The Rosmah Saga: Soap Opera, Crime Drama or Thriller Gone Horribly Wrong?

In America, the mass media is saturated with juicy and often lurid details of their celebrities behaving badly. The public is constantly fed with daily news of drug overdose, public drunkenness and all-round debauchery that characterize the wild and crazy lives of the Hollywood glitterati. In our sensible, conservative country, the artistes and celebrities that entertain us are generally decent and well behaved. Some, like Siti Nurhaliza, inevitably serve as role models with their modest behavior and strong work ethic. And so it was left to the politicians to fill the vacuum and take up the role as gossip fodder and scandal-makers to feed the gratuitous imagination of our country-folk. This they have accomplished with utmost diligence and supreme efficiency, sometimes even surpassing their official job as managers of this nation.

It was only a few years ago that Malaysians were shown a specimen of a semen-stained mattress purportedly belonging to a high-profile politician. For many of us who were growing up, that period served as a lesson on sexual education as we discovered for the very first time, that it was humanly possible to take it up the arse. We wondered again if the government was taking a more pro-active role in the sexual education of citizens when the recently-demoted Health Minister Chua Soi Lek himself took on a leading role in a sex video. Amidst the loud protests by professional porn stars who found themselves out of work, Malaysians can only sigh in despair upon realizing that our politicians not only get better pay, they also get more sex than the rest of us.

One prominent politician who has never really escaped the national gossip is the energetic Najib Razak. He has been linked to several women in the past, most notably the actress Ziana Zain and more recently, the murdered Mongolian Altantuya Shariibuu. We sincerely sympathize with the predicament that befalls Najib Razak for he has the misfortune of being tagged a philanderer without having the charm and charisma of a playboy.

The recent debacle over Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor’s alleged involvement in the murder of Altantuya is an embarrassment not only to them, but the integrity of the Malaysian government and its people. What is even more embarrassing is that Raja Petra Kamarudin’s statutory declaration, at least for many Malaysians, is actually not at all shocking. Rumor of the power couple’s involvement has been making the rounds ever since Abdul Razak Baginda was charged with abetment of the murder. The strong denials voiced by Rosmah and Najib, unfortunately, are not enough to allay suspicion by a wary and untrusting public, and hence we call for a full and thorough investigation on this explosive matter.

Malaysia A Haven For Low-Quality Porn

Malaysia has been criticised for having some of the lowest-quality porn after it was revealed the top selling X-rated DVD featured an ageing Health Minister and his “personal friend”. The video has been scathingly described by industry experts as “poorly performed”, “amateurish” and “low-resolution”. One prominent distributor has even labelled it as the anti-Viagra. It is obvious that when it comes to pornography, Malaysians have very poor taste and the industry is still relatively underdeveloped. But are we so desperate that we are willing to be sexually stimulated by sex visuals of 60 year old Chua Soi Lek screwing his friend? Have we run out of good looking, horny Malaysians who are immoral enough to star on a porn video? Surely we can do better.

One of the prevailing features of a First World country is a highly-developed adult entertainment industry. Germany is infamous for its kinky leather strap-on performers, while Sweden is world-renowned for its blonde suntanned bombshells. Even miniscule Singapore has a chunky slice of the global porno pie since Annabel Chong played a leading role in a group sex scene. And the best we can come up with is a decrepit Health Minister? What happened to Malaysia Boleh? If Malaysian politicians are serious about transforming this country into a proud industrialised nation, then they need to spend more time devising policies to improve the quality of our porn, instead of wasting taxpayer money starring in them.

Was The Health Minister’s Resignation Justified?

Earlier today Health Minister and MCA Vice President Chua Soi Lek resigned from his post after he was caught on tape having sex with another woman. His resignation wasn’t a surprise, and neither was his affair. Sad as it is, extra-marital affairs are quite common in this supposedly morally-righteous nation of ours, and politicians are not exempt; in fact they seem to lead the way.

However, is his infidelity a valid cause for resignation? We all agree that people’s personal affairs should be kept in the private domain, yet in this case Chua Soi Lek’s sexual escapades seem to have a bearing on his professional competence as Minister for Health. If he had had sex with a prostitute, and he ignored to use a condom, then it would’ve been understandable for him to resign. After all, we can’t have a Health Minister encouraging unsafe sex now, can we? But is he also obliged to act as a guardian of morality in his capacity as a politician?

In many societies the public has been able to accept that a politician’s sexual deviations, immoral as they may be, do not necessarily reflect their capability in the professional sphere. Bill Clinton may have received oral sex from his intern and lied about it, but he is widely regarded as one of the brightest American presidents, whose leadership continues to be highly sought after. Australian PM Kevin Rudd was enthusiastically elected into office despite being caught visiting a strip club; the Australian electorate understood that the most important criteria for a politician is professional ability, not the degree of fidelity.

