Name and shame the whores that act in pornographic films online. Their seedy grainy stuck-between-teeth pictures plastered across newspapers will be the deterrent for other whores who have the same idea. Our children are getting abused. Our teenagers are getting pregnant. This is a Western concept. These news stories among others, including sex education in international schools, these last few weeks have been interesting for us who work in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
If we do not pursue the discussion though, discussions around sex in the media could lend to superficial reactions that no doubt were among the reactions to the stories outlined above. These same comfortable questions that we have asked forever, now applied to the latest sordidness however is not to further the discussion beyond forgetting about these issues until they reappear in the next report. We may love to talk about sex in Sri Lanka, but we do it mostly behind smudgy window panes, inside dark almirahs and under desolate bridges.
When we discuss it in public we approach it less candidly, and necessarily gravitate towards the negative. No, if we talk about sex from the perspective of it being natural, healthy and pleasurable god forbid! This is also the apparent concern with sex education, i. Serve them right! Censorship perhaps, despite using proxy servers. This is not to suggest that some of those who performed in these productions were not compensated for their time and skills.
In fact the Vikalpa article on the implications of the name and shame strategy speaks of sex worker rights. And they are right. Sex workers must have rights. I think we would all agree though that rights for sex workers in Sri Lanka are perhaps not very high on the list of priorities. They are a marginalized conveniently forgotten group although they do provide an invaluable service; the opportunity for men or women to release their sexual frustration. It is not clear however that the women and girls that have been filmed having sex are sex workers.
And we are quick as a culture to reach the judicious conclusion of whore. These poor girls and boys, some of them still in school were generally labeled as whores. No mark was burned into their skin but the overzealous police BBC language left them in no doubt that their actions had violated our mores and were an insult to our culture.
