In Continuum.

During the first lesson of my Political Communication class, my lecturer asked us about the current issues that are relevant to the people in Singapore right now. He's from the United States, so naturally he isn't familiar with the political atmosphere around here. One of the issues that I raised in class was homosexuality, or rather the sex education issue that the government is trying to deal with right now. To be honest, I caught on to the whole AWARE debate a little late, and was pretty much lost most of the time. I've seen news footage of women screaming at each other over, well, something, and that was the extent of my knowledge for the most part. With that said, I know one of the hotly debated topic was the view of homosexuality in the Singapore education system. I think the issue has got something to do with how homosexuality has been portrayed in sex education programs in schools, and how they have been depicted as being "neutral" instead of anything else. A lot of parents are not very happy with this depiction, saying that it'd influence their children to think that being a homosexual is OK, since the school says that it is "neutral".

In truth, I really don't get the whole issue with homosexuals though. In a country such as Singapore, homosexuality isn't exactly something that is embraced by everybody. Like, they'd like to think that they are accommodating of homosexuality, but it is still pretty much a deviance here from the norm, more than anything else. Of course, you can't exactly get arrested for it, but it's not like you are seen as being in a legitimate relationship. It's not an unique case in Singapore of course, because a lot of countries in the world are battling such an issue all the time. To legalize gay marriage or not, that has always been the debate. At the forefront of this debate are the religious extremists, some of them claiming that God hates homosexuals, and they will burn in Hell for who they are and what they represent. To them, family comes first, and homosexuality kinda goes against the whole concept of family. True, but then I highly doubt they'd burn in Hell just because they love someone of the same sex. I truly believe that if they could conceive a child, they probably would - and make better parents than a lot the so-called "normal" parents out there. I don't understand this whole debate in the local context either, because homosexuality really is nothing new, you know.

The parents are afraid that by labeling homosexuality as being "neutral", their children are going to see it as being a warrant to themselves in such a deviant act. But homosexuality has been in existence - well-documented at that - even longer than sex education. Before there were schools with sex education implemented, homosexuals have walked the earth happily and without fear. Anybody who has studied a little bit about history would know that homosexuality was not exactly uncommon in anicient Greece and Rome. It happened all the way back then when sex education wasn't something that they thought very much about. There is still that whole debate whether or not there is a gay gene, that people are just born to be homosexuals because of something inside of them. It's funny to hear religious fundamentalists argue about homosexuals sometimes, if you really give it a listen. They'd claim that there is no such thing as a gay gene, and yet they believe that the homosexuals don't have a choice - yeah, because they were BORN with it. Whether or not it is nature or nurture, that'd be another blog entry altogether. But let's just tackle what we have as of now.

I know a couple of homosexuals in my life, and I think most of them - in fact all of them - are great people. There isn't anything fundamentally different about them from all the other friends that I have. The only difference is that they like members of their own sex and I like members of a different sex, as simple as that. Other than that minor difference, we hang out and we talk just like how one human being would to another. In fact, if I was not told about their sexual orientation, I would have never known about it at all. I don't understand why parents are unhappy about the labeling of homosexuality as "neutral", though. Clearly, these parents want it to be seen as something negative, they want it to be seen as being wrong. I mean, how else would they rather have the sex education system portray the homosexuals as, if they are protesting the word "neutral"? The truth is, there is nothing wrong about homosexuality, and you cannot draw a clear line as to whether it is right or wrong. It isn't really a black and white issue, though to me it is. In a society whereby it is safer to be politically correct, I don't see why the word "neutral" is misused here at all.

It's difficult to see their point of view, from my point of view. Like, how do you say loving someone of the same sex is wrong when you cannot quantify or qualify something as abstract as love in the first place. Taking away the fact that they love someone of the same sex, the love that they devote and commit are, I dare say, no different from the kind that we'd give to someone of a different sex. In their case, we've switched the gender around a little bit, but everything else pretty much remains the same. OK, so they have sex a little bit different from all of us, but that pretty much goes on in places where we cannot see, and it's not like normal couples are allowed to have sex in public anyway - so what is the problem? I don't think the issue of homosexuality is ever going to die down, because there are always going to be homosexuals in our society. I feel that they're either born like that, or something happens in their lives that'd cause them to switch paths. I don't understand how such a personal choice could be debated, and that people would want to interfere with a personal choice such as sexual orientation. There are a lot of ways when it comes to defiance, and turning gay really does seem to be the least possible one of all.

