Morality cops

In a novelty shop in a Pasig mall, a father took one look at the sex toys displayed on the shelves, and quickly shooed his teenage daughter out of the store.

The girl dutifully obeyed — and probably got a good laugh telling the story to her peers. Bringing up parents can be a pain.

The father’s gesture was touching in its futility. Kids these days receive sex education in fourth grade. They can view all the sex toys they want, in all sizes and shapes — and order them — on the Internet. They can access all types of porn as well when Mom and Dad aren’t looking.

With so much X-rated material at their fingertips, who cares about dildos on a store shelf? The teenage girl would have been more interested in the nifty denim jeans and costume jewelry that were the main attractions in the novelty shop. Really.

On the second floor of the mall there were all sorts of pirated movie and music discs, including DVD copies of films described by the Philippine Alliance Against Pornography as "satanic… blasphemous" and, yes, pornographic.

Those movies include Brokeback Mountain, Munich and North Country.

"You can neither hide nor run," the Philippine Alliance Against Pornography warned purveyors of porn. "The wrath of God is upon you."

Are they serious? Sure they are. But it’s no fun to be a morality cop in the Information Age.

Certainly there are many parents who think their teenagers should not watch cowboys buggering each other or see a dildo being pulled out of a lunchbox. But many parents in this free country are also uncomfortable over any form of government censorship, or any attempt to control information available in cyberspace.

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It’s a dilemma of the modern world. How much and what type of information should be made available to all, and how easily should it be accessed?

In the age of global terrorism, governments have moved, with some success, against the easy accessibility of information on the manufacture of explosives, dirty bombs and weapons of mass destruction.

Governments have also won some victories in efforts to curb child porn on the Internet. Technology continues to be developed to keep children from accessing information on pornography and violence.

You have to admit though that there’s still a lot of violence and sex available for general viewing on TV, from news to entertainment. The daily news from Iraq alone often contains more violence than a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Now kids need not even worry about movie ratings as they watch films on DVD in their home theater systems.

Is there a place for morality cops in societies where morals are constantly being redefined? Sex has gone mainstream. An article in one international news magazine advised elderly readers to masturbate for good health. Once not too long ago, kids were warned that playing with themselves could make them go deaf.

Where do you draw the line between porn and art? Who appoints the morality cops?

In the case of the gay cowboys of Brokeback Mountain, the Vatican has not changed its stand that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered… they are contrary to the natural law." Are anti-porn groups correct then in calling the movie blasphemous?

Malaysia banned the public showing of Brokeback. But the country, which is one of the biggest sources of pirated movie discs in the Philippines, cannot stop Malaysians from getting hold of pirated copies of the film.

You can even download old movies from the Internet and burn your own copies.

With pirated DVDs and VCDs dirt-cheap, and the hardware to run pirated materials equally affordable, banning a movie for public viewing becomes a joke.

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The anti-porn group has declared war on the film classification body for allowing teenagers to watch movies like Munich, Derailed and Casanova.

But there’s a reason why the Board of Censors for Motion Pictures was renamed the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. As the current name makes clear, the MTRCB no longer censors but merely classifies movies. It can disapprove a movie for public viewing but it can’t cut or censor certain scenes.

So movies like Deep Throat, which brought oral sex out of the closet in a graphic way, are still banned. And Hostel, with its violence, nudity and even cannibalism, gets an R-18 classification, like award-winning Brokeback Mountain.

DVD copies of The Making of Deep Throat — which has less graphic sex scenes than the original — are available in the film piracy centers of Metro Manila, along with porn movies proudly made