, depicted in movies for general distribution. The only aboveground movie where I've seen all of the above under Jinggoy's classification of "sexually deviant acts" is Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses." It was shown in the Manila International Film Festival way back in the early 1980s, which caused a stir not just because of its seemingly pornographic elements but because it ran counter to the sexual prudishness of the martial law regime (I tell you those things are allied, prudishness and tyranny) -- and Imelda was the patron of the MIFF. I remember that the "FF" in "MIFF" took on new meanings. For those born yesterday, "FF" means "fighting fish," the old term for hardcore material.
"In the Realm of the Senses" is now considered a classic. The 4th Edition of Film Guide says: "The film celebrates their [a couple in pre-war militarist Japan] passion, steadfastly confronting even its most alarming implications. But it's also the most involving [and therefore disturbing] film about voyeurism since 'Rear Window.' As ever, Mishima broaches taboos not in a spirit of adolescent daring, but in the knowledge that the most deep-rooted taboos are personal, not social."
But otherwise, as I said, you will find the acts described by Jinggoy as deviant only in movies that are not shown in movie houses. Not even in the province, home to "insertions" -- not unlike the "insertions" Malacañang and Congress like to make on the budget, which are more obscene. You will find them only in material that lies in the furtive corners of Quiapo, Greenhills, Marikina Riverside, and Makati Square. Normally with someone even more furtively proclaiming its existence and offering to lead you through a maze to a secret lair.
Which is where the authors of these bills probably got their, well, research materials. Which they have kept and added to a growing library, classified alphabetically or by porn star, in aid of legislation.
Frankly, I don't know why Congress is wasting our money on these things. "Bomba," "bold," "ST," "pene" movies or photos -- call them what you will, they've been with us for a long time and will be with us for a long time. They have a way of surging and ebbing naturally like the tides. Not quite incidentally, I don't know where the legislators got this idea that the sight of "nude or scantily-dressed photographs of a woman or man," as Magsaysay's bill puts it, induces rape, as some of the bills suggest. I have yet to know of a scientific study that showed this. It's mere speculation. I can argue just as speculatively, though probably more convincingly, that masturbation lessens rape and other sex crimes.
I'd be more scared of those who don't. They are more likely to be, well, deviant.
posted by Dante at 12:18 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home