Small slip, big prejudice

Sometimes, it's the small things, like when sales assistants largely ignore us, but suddenly become ever so helpful when a Caucasian customer steps into the shop.

Now here's something that most Singaporeans would miss, and I know it because even gay ones missed it. We are so used to being given the short end of the stick, we don't even notice when it's short.

It came out of the Paul Fernandez case, which I have written about in the article Police treated gay man like a paedophile. You can also the newspaper report in Police told employer about man's arrest, dated 5 Feb 2005.

The New Paper followed up with a feature story on Sunday, 20 Feb 2005. The big headline was "Should Police blab about offences?" It didn't really muck through the Fernandez story -- that wouldn't have been news anymore -- but instead asked 3 lawyers and a retired policeman for their views with respect to 4 hypothetical situations.

SCENARIO 1: A woman teacher performs oral sex on a man in public and is arrested. Should the police tell the school?

No, said the panel unanimously.

Mr Lionel de Souza, a retired police officer with 26 years' experience and now a private investigator (PI), said it was a private matter and her school should not be informed.

He said: "It does not mean that if she did it with her boyfriend or her married lover, she would do it on her students. In the Fernandez case, maybe the police informed the school as a precautionary [1] measure."

Lawyer Amolat Singh also said no as a mere arrest does not mean a person is guilty of a crime. He added: "The investigation would have to be done first."

Criminal lawyer Peter Cuthbert Low, 53, and former police officer A P Thirumurthy agreed with Mr Singh.

A P Thirumurthy is now also a lawyer. So the 3 lawyers effectively said, arrest is not guilt, though they didn't say that only conviction was guilt. They seemed to say that one could be guilty when investigation is completed. I find that very troubling as a matter of principle. 

But my main focus is on Lionel de Souza's reply.

Note carefully that the scenario posed was one where a woman teacher performed oral sex on a man -- not necessarily boyfriend or lover  -- in public and is arrested.

De Souza's response promptly reduced it to an act of love, not of casual sex, when he framed his reply, "if she did it with her boyfriend or her married lover..."

It is as if the idea of women having sexual urges and casual sex was unthinkable. There is sexism underlying his response.

Then he pointed out that her having consensual sex with an adult (as implied by the scenario's use of the word "man"), in no way suggested that she was any more likely to want to have sex with her pupils. No one can fault the logic here.

But in his next breath, he said that in Paul Fernandez' case, there could be a case for informing the school where he was teaching.

I'm floored.

In Fernandez's case, he was having consensual sex with an adult in a public place, exactly the same as in the scenario posited. Why was the scenario of the woman teacher no reason to inform the school and the case of Fernandez possible reason to do so?

The only difference was that the hypothetical scenario involved a female protagonist and a heterosexual situation whereas the real case involved a male protagonist and a homosexual situation.

Do you see the underlying prejudice? Either men are seen as sexual predators, or gays are seen as sexual predators, or both.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

1. Again I notice small details. In the caption to the photo The New Paper quoted de Souza as using the word 'preventive', but in the body of the newspaper's story, the word used was 'precautionary'.
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