Let's talk about sex, baby....
Not of course that I am getting any- there's a dusty old memory from the past.
However it strikes me that travelling from Singapore to Malaysia one of the topics that seems to be now more open in the public sphere and certainly in the media is a new openness on the topic of sex.
I was out walking through a market in Singapore and came across a sex boutique- not something I had seen there before- and then on both radio and TV sex is being talked about in the senses of infidelity and couples working together to find satisfaction- to the point that the censoring body is also being criticised for not closing down some of these discussions.And of course everywhere are the sexuallised images of advertising assaulting the senses.
Perhaps all of this leads to an inevitable discussion in society and that this openness can then transfer to the political sphere. I can see that this seems to be happening in Malaysia where there is a call for greater tranaparency and inclusion- time will tell whether this freedom can extend to all citizens equally.
One of the lovely off shoots of all this is that Malaysia is becoming a mature media society with both the positive and negative aspects beginning to show- Project Runway Malaysia, Amazing Race Asia et al. But in the midst of this a surprising amount of local content on TV ( most of which I am reluctant to comment on since I do not know the language or the culture that spawns it) comes a drama called "Realiti" which was, from the one episode I caught,very good as it follows the drama surrounding a kind of Malaysian Idol programme and exposes some of the stuff that reality TV manages to edit out.
I can't wait to travel on and see how other cultures are both individually and collectively dealingh with an increasinglyt small world where our commonalities far out weigh our differences.
However it strikes me that travelling from Singapore to Malaysia one of the topics that seems to be now more open in the public sphere and certainly in the media is a new openness on the topic of sex.
I was out walking through a market in Singapore and came across a sex boutique- not something I had seen there before- and then on both radio and TV sex is being talked about in the senses of infidelity and couples working together to find satisfaction- to the point that the censoring body is also being criticised for not closing down some of these discussions.And of course everywhere are the sexuallised images of advertising assaulting the senses.
Perhaps all of this leads to an inevitable discussion in society and that this openness can then transfer to the political sphere. I can see that this seems to be happening in Malaysia where there is a call for greater tranaparency and inclusion- time will tell whether this freedom can extend to all citizens equally.
One of the lovely off shoots of all this is that Malaysia is becoming a mature media society with both the positive and negative aspects beginning to show- Project Runway Malaysia, Amazing Race Asia et al. But in the midst of this a surprising amount of local content on TV ( most of which I am reluctant to comment on since I do not know the language or the culture that spawns it) comes a drama called "Realiti" which was, from the one episode I caught,very good as it follows the drama surrounding a kind of Malaysian Idol programme and exposes some of the stuff that reality TV manages to edit out.
I can't wait to travel on and see how other cultures are both individually and collectively dealingh with an increasinglyt small world where our commonalities far out weigh our differences.
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