Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen

We’re urging all of you to sign up to repeal the manifestly unfair section 377A of the Penal Code.

Some of my GLBT friends have been bugging me to write about this in my ST column for ages, but I have to keep telling them I can’t.

In 2004, before this movement to repeal section 377A began, I wrote about the possibility of decriminalising oral sex altogether (which fell under section 377, not ‘A’ - the one that’s actually being amended), and the State’s Times nixed the piece. I highly doubt they’d allow me to target 377A either.

Anyway, below is a peek at the rejected piece, published for the first time here. It’s been superseded by the impending amendment of 377, and doesn’t concern homosexuality at all. It does, however, suggest that the so-called ‘pragmatic’ approach (which is often cited to justify maintaining our conservative ‘values)’ is often hypocritical and divorced from reality, and that to prop up the speculative feelings of some shadowy moral majority, we have to engage in logical contortions that are even more twisted than the physical ones engaged in by Tony Leung and Tang Wei in Lust, Caution.  The piece is dated, but you might find it fun. For a more persuasive and personal appeal about repealing 377A, read this.
29 February 2004
Confused About Fallacious Arguments
by Colin Goh in New York

First off, thanks for the deluge of mail after my last column, which poked fun at the Romancing Singapore Campaign. As some of you noted, the RSC is a symptom of Singaporeans’ confusion about sex and procreation.

Well, our confusion wasn’t helped by Chief Justice Yong’s recent judgment in the notorious case of former police sergeant Annis Abdullah, who was prosecuted under section 377 of the aptly-named Penal Code, for ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’. Annis was initially jailed for two years for receiving oral sex from a 16 year old girl (later shown to be 15).

Despite the prosecution agreeing that the girl had consented (in fact, she bugged Annis to date her), the Chief only halved his sentence, saying a prison sentence for consensual oral sex wasn’t “manifestly excessive.” He also famously ranted on about how “there are countries where you can go and suck away for all you are worth,” but that “this is Asia.”

What’s interesting was his contention that section 377 had come from colonial India and was thus “attuned to Asian conditions by the British Empire.” He also intimated that certain offences (like oral sex, no doubt) were especially “repulsive in Asian culture”.

With great respect, I find this, ahem, difficult to swallow. I can’t believe the British Raj bothered to incorporate any local sentiments into their Penal Code, especially since the Kama Sutra, an Indian lovemaking guide dating back to 4 BC, devotes an entire chapter to oral sex. Isn’t the Kama Sutra sufficiently Asian? Let’s send the Supreme Court library a copy!

So what are we supposed to do now? Must we really refrain from such a common act of foreplay?

The leading authority is the juicy case of Public Prosecutor v Kwan Kwong Weng, where a man duped a girl into believing he could remove the poisons in her body through various sexual acts, including fellatio.

I highly recommend that all Singaporeans read it. Besides the hilarious facts of the case itself, the Court of Appeal (which included the Chief) romps through the Indian jurisprudence on unnatural sex, including the case of a man pleasuring himself with a water buffalo’s nose. (No jokes about blowing noses, please.)

At some risk of over-simplification, the Court held that: (1) sex is natural even if you don’t intend to procreate (otherwise condoms and the rhythm method would also be illegal); (2) for sexual intercourse to be ‘natural’, there must be the union of male and female sexual organs; (3) technically, therefore, any sexual act which doesn’t involve the meeting of the organs is carnal (i,e., for lustful purposes only) and thus unnatural; (4) BUT (and it’s a big BUT) the Court recognizes foreplay as ‘a fact of life’ and that it sometimes includes oral sex.

The upshot is that consensual oral sex as a prelude to heterosexual intercourse is okay. But if you just want to have oral sex without proceeding further, it’s not okay, even if both partners consent.

This approach, of course, seems practical.

In fact, it ignores reality.

It’s ludicrous to suggest any sexual play that doesn’t culminate in intercourse is unnatural. If one need not intend to procreate to have sex, then why limit the ways in which couples can achieve sexual pleasure, if the methods hurt no one and there’s mutual consent?

It also seems silly to look to colonial jurisprudence to decide what’s biologically natural when (a) England itself has moved on, and (b) science is showing that even animals such as the Bonobo monkeys engage in it.

And we can’t seriously support the ‘Asian’ objection when even the Court of Appeal accepts its prevalence, and research has shown its practice in both ancient India and China.

Can we reconcile the legal cases? Sure. In virtually all the Indian and Singaporean cases, the victim was duped or coerced into the act, with the horror of the act itself as an aggravating factor. It’s about protecting the innocent.

In Sergeant Annis’s case, however, he’d fooled no one, at least, not an innocent. I can only read the judgment as a valiant attempt to deter men from consorting with sexually precocious but otherwise impressionable young girls.

Thankfully, Parliament says they’re considering changing the law.

In the meantime, here’s how heterosexual adult couples can continue to have oral sex without fear of conviction.

First, intend to have sexual intercourse. If you can’t go all the way, well, that’s human. If prosecuted, simply inform the judge, in all sincerity, “Sorry, your Honour, I tried very hard, but I guess I’m just not as strong… as you.”

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