The government is considering to remove the current sex education scheme for a while and see how things go. But seriously, I don't think it is going to make much of a difference for the most part. If you have studied media effects like I have, you'd probably know the fact that more than half of the people learn about sex from their peers. That is to say, all the stuff about how mankind reproduces and about contraceptives, people learn all those things from each other. I learned it from my friends, and I also learned about homosexuals from my friends for the very first time. I remember going "you mean things can go up from there?" when I first heard about it, but the idea quickly settled in with me because, well, I don't know. I just knew that some people were born like that, and it wasn't a concept I was terribly uncomfortable with. Anyway, not many of us learn such things from sex education classes anyway, and it is not like those classes in Singapore are very explicit in their teaching, though practical. You'd probably learn about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, and that horrifying abortion video that a lot of us remember from our high school days. Either way, while those classes are definitely useful in teaching the students about how to put on a condom and stuff like that, they are not going to defer mankind's in-built curiosity in sex.

I think sex education can only go so far in educating the children about sex. You cannot dictate what they choose when it comes to their partners, you know. You can teach about the dangers of unprotected sex, or you could teach about what you could do in the case of unplanned pregnancies. You can teach a lot of useful things through these classes, but you cannot teach the students to love someone and how you should love someone. Homosexuality isn't something you can sweep under the rug through these classes because you don't decide to turn gay or not turn gay because of them. It is not something that is taught and can be taught, much like how it was never taught to us on how to be a boy or how to be a girl. Some may argue that it has been instilled upon us at birth, with the whole thing about blue blankets versus pink blankets, the toy trains and the soft toys. It can be argued that we were conditioned to be boys and girls, that beyond the physical differences, we are not dissimilar in many ways. However, if we were all conditioned the same way, then it should be expected that we should produce the same results, right? If that is the case, how do you explain the presence of homosexuals, though. The truth is, some of us are just different, born that way, and you cannot put a tag to it and say that it is right or it is wrong. It just is, that's all.

I've never went through any sex education classes from school, and I don't suppose generations older than mine would have gone through any really. I don't remember a box on our timetable that read "sex education". In fact, I think we even skipped the chapter on sex in the science textbook, when all it had were cross-sectional pictures of human genitals. Nothing was taught to me, and yet I know quite a bit about sex and sexuality (there is a difference). My parents weren't there to tell me the bird and the bees, and the school was not there to teach me about such things either. I just knew, from friends or from the society, and I read a lot about the topic. These are the kind of things that cannot be taught, but it certainly can be learned. Just because you decide to leave it out of a textbook doesn't mean that people are not going to learn about it sooner or later. It's kind of like a scandal about some politician in the country, and maybe you'd try to dumb it down in the media and try to distract the people from the issue. But somehow, people are going to learn about it one way or another, because that is the way it happens. Even if you decide to leave out the homosexuality chapter, there are still going to be same-sex students who'd camp out in a school stairwell and make-out.

I'm not discrediting sex education though, and personally I really wished that I have been given a chance to learn about it through the school. It is education, and it is no different from mathematics or geography in that regard. It is about teaching the students about facts, and sex education really is important when it comes to, say, contraception. It is important, because you'd be surprised at just how many people in our society are ignorant or misinformed about such a thing. For example, I've heard of a guy who had no clue on what a sanitary pad is for, and that he thought menstrual blood is blue because, well, they are always blue in those television advertisements. He used to think that sanitary pads are for "incubating the eggs", whatever that means. I'm not sure if such a thing in taught in sex education classes, but it just goes to show how stupid people are when it comes to knowledge like that. Sex education is important, and any common teenager should never be allowed to make reproductive decisions on their own, even if reproduction isn't exactly their goals. Yet, something like sexual orientation, I don't see how it applies to the bigger scheme of things at all. I feel like they should be separate entities, and there is one thing that the parents could do in regards to that - parent.

In fact, at the end of the day, that's really all you need to do. Sex education could happen anywhere, and it doesn't have to be in school. It didn't happen for me at home, and it didn't happen for me in school. It's not that I'd wish my parents to sit me down and talk about such things, which would be weird and really awkward. But it's just that if you truly want to, you probably could. If you feel strongly against what they are teaching in school, teach them yourself. Let the children make their own informed choices, if there is a choice at all. I don't suppose a parent's duty is to choose a path for their children, but to aid them towards the right one. It really doesn't matter if homosexuality is regarded as being a "neutral matter", because at the end of the day it is all about the wordplay. Saying that it is one way or the other is not going to make a difference, because there are always going to be homosexuals, whether you label it is wrong or not. So let's just accept that this is what is happening, and move on from there. Is it really that important, compared to the greater scheme of things?