This was despite the fact that Starhub SCV aired it at midnight and the crucial scenes had been pixelated.

Here is the media statement issued by the Media Development Authority (the Orwellian name for our state censors).

SCV fined for breaching Programme Code on its Reality Zone Channel

Starhub Cable Vision (SCV) has been fined by the Media Development Authority (MDA) for showing footage of lesbian sex and bondage on Zone Reality Channel’s reality series Cheater.

The reality programme featured cases handled by the Cheaters private agency where a person seeks to find out if his/ her partner is being unfaithful in their relationship. The episode concerned was aired during the period of 22 to 26 May 2006 and repeated on 29 August 2006. It contained footages of a woman engaging in lesbian sex acts with another woman. While pixilation was used during the sex scenes, it was still obvious to viewers that the women were naked and engaging in unnatural sex acts. The programme also showed the woman tied to a bed in a bondage session with two other women. The visuals were deemed to be sexually suggestive and offensive to good taste and decency

The programme also promotes lesbianism as a lifestyle, which breaches the Programme Code. The woman manages to get her boyfriend to accept her lifestyle and to invite other people to engage in threesomes with them.

Bearing in mind the adult nature of the programme, MDA also noted that Cheaters was carried on a channel available on SCV's Family Plus Tier which is aimed at a general audience. The Programme Advisory Committee for English Programmes (PACE) was consulted, and it concurred with MDA that the programme was unsuitable for telecast due to its presentation and treatment of unnatural sex acts.

This episode of Cheaterswas therefore found to be in breach of the Subscription TV Programme Code as it failed to comply with guidelines which disallow the promotion, justification and glamourisation of lesbian lifestyles and their explicit depictions.

Taking into account the severity of the breach, and that the programme was shown on a channel on SCV’s Family Plus Tier, as well as SCV’s explanation on the matter, MDA found that a financial penalty was warranted and issued SCV a fine of $10,000. SCV has since paid up the fine.

 
The MDA said the cable operator breached its code of practice. I believe there were referring to paragraph 4.2 of the Subscription TV Code which says,

4.2 Information, themes and subplots on lifestyles such as homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexualism, transvestism, paedophilia and incest should be treated with utmost caution. Their treatment should not in anyway promote, justify or glamorise such lifestyles. Explicit depictions of the above should not be broadcast.

 
Cheater shows follow a simple format. Someone suspecting a partner to be unfaithful (I will call him/her the 'originator') seeks help from the program's in-house private detectives. Very often the originator will permit the TV producers to set up hidden cameras in the home or other shared spaces. That's usually the source of some voyeuristic shots, though often grainy and of poor quality.

In the second half of each show, the show host will present the detectives' findings to the originator and that's when the show gets its first emotional bang -– when you see the effect on the cheated partner.

After that, they will go in a van to confront the cheating partner. Often -- and you wonder how that can be so uncannily the case -– they catch him/her right at the moment when the cheating partner is with the third party. The confrontation gives the viewers an even greater emotional bang [1].

I did not see the episode that the MDA complained about so I am unable to explain its story to you, but we can gather from the media statement that it had lesbian sex somewhere. Furthermore, it had an unusual ending, with the cheating woman managing "to get her boyfriend to accept her lifestyle and to invite other people to engage in threesomes with them," according to the MDA. 

The MDA must have felt that this horribly glamourised the lesbian "lifestyle" [2] even though threesomes with 2 females ranks among the leading fantasies of a good number (majority?) of straight men.

More specifically, I have 5 comments about this case:

 
1. Pixelation is no defence

It is interesting to note that while Clause 4.2 specifically proscribes "explicit depiction", the scenes in question were pixelated. Despite that, the MDA ruled that "it was still obvious to viewers that the women were naked and engaging in unnatural sex acts." 

This now means that pixelation is now also "explicit". Even though the viewer was only seeing moving squares and had to use his imagination, it was enough to merit a fine.

I consider this a very troubling interpretation, because it is so open-ended. How much imagination is enough?

Here is a picture. You can imagine various things. Should I be fined?

What is apparent is that the MDA is not out to police against pornography in the form of explicit images; it is out to ensure that the very thought/imagination of lesbian acts be eradicated. Certain ideas are not allowed to be communicated, however subtle and guarded.

This is no more a matter of protection against pornography, but thought-policing.

 
2. Is lesbian sex unnatural sex?

The MDA used the term "unnatural sex acts" in its statement, when referring to the lesbian bed scenes. This has no basis in law; no court has ever ruled that lesbian sex is "unnatural" sex. More specifically, there is no legal precedent whatsoever that says lesbian sex comes within the meaning of "carnal interrcourse against the order of nature" (the wording of Section 377 of Singapore's Penal Code).

The MDA has therefore gone beyond the law to interpret "unnatural sex" for itself.

 
3. No judicial process

This is the part that I find most troubling: the question of due process. Reasonable people may have different opinions as to what should be in the TV code of practice -- how much sex or violence should be allowed, at what time slots, for example (or party politics, for that matter). Yet, whatever the Code may be, I think it is unacceptable to vest in the MDA the power to interpret the Code for itself and to fine an operator for breaching it without independent judicial process.

Without it, how else do we guarantee that constitutional provisions for freedom of speech are taken into account?

Already, I have pointed out above the inconsistency between the MDA's ruling and the law when it comes to the definition of "unnatural sex", but we should also note how the MDA created a new yardstick when it said, "The visuals were deemed to be sexually suggestive and offensive to good taste and decency." (emphasis mine).

Look again at its own clause 4.2. Where is there mention of "offensive to good taste and decency"? How can MDA say SCV has done wrong when such has not been defined as wrong?

Supposing we had an eating contest, where people gorge themselves silly and end up throwing up on camera. Or we had a documentary that showed how in some countries, for lack of firewood, corpses are incompletely cremated on the pyres, and what remains are just dumped into the nearby river. These can be offensive to some people and far from good taste. Are TV stations to be fined for such transgressions? On what basis?

The free hand given to the MDA is a very bad provision. Who is to stop them from interpreting it any which way they want?

 
4. Bondage

Bondage sex is a controversial matter. Some love it; others think it abhorrent. Having said that, if you knew anything at all about bondage play, gay or straight, it is hardly ever what it seems. It is essentially play even though it may look as if one party is being exploited, raped, beaten and held against his or her will.

I'm not sure why the MDA considered it necessary to mention it specifically in their statement -– perhaps because they consider it one of the "lifestyles" that is out of bounds, but I would contest why it should be out of bounds, when it is consensual.

Would MDA fine a TV station for suggesting (note, explicit depiction is not necessary, going by this precedent) that a married heterosexual couple loved bondage play? If not, why not?

 
5. SCV's trenchant response

The Straits Times report on this matter carried SCV's response to the fine.

Although SCV had paid the fine, StarHub's corporate communications manager Caitlin Fua told The Straits Times yesterday it is disappointed with MDA's decision to impose the penalty.

She explained Cheaters has been aired in countries including China, India and Indonesia, 'without any difficulty'. Besides, the episode in question was shown at midnight, past young viewers' bedtime.

-- Straits Times, 24 October 2006, 'SCV fined
$10,000 for airing lesbian acts'

Good for them. Essentially SCV was saying to the MDA: You may have the power but that does not make you right. 

The reference to China, India and Indonesia needs to be noted. Where we, a small city, have to compete against them in the globalising world through greater creativity, the government wants our minds to be closed more tightly.

© Yawning Bread