Indo enactment regarding Porn

[Py]

I personally believe that one should have faith in the Indonesian temprament. Wahhabism was born and took root in the harsh desert climates of the Arabian Penninsula, its footing has no real purchase with the elastic temprment of this tropical 'rakyat'. Plain and simple, this is political manuvering that will have no real legs when it hits the ground. This is of course my opinion, but there is no way in hell 'kotekas' are goining to be covered up in the Balien valley, movable phalluses removed from traditional wayan kulit figures or tourists told to cover up on the beaches of Bali. I have too much faith in the Indonesian people in not being swayed by this kind of sciolistic idiocy. We see this semi-regularly in the U.S. as well. I personally lived throught the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) wars in the 80's that pitched the religious right against the arts and any government involvement in any creative endeavor that in anyway smacked of immorality or sedition.
Then as now, a comprehensive and rigorous working definition must be laid out as to the perameters of exactly what and what does not constitute pornography. And that is a very complex issue.

[JAMIE]

Py ..as Roy said welcome back , being only a lurker wannabe , Im not sure I have the right to welcome your back ? I whats done is done . Ive missed your posts , you and somany other "regulars" are so very good at writing your thoughts. I look foward to reading you more in the future . Logic tells me that your right in saying "this baby wont crawl" , but living threw the thoughts that it might are lost for me . I thought we had problems with the right wing here in the USA , this takes the cake though . I think a belly button ,sit in , protest is in order !! ( then again I just looked at my belly button , maybe this law should stand for some of us )

[Roy]

Py,

Then as now, a comprehensive and rigorous working definition must be laid out as to the perameters of exactly what and what does not constitute pornography. And that is a very complex issue.

Well put. In an earlier post I made the point that personally, I would not want to be challenged to define pornography. It’s a “know it when you see it” issue, and what is pornography for one, is art to another.

As Smusdar correctly pointed out, this whole issue has hit the fan like a handful of sh*t due to the possibility of an Indonesian issue of Playboy becoming available here. Playboy is not pornography, in my view.

Just for fun, I put together several paintings offered by the auction house, Larasati in their Ocotber 2000 sale held in Jakarta. Except for the Hofker, which is the second painting, all the others are by Indonesian artists. The first piece, titled, “Nudity” was painted by the very well known artist, Basoeki Abdullah, and it fetched 240 million rupiah. Under this new proposed law, all of these artists, and their models, would be subject to imprisonment. So would the folks who run Larasati auctions for exhibiting and selling such work. So might I for having in my library art books containing illustrations of these paintings.

Does anyone really think that such art contributes to an increase of rape, or the destruction of morals in an open and democratic society?

Py, I hope you are right, that cooler heads will prevail, and a reasonable law, thoughtfully crafted, will be eventually passed. My concern is with the first draft, which in any democratic country would be considered as outrageous and should have never been drafted in the first place.

http://www.sundream.com/~majapahit/images/Indonudes.jpg

[ColinF]

Seems this whole outrageous piece of 14th century bigotry was in process of being very quietly slipped through without proper open debate.....that is, until the Playboy thing surfaced and, as you so delightfully put it, Roy, the sh*t hit the fan! We can only hope that Playboy has done the country a favour by revealing what was happening.
Two questions: (a) How could such a situation arise in the first place - are there no set procedures whereby such totally unacceptable proposals are weeded out before wasting legislators' valuable time?
(b) Indonesia was quite recently lauded by the international police forces and parents worldwide for it's tough stand on Paedophillia and it's assistance in rounding up and recapturing several escaped paedophiles already hiding here and attempting to satisfy their sick, disgusting fantasies. How then, could intelligent legislators propose a change in the law which would reduce the age of consent from a reasonable 18 to 12yrs - thus legalizing paedophillia?!
Excuse me...I feel a little sick!!
Colin.

[Roy]

Colin, I can't answer your a and b questions. Those questions have me by the "short hairs" as well.

I do agree with you and Py, that being, there is no way the initial draft form of this proposed law will ever make it to a vote by the central legislative branch.

Funny, isn't it, how Indonesia has done very well without such a law for all these years?

[Richard Kalibukbuk]

I got into a discussion with some of my Balinese tennis friends about this and the best comment made was that it is usually the person who is looking at whatever that makes it into porn through his thoughts, i.e. two different people looking at the same thing, one will turn it into porn through his thoughts, the other might just see it as art. So its like ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’.

Balinese often bathe communally and in the open and if you see someone bathing it is considered you do not stare but just ignore, as this is a normal occurrence. Low and behold if you start staring, or even worse bring out a camera and then you will surely see some anger from the person bathing.

Lets hope this unbelievably stupid piece of legislation gets thrown into the rubbish bin.

[Roy]

Oh, and for Made...I thought it was South Dakota that recently passed this medieval abortion law...not North Dakota. Analysts are saying that it is a move, by the South Dakota legislature to force the Supreme Court to re-visit Roe vs. Wade. It won’t happen, and even if it did, the majority of the sitting judges on the SC voted in favor on that action.

Oddly enough, but totally understandable, most abortions being done in South Dakota are by physicians from other states.

[swt]

Hi everyone, I wanted to openly apologise if I have offended anyone on this forum as someone from this forum has stated that I have plagerised something from this forum.

I posted a message on the Bali Travel Forum about what Smusdar had written regarding the porn and yes although most was in my own words the articles and some of the words were hers, I raised this as an issue for discussion and was then slammed by someone who stated I should have quoted the original source. I never claimed it was mine I said "Apparently......... anyway I hope that this is not an issue for anyone here, I certainly never thought it would be but someone thinks it is and well the only person I am concerned about is Smusdar, so my apologies if this in some way causes you concern. You are welcome to read what I wrote and the response I got.... http://www.balitravelforum.com .....

kind regards
swt

[Bert Vierstra]

Well, please don't cross post on forums....

And no copies and pastes !

And if you do use text posted by member here, permission is needed, mentioning a source would be nice and , if a forum admin doesn't allow this, just say name and "other Bali forum"...

In this case its not really "original text", but about (translated) laws, but anyway...

[bolli]

I don't understand. If you found it interesting and wanted to discuss it, why didn't you do so here where you read it??? :roll: