Selling Sex
To be ma-bait then is not just about being good, kind and gentle; to be “mabait” is to make good, intelligent, sane decisions. To act according to things you have thought about well. The assumption is that if you are sane, then you do not act like an animal.
In fact, being “good, kind, gentle” is actually a caricature of what a person who’s mabait is. This is our caricature of the good grade school student–the one who is always praised by his teachers for being very behaved. Years later, we realize the “good, kind, gentle”–who is also oftentimes the praised quiet and behaved–has grown up to be very passive, doesn’t want to rock the boat, and the vanguard of the status quo. And yet, to be quiet and behaved might not be the recipe for real success. The rebels–the ones who question longheld principles and the status quo, the Martin Luther Kings, the Ninoy Aquinos, the Gandhis, and Jesus Christ–are the ones who change the world.
We hope that our Filipino idea of MABAIT would change. We hope that in the end, we are mabait, not just because we are good, kind and gentle, but because we think. And think hard. Before we make any decisions. We are mabait when our decisions and judgments are informed and not merely generalizations brought about by the status quo.
I think the article below is all about that. In the end, we want our decisions to be informed and well thought out. And sometimes to make a generalization by saying that “Condom Commercials violate the innocence of the young, as their impressionistic minds are subconsciously formed on wrong values on sex,” takes away our right to think and our right to choose.
There is an age-old debate on rights vs responsibilities, and I am not in the mood to add to that today. But I think it is sufficient to say that if there is no correlation for kids to start killing their classmates after playing a violent PS3 game, then there is no correlation for teenagers to start having sex after watching a condom commercial.
But beyond that is the question on intelligent choice. Usually, generalizations are made because people are lazy to go the extra mile and just THINK. That is why I found the move to ban Harry Potter (purportedly because young kids will start thinking about the occult) quite hilarious. I do not know everything about the argument made by the pro-lifers and FMAF; but I do hope they were well thought out and not merely generalizations. The Filipino is not stupid. And to say that condom commercials shown on tv make young people go on a sexual frenzy (as if they’re not already! :p), is really insulting the Filipino viewer.
We are so much more than that.
Selling Sex
Patricia EvangelistaMANILA, Philippines–CONDOM ADS, ARGUES JO IMBONG OF FAMILY MEDIA Advocacy Foundation (FMAF), “convey a vulgar message and mock the sensibilities of the audience.”
I’d like to ask what she means by “a vulgar message.” If she is against the manner by which these advertisements are made, then her argument is not against condom advertisements in general, but against particular ads that “mock” her sensibilities. And yet FMAF and other conservative groups are calling for a blanket ban on all condom commercials, irrelevant of content. There is only one common denominator in all condom commercials, whether they involve King Kong, lingerie, or a doctor giving an opinion—it is that sexual activity must be accompanied by condom use. It is not the advertisements per se that Ms Imbong finds vulgar, it is the message that artificial contraception itself is acceptable.
Pro-Life Philippines’ Edgardo Sorreta says that these commercials “violate the innocence of the young, as their impressionistic minds are subconsciously formed on wrong values on sex.” Again, who determines what “the right values” are on sex? Sorreta and his group assume that they have a monopoly on morality, and that their perceptions and judgments are the perceptions and judgments of the millions who watch television. It follows, by their own limited perspectives, that because they perceive artificial contraception to be evil, others must be denied the right to this choice.
Whatchathink?!