Marsha Maung:: Freelance graphic designer and writer

Disgustedly, I continue to observe the rise in number rape cases in the country. Worse yet, most of these rape cases are done by family members! I think it is sickening and my stomach churn and threaten to throw out remnants of last night’s dinner. Imagine the effort required to bring these girls back on track – back to believing that they can trust the people who are closest to them.

I try to make a very wild guess about why these girls are raped by their brothers and fathers, uncles and grandfathers even (Yikes!!!) and I conclude that there are many reasons but pornographic VCDs are one of the minor ones. The major problem with rape is lack of sex education.

In our culture, sex is like…taboo…it’s a reticent, mysterious, therefore, it transforms into something enigmatic and magnetic. Like they always say, the harder it is to get a woman, the more ‘intrigued’ a man will be. That’s why women play hard to get, right? It’s the same theory for sex. The less we talk about it, the more importance we place on it being a taboo subject, the more intrigued with it the young will be. The more nonchalant we are about it, the more relaxed kids or fascinated with it the kids will be – the lower the chance of them being drawn to rape their siblings or female relatives!

I don’t understand why Asians have this belief that parents do NOT talk to kids about sex. I mean, sex is a very natural thing – it happens to most of us and it happens in the animal kingdom. We reproduce kids through sex (with intervention of technology, there are other ways but it’s less conventional, wouldn’t you say?) and this should be discussed. Liberally tell them how they came about – they don’t come out from stones or boulders and the stork didn’t bring them. They didn’t suddenly appear or grow from a plant. Along with the discussion, we should also discuss the repercussions.

Back to point, rape. Most of these youngsters (even oldsters) blame porn VCDs or videos in court when charged with rape. Because their female relative is ‘convenient’, they become the victim of ‘convenience’. While pornographic material is a contributing factor as to why these men rape their own flesh and blood – it’s not the major factor. We keep ‘sex’ in such a veiled light that it sometimes becomes such a stupidly enormous mystery that they feel compelled to give in to their libido.

Sure, rape is rampant everywhere but the rise in the number of rape within the family in Malaysia is frighteningly alarming. The only way out is to educate those kids about sex, why, how and what. We should also let them in on the main purpose of sex and also IF they did it (which is not encouraged), what they should do to prevent dire results. And young girls should be taught how to prevent these things from happening to them, how to protect themselves and bring justice to those who did this despicable act to them.