SINGAPORE: RM is a young, 23-year-old aspiring journalist. She is based in Singapore and works at a leading daily newspaper in Southeast Asia. Earlier this month, she was sent three assignments that have her thinking twice about working for local publications. “They asked me to go and interview college students and ask them about their sex life, the number of partners and what they enjoyed,” she told Bikyamasr.com. For her, that would be okay, but she was hired as a political news reporter and thought she was being “used” to cover stories that had “no legitimate political bearing.” “It isn't really even news, but I have learned, since moving here from London, that newspapers want as much sex and scandal about women as they can find. I guess talking sex with university students was part of their mission,” she said. But when she refused to do the assignment, she was warned by her editors that this “was the story and it was important for the readers to learn about the sex lives of college girls.” A look at a number of Southeast Asian news websites paints a picture to what RM is talking about. Websites such as AsiaOne.com, The New Paper and others, in the past month, had reported on over 50 “news” stories talking about women and their sexual liaisons. The most recent, about an Indonesian undergraduate student who was “pleased” to be the mistress of a Singapore man, hit hard for RM. “I am getting frustrated with all this women and sex stuff. There is a place to discuss sex in a society and its role. That is news, but look at the websites and search for men and their sexual desires and actions. It doesn't exist,” she argued. And she's right. AsiaOne.com recently ran a series of articles on sex addiction that sparked massive interest. Only one of the articles was about a man. The others were about women and their escapades in hotel rooms and an assortment of other “addiction” related practices. For women's rights advocates, bloggers and women in general, they are becoming increasing frustrated with the overall perception that women have in the media in the region. The sex addiction series hit close to home for many women, especially young university students. They told Bikyamasr.com that the series failed to look closely at the idea that “sex addiction” was even a real medical condition. A few blocks from Singapore's business center, Yang Fuek sits in his office, listening to a patient discuss her struggle with depression. He waits patiently as she details how she feels down, not wanting to go to work, meet people and friends, and how “all I want to do is sleep." Yang then talks about the future, goals and how to move forward with the young woman's life. He tells her that “depression is normal. We all struggle with the ups and downs of life." For him, a psychiatrist of 17 years, “depression is one of the most common problems facing Singaporeans." But what about sex addiction? “Sure, I get a few people who come in and complain that they want to have sex all the time and that this is ruining their life," he told Bikyamasr.com, “but the reality is that for the vast majority of these people who claim sex addiction is that they are really depressed, or simply unhappy in their current relationship. They are not getting the sexual response they want from their partner, so they search elsewhere." When shown the numerous reports in AsiaOne.com on Tuesday, Yang laughed them off as an “attempt to create an issue where one does not exist." He pointed to the cases reported, arguing that they are simply “men and women who want an excuse to sleep with others. That's fine, but making it a medical problem is just not the case. In the majority of the medical world, and in psychology in particular, we understand that humans are sexual beings, but we live in societies and restraint is needed." For him, and others in his profession, he said that using sex as a medical excuse for abusive behavior is nothing new, but should be examined closer. “Sex addiction is a relatively new concept. Media is pushing it more and more these days, but most of the time, if not all the time, there are other, more important factors that go into this behavior," he argued. Ask Marlon Thomas, a British expatriate living in Singapore who is now recently divorced because his wife had had numerous affairs. “She said she was the victim of sex addiction, but now that she is again happily married, she told me recently that she doesn't go looking for new partners," he admitted. “For me, it was just that we fell out of love and were no longer having sex, so she went elsewhere. It wasn't an addiction, it was unhappiness and a desire to be fulfilled. I understand it and am not angry anymore," he told Bikyamasr.com. The AsiaOne.com reports go into detail about how the “affliction" affects people, putting them in precarious positions and affecting their family life and their work. But Yang, and other psychiatrists Bikyamasr.com spoke to, argued that sex addiction is a “creation of the media in order to sell and get readers. We believe there are numerous other factors that go into sexual desires and a need to go outside someone's current situation. So we must be weary of the reporting on this ‘disease' if we as a society want to understand sex." For RM, there is nothing wrong with reporting and writing about sex, or even sex addiction, but she believes her editors and others in positions that control news content, “have a desire to see women with their clothes off. “How many stories are on these sites about women in positions of power doing something that isn't related to their bodies? Not as many as there should be,” she argued. As she continues to throw story ideas to her editors, they continue to push her to “investigate” leads on politicians and sex scandals. “I'm tired. My friends are tired. We are women and we should not be pushing this agenda that sees women as news only when they are getting undressed or having sex. That's just poor reporting,” she argued.
