Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned.

 

Singapore prides itself in being a very “conservative” place. We like to tell the world that our success is based on “Asian Values,” which means that we value the family as the building block of society and that we value the needs of society over the rights of the individual. Hence, the basis of our social policies is the fact that its usually good for the family or at least prevents harm to the idea of the family.

There is however, one area where “conservative” Singapore seems to be rather “open.” That is the area of sex, especially when it involves those who are well to do. We, have, for example a thriving sex industry. The official line is that when it comes to the lower end of the market, we need to give our foreign workers an outlet otherwise they’ll rape our women (read professional middle class Chinese) and at the higher end, we need to give our expatriate workers a chance to have fun so that they can do whatever they’re doing for Singapore.

As for the local Singaporean guy …. Well, let’s just say that things get particularly interesting, especially if you’re educated and a working professional. Voyeurism for example, seems to be a big thing among the guys at university, if one were to judge by the number of cases of guys getting caught peeping into the girl’s showers. Then there’s the inevitable story of a working professional getting involved in this or that sexual scandal.

The latest “sexual” story to hit Singapore’s press is the story of a doctor who sued a woman who accused him of sexual harassment for libel. Details of the story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/dr-julian-ong-awarded-costs-after-serene-tiongs-appeal-bid-falls-through; and

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/julian-ong-serene-tiong-defamed-doctor-judge-overturns-decision-13178276

This story has elements of a good drama. There is, for a start, money and brought two of our larger medical groups into the picture. Dr. Julian Ong is part of HC Specialist Limited, which is listed on the Catalyst Exchange and Ms. Serene Tiong is a business development manager of Thomson Medical Group.

Taken from ChannelNews Asia

Then there’s the twist in the personal relationships. Ms. Tiong sued Dr. Ong and a Dr. Chan for colluding to take advantage of vulnerable women patients and she claimed to be one of them. However, there is a twist, Ms. Tiong was Dr. Chan’s lover and sued at the point when she realized that she wasn’t in an exclusive relationship with him:

https://goodyfeed.com/man-sued-exclusive/

As was mentioned in the case, Ms. Tiong had never complained about being vulnerable and entered the relationship with Dr. Chan before she became his patient. If you take Ms. Tiong’s professional position into consideration, its hard to argue that Ms. Tiong was unable to give consent to any relationship with Dr. Chan. You can argue that Dr. Ong and Dr. Chan had discovered the truism of “hell hath no furry like a woman scorned.”

This aspect raises a question that should be asked – namely the question of whether sexual harassment laws have been weaponized. While I don’t disagree that laws against unwanted sexual harassment should exist, we also need to have some clarity of what defines unwanted sexual harassment. For example, can a man be sued for sexual harassment if he compliments a woman on the way she looks?

Sure, I know most women would argue that most cases the sexual harassment is real. I remember one of my part time waitresses complaining to me about a lewd remark that the main chef had made towards her. I tried to suggest that this was “boys crude humour,” but then she looked at me and said, “and how would you feel if someone asked your daughter if she preferred them circumcised,” I got the point and raised it with the restaurant owner during our nightly drinks session and the chef and the waitress ended up making peace.

However, I also had a waitress who knew how to utilize sexual harassment accusations. I first discovered it when she was asked to apologies to the Filipino colleague for throwing a tantrum in front of the customers. She refused based on the grounds that the Filipino was constantly eying her up and staring her at her breast. Within a week, the Filipino told me that there was a rumor going around that he was molesting her. The accusations were not true. This was a man I had worked with for five years and had never given the hint of being flirtatious. This was confirmed by Flesh Ball who had a stint washing cups in the Bistrot and by a friend of my kid (a friend whom my kid was quick to point out was far better looking than the waitress making the accusations). It was a struggle to make the restaurant owner understand that the Filipino guy was being shafted royally.

The same waitress then had another run in with a regular customer, and threatened him with sexual harassment accusations. As the Bistrot owner said “You know he’s touchy with the girls.” This was, once again not true, a fact that I confirmed with my daughter who was a witness to this man’s behaviour with the girls.

So, while I do agree that men do need to know their boundaries and that sexual harassment laws exists for a good reason, we also need to be very clear as to what constitutes sexual harassment and there needs to be a clear standard of what is proof. An amount of “innocent until proven guilty” need to apply to sexual harassment like it does to everything else and while one can argue reasonably that women don’t pull the trigger unless there’s a reason to, we cannot deny that sexual harassment accusations can be and have been weaponized against men, unfairly and with ill intent. 

Small and Hard Beats Big and Floppy

 What is the most important relationship in a man’s life? Some might say its with his mother and others might say its with his father. There are those who would say that most important relationship is with his wife and perhaps his kids. The truth of the matter is, the most relationship a man has is with his penis.

I’m not trying to be crude here. Men have a peculiar relationship with their private parts which women will never understand. To a woman, the vagina is that the physical part of the messy and sometimes painful thing that happens to them once a month. They generally don’t think much of the vagina unless it’s in the troughs of sexual ecstasy or childbirth. When you love a woman, you’re supposed to love all of her and not just her private parts.

Men, by comparison tend to view the penis as an extension of themselves. Think of the penis as “man’s best friend,” or his “little brother” that he has to look after. The penis plays a particularly important role in relationships. Think of the penis as a pet that he’s had for years. You’re expected to love that pet if its ever going to work out.

A man’s self-esteem is also heavily invested in his little brother. The most obvious evidence of this can be seen in the discussion of prick size. As was shown in the 2016 US Presidential election, if you want to really make the male of the species upset – all you have to do is to suggest that their wedding tackle is less than adequate.

