14 Feb 2005

Singaporeans seek chaste Valentine's Day

Below is an article from Reuters, which is clearly attacking all Singaporeans.[Sarcasm]Even though it clearly points the finger at, "Focus on Family', it is an insult to the nation as awhole.

Reuters should provide all the evidence they have that this is occurring.

In a country with the lowest sexually active title, surely the campaign is redundant. What Singapore needs are groups organising themselves and handing out free condoms, and wrist bands that proclaim that you are sexually active and 'standing-up' for Singapore could be a nice motto.

Mon Feb 14, 2005 10:55 AM GMT


SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As Valentine's Day stoked the embers of romance worldwide, a group of Singaporeans began a campaign urging couples to curb their ardour and abstain from sex.

A Christian group launched on Monday a week-long Abstinence Awareness Campaign on the island, which has one of Asia's lowest birth rates and has ranked for three straight years near the bottom of condom-maker Durex's survey of sexually active nations.

Nearly 200 volunteers from the Christian "Focus on The Family" group fanned out across the city-state, selling wristbands bearing the message "Worth Waiting For" and collecting pledges from teenagers to stay chaste until marriage.

"We hope that the street sales will raise awareness about abstaining from sexual acts and tell young people that they have what it takes to save themselves until they are married," said one organiser Joanna Koh-Hoe.

"We want to let them know that it is cool to save themselves for marriage," she said.

The campaign follows a rise in teenage abortions and an increase in HIV-AIDS infections among youths.

But some youth doubted the tactic will work even in a society as strait-laced as Singapore, whose government maintains strict censorship controls, including bans on magazines such as "Playboy" and where oral sex between men is a crime.

"I really doubt the effectiveness of this campaign," said 25-year-old Phillip Ng. "To have premarital sex or not is a lifestyle decision and wearing a band on your wrist for a day is not going to lead to a change in your mindset."

About 6,000 chastity bands have been sold at S$2 each and the proceeds will help fund the group's activities, such as a "No Apologies" workshop -- a four-hour course which urges youths between the ages of 13-20 to remain virgins.

Organisers said over 15,000 teenagers have attended the workshop and nearly 80 percent have signed a pledge not to have premarital sex.

10 comments:

Han said...

I'm surprised that there are no curbs on fundamentalist christian organisations like Focus on the Family in Singapore.

dfgd said...

Is it a sneaky way of spreading their religious beliefs?

Wandie said...

Gay Bashing is not a religious belief. And neither is SpongeBob Bashing.

dON Lee said...

Yeah Steven, a sneaky way to spread their religious beliefs, but I doubt anyone would want to convert based on this campaign...

Anonymous said...

i think its a commendable effort by the group in trying to encourage or at least send out the message to society to be more moralistic. teenagers having sex is definitely not the way to go.

but i do agree that the wristbands is a bloody dumb idea. imagine couples wearing them during valentine's day, haha.. erm????

why not educational pamphlets, or even vcds/bookmarks/etc distributed to the schools instead? why must there be a campaign to try to reach out to the youths on the streets and having to deploy 200!! volunteers when a more systematic channel through schools can be arranged?

i salute the intention of the christian group, but the method is totally wrong. it smacks of blatant opportunism trying to cash in on the popularity of v day.

who cares how Durex rates singapore? heck, they're probably pissed we're not patronising from them as much as we should be.

and reuters is screwed up. even the first sentence of their article is meant to paint an extremely negative view of the good intentions of the christian group. "urging couples to curb their ardour and abstain from sex?" erm, hello???? its urging TEENAGERS to abstain cos they are UNMARRIED, NAIVE, STUPID, IRRESPONSIBLE,etc. What type of bullshit propaganda is reuters trying to pull?

i strongly support having more babies for singapore and increasing the birth rate, as long as the factories producing them are not teenagers.

dfgd said...

I found it in an 'oddly enough, section' so its intended to be light hearted. And as for calling Reuters a machine of 'bullshit propaganda', makes you seem rather passionate about this topic.

As for the 'just say no' brigade of Christianity, it all makes me smile at how 'kind hearted' and good intentioned some people can be. But also misguided.

dfgd said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Wowbagger said...

Anonymous:
I do not see anything propaganda-like about the sentence "urging couples to curb their ardour and abstain from sex". It is a simple factual statement. Teenagers form couples, no? And they do have ardour? Even if you believe it is wrong for teenagers to have sex, there are no subjective opinions in that statement. It doesn't say anything about why teenagers should or should not have sex.

lucidness said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Agagooga said...

Abstinence only campaigns don't work