In a country like Malaysia, where politicians are looked up as role models, it is understandable that the public feels let down when a politician is exposed as being less-than-perfect. But if this was America, and we had to choose between the born-again Christian, socially-conservative George W. Bush, and the blowjob-loving, alleged sex addict liberal Bill Clinton, we’d gladly choose the latter.

Pramugara Terlampau dan Pramugari Melampau

Beberapa tahun yang lalu, Malaysia digegarkan dengan kontroversi video lucah amatur yang dibintangi seorang pramugara Malaysia Airlines. Adegan-adegan bersifat seks sememangnya akan mendapat liputan luas di mana-mana negara, tetapi di Malaysia, sebuah masyarakat yang berpura-pura anti-maksiat tetapi sebenarnya ketagih dengan lucah, video itu menjadi topik perbualan hangat orang ramai.

Para makcik berdoa agar anak kesayangan mereka tidak terpesong ke jalan serong manakala budak-budak remaja yang berjerawat dan bernafsu tinggi berpusu-pusu membeli DVD video itu. Dalam pada masa yang sama, lelaki tua dan miang mengharap-harap agar pramugari Malaysia Airlines mencontohi teladan tidak senonoh rakan sejawat lelaki mereka itu. Dalam kontroversi ini, mangsa sebenar ialah anak kapal Syarikat Penerbangan Malaysia, yang rata-ratanya sopan, ramah dan kuat bekerja. Mereka bukan sahaja terpaksa menangggung malu melayan orang dalam pakaian seragam hijau-biru yang tidak menarik, tetapi disamakan pula dengan pelacur dan pelakon video lucah.

Baru-baru ini, media tabloid Australia dikejutkan dengan pendedahan seorang pramugari Qantas yang melakukan seks rambang dengan pelakon (agak) terkenal Ralph Fiennes di dalam tandas sewaktu penerbangan ke India. Ini menimbulkan banyak tanda tanya, antaranya bagaimana mereka boleh bersetubuh dalam tandas kapal terbang, yang terkenal dengan saiznya yang terlalu kecil sehinggakan nak buang air besar pun payah? Kontroversi hangat sebegini, ditambah pula dengan tarikan ‘mile-high club’, memberikan imej seksi kepada perjalanan kapal terbang, yang pada realitinya sempit, sesak dan membosankan. Mungkinkah ini satu konspirasi oleh syarikat penerbangan untuk memberikan ilusi glamor untuk menarik lebih ramai pelanggan?

Porn Gets Complicated

Not too long ago there was talk of placing restrictions on access to pornography in Malaysia. Internet users, many of them unmarried males aged between 18-29, were incensed and protested against what they saw as the state intruding yet again into the lives of the private citizen. This of course was not at all compounded by the realisation that from here on, masturbation would be less enjoyable and ejaculation will be just that much harder to achieve.

Like its consumers, porn itself has become a lot more diverse and complicated, which makes for a completely messy world wide web of tangled semen. Gone are the days when the most compelling script involved a pizza guy and two voraciously horny American vixens. If before viewers were content with fellatio, group orgy and the traditional missionary position, purveyors of porn are now spoilt for choice between – for better or worse – analingus, golden showers, highly acrobatic auto-fellatio, double penetration and a plethora of positions once only available in the steamy pages of the Kamasutra.

The mainstream movie American Pie achieved a milestone with the sexualisation of food. From now on, a banana and rambutan are not only good for you, they’re good for her, too. Just like tennis, there’s amateur and professional pornography. And like the game, bouncing balls and grunting Russian women make for an entertaining combination. For the cheap surfer who is too poor to own a credit card, amateur websites allow for users to exhibit themselves, among themselves, in an ultimate – and literal – tit for tat favour.

The widening acceptance of porn has allowed it to penetrate into the world of pop culture and vice versa, led by porn star Jenna Jameson’s debut into the mainstream and Paris Hilton’s Video Of The Year to counter the one-way intrusion. The globalisation of smut has meant the face of pornography is no longer the classically blonde, big busted bomshell from Sweden who goes by the name of Anna. Japanese hentai, exotic ebony and the legendary Arab stud (for the women, who form just about half of the global porn audience) compete with each other for the absolute attention of sexually stimulated voyeurs.

In our sexually-charged world, life imitates art, and art seems to imitate porn, as evidenced by sexually-suggestive perfume ads and television shows. What we sometimes forget is that unlike the models and actors, an overwhelming majority of participants in the porn industry are in it due to circumstance rather than choice.