Our country boasts a national philosophy of “good behaviour and morality (kesopanan dan kesusilaan)”, which necessarily promotes virtuous life in motive and thought, in word and deed.
But recent news should be a wakeup call to us: a Malaysian scholar at a prestigious college was guilty of possessing and distributing tens of thousands of videos and photos of child pornography-including extremely abusive ones against babies and toddlers.
Online statistics of two pornographic websites may indicate how grievous this issue is (The Star, 12 May 2015). The website PornMD recorded that Malaysians on average make 22,000 searches daily, putting this relatively tiny country at 19th highest globally. Another website, Pornhub, reported that Malaysians spent on average 12.05 minutes per visit, which is even longer than, say, New York City’s 10.05 minutes per visit.
Lest we underestimate the large-scale impact of contemporary commodification of sex, Professor Gail Dines’s work, Pornland: How Porn has Hijacked Our Sexuality warns, that today’s mainstream Internet pornography is a massive industry which deliberately creates porn addicts.
The crucial issue is not about mere fun; rather, it is about predatory corporate capitalists of a multi-billion corporation, whose business plan is focused solely on increasing revenue and profit, by expanding customer base through niche markets, product diversification and increasing website traffic.
The global pornography industry generates approximately $100 billion per year, contributing $13 billion in US revenue. From US alone, more than 13,000 films are produced and circulated annually, through a complex network of film producers, distributors, bankers, software producers, credit card companies, internet providers, cable companies, and hotel chains.
It is these greedy capitalists who are promoting the assimilation of pornography into popular culture, including subtle images and messages in the mainstream media, through certain pop stars, TV reality shows, magazines, and billboards. In the words of the author, Amy Sohn, “you no longer have to look at pornography to get porn.”
While many may have an outdated understanding of what pornography is, Prof. Dines finds that mainstream Internet porn has become increasingly brutal, “filled with images of body-punishing sex acts that are designed to debase and dehumanize women.”
Those rapacious businessmen even have well-resourced public relations mechanism, in order to create a favourable public image of their pervasive industry. They have vested interest, that porn users are enslaved, corrupted and hooked to pornography.
Furthermore, if we listen to the journalist, Pamela Paul, who wrote Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, the Internet pornography explosion is disintegrating American families.
According to industry studies, among American regular users of pornography are 70% of eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old men and 66% of young men in their twenties and thirties. Paul stated that millions of American men are like the husband described by a 38-year-old woman from Chicago: “He would come home from work, slide food around his plate during dinner, play for maybe half an hour with the kids, and then go into his home office, shut the door, and surf Internet porn for hours.”
In 2003, two-thirds of American divorce lawyers had witnessed a sudden rise in divorces that cited porn addiction as a factor, and roughly 40% of porn addicts had separated from their spouses.
Are we Malaysians sufficiently equipped to encounter such a culture, which will definitely shape our youths’ identities, sexualities, and ideas about intimacy, relationships and family institution?
Are we sufficiently entrenched in religions and ethics, which teach us that when sexual desire reaches the excessive length ofaddiction leading to debauchery, it brings man to a condition lower than that of the brute and reduces him to the level of slavery and disgrace?
In relation to the desire for the pleasure of sex, thinkers such as al-Ghazali observe that most men err on the side of excess. As such, training this desire is one of the starting points of all character- and nation-building. Indeed, lust excites beastly passion, and hence, destroys reason and intelligence.
The most effective way of combating sexual lust is not to yield from the start to the concupiscence of the eye and that of the mind-or lustful sight and lustful thought. This is because, once lust has taken hold, it is extremely difficult to eradicate.
In this context, the call for an effective censorship of all pornographic materials on the internet should be strongly supported and properly implemented by the authorities. More important is the proposal for an appropriate family and social education on issues relating to human sexuality, provided that it is based on religion, traditional ethics and true sciences.
In the Qur’an, there is a chapter called al-Nur, literally means “Divine Light”. A large part of it deals with the mutual relations of the opposite sexes, and with certain ethical rules to be observed in the context of this relationship, including the proper decorum in dress and manners.
Allah states: “Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and to guard their private parts [both by modesty in dress and restraining sexual urges]: this will be most conducive to their virtue-verily, God is aware of all that they do. And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to guard their private parts…” (al-Nur, 24: 30-31).
Among the behaviours condemned is of one’s satanic impulse, to look at the opposite sex with desirous eyes and unchaste intention. Such a look amount to the first act which leads to illicit relationship.
This is beautifully expressed by Prophet Muhammad, who said, “The eyes fornicate, and do so by looking [at something lasciviously]. The hands fornicate, and do so by touching [with lust]. The foot fornicate, and do so by walking [to an immoral act or place]. The mouth fornicate, and does so by kissing. And the hearts form thoughts and wishes, which the genitals confirm or deny [by committing fornication or refraining from it].” (Narrated by Bukhari and Muslim.)
To the extent that man cannot restrain his eyes, he will be unable to restrain his thoughts. And to the extent that he cannot control his thoughts and wishes, his moral concentration will be ruined, rendering him vulnerable to lewdness. Starting with the venial sin of the ‘fornication of the eye’, it soon leads to the mortal sin, the ‘fornication of the flesh’.
Prophet Yahya (John the Baptist) was once asked, “How does fornication begin?” and he replied, “With looking and wishing.” The prophet ‘Isa (Jesus), too, said, “Beware of (lustful) glances, for they sow desire in the heart, which is temptation enough.”
In The Gospel of Matthew (5:27-28), Jesus was quoted to have said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”