Men are often blamed for using the little head to think. However, as Napoleon Hill alluded to best seller, “Think and Grow Rich,” its not necessarily a bad thing. The late Mr. Hill who had interviewed Andrew Carnegie, who was at the time one of main tycoons around, argued that a man’s sex drive provided him with the energy to go out and do the things that he needed to do. There is something to be said for this. If you look at successful men, you’ll notice that they’re usually in their late thirties to early forties when they’ve managed to focus their sexual energies on something other than getting laid and they’re still going as if they were in their twenties.

However, while thinking with your prick can be a good thing if it drives you to get things done, there is a point of overdoing it. My first experience of too much “Prick Think” was back in National Service (for me, it was December 1994 to June 1997) when my artillery batch became the first batch to use the FH 2000, which at the time was the most advanced weapon system available.

What made the FH2000 so special was the fact that it was “The First Ever 52 Caliber 155mm Gun Howitzer” anywhere in the world. It was a good headline that turned on the bureaucrats in the ministry of defense and in our local arms industry (I’m speaking as someone who had to stress that our gun howitzers were “designed and made LOCALLY.”)

There was only one snag with the FH2000. Prick Think was aimed at creating headlines designed to turn on bureaucrats in their airconditioned offices. We, the guys using the gun didn’t quite see it that way. One of the most memorable ones was the fact that you needed a degree to shut the breach after the rounds and charges were loaded – apparently that was an improvement on the gun’s predecessor, the FH88, where the breach slammed shut with a pull of a single leaver. I’m glad to say that this issue was resolved closer to the end of my national service period (nearly a year after the fact)

To be fair to Singapore’s Ministry of Defense, it is not the only organization to be flooded with Prick Think.

I think of the time when someone in our Civil Aviation Authority got turned on by the idea of holding a competition to come up with a name for the budget terminal. Millions were spent holding a competition and, in the end, the grand winner was “The budget terminal.”     

More recently there was the example of how we were being lauded as the example of how to manage the coronavirus. We had seemingly contained the virus without shutting down the economy. It played out in the headlines of the international press. The politicians and bureaucrats got turned on and amidst all the excitement of being lauded as a role model, everybody forgot about our migrant workers and the conditions they were living in. Overnight, daily cases which were being counted in their tens, ended up being counted in the hundreds.

To be fair to bureaucrats, prick think is not limited to government departments. When you’re in the insolvency business, you often run into companies that went under because the CEO got afflicted with Prick Think. – You’d be talking about the leaders who got expansion happy by leveraging their businesses beyond swimming point and would only talk about how big and clever they were but somehow neglected to look at basics like whether they could meet the rent or salaries or post letters in a timely fashion without going into cardiac arrest.

Thinking with your prick isn’t a bad thing if it drives you to get things done. However, as the old adage about penises goes “better to be small and hard than big and floppy.” Size, while impressive isn’t everything. You need to get the basics right. If you can’t get the basics right, what’s the point in being the biggest guy in the room. If you’re small and can get it up, you get laid. If you’re so obsessed with size and preening but you forget the basics, well end up setting yourself up for a nasty fall.  

Bring Back Common Sense!

There is an old adage that runs along the lines of “Sex Sells.” This has proved to be exceedingly accurate during the past week when the topic of budget hotels and prostitution was a hot topic in the media. Mention sex or any topic related to sex and you are bound to get an animated discussion.

While topics around sex are very interesting, one topic seems to have escaped the media spotlight and there have been no discussions on the topic for the last three years. This is a pity because attitudes towards the laws on sex provide us with an insight into our society.

Our social and legal views on prostitution are interesting. It is legally acceptable for a woman to work as a prostitute and for a man to visit one. It is illegal to be a pimp and for prostitutes to solicit customers. Social attitudes are also similar. Few if any will openly defend prostitution and most if not all are horrified at the idea of prostitution in their neighbourhoods. However, there is a mild social tolerance for prostitution, best summed up by the phrase, “wink-wink-nudge-nudge, boys will be boys.”

Unfortunately, this attitude live-and-let-live doesn’t carry into other areas of sexual behaviour. Take the issue of homosexual acts. In Singapore it is illegal for two consenting adult men to engage in a private act in the privacy of their own bedroom and when the government tried to review this in 2007, there was a huge outcry from a large enough segment of the population for the government to continue outlawing a private act between two consenting adults in the privacy of their bedroom, though the government promised not to enforce the law.

By contrast, there has been a deafening silence on the issue of marital rape. There has been little if any media attention to the issue and the religious groups that were so adamant about the moral corruption of legalising a private act amongst consenting adults are noticeably silent when it comes to an act of coercion. Just as it is illegal for two consenting homosexual adults to engage in a private act, it is legal for a man to force his wife into having sex, regardless of whether she gives her consent.

So, when is rape, something which most understand to be an act of violence against women, not rape? As far as places like Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Singapore are concerned; the answer is when the attacker is the woman’s husband. This is convenient for those compiling rape statistics. Statistics have shown that rape is usually done by someone close to the victim like a family member or a friend. So, given that most perpetrators are likely to be known to the victim, granting immunity from marital rape makes sense – it reduces rape statistics because a certain portion of rapes are technically not rape. Once again, the “conservative” lobby that fought so hard to keep a private act between consenting adult illegal don’t seem to have a problem with rape, provided a man does it to his lawfully wedded wife. The government that has done so much to enhance the standing of women with the “Women’s Charter,” doesn’t seem terribly bothered that marriage grants men the right to rape them.

Isn’t it time we look at our laws and attitudes towards sex and start to apply the common sense that we are claim to have in abundance. Let’s have laws that actually protect people instead of providing cheap demagogues with a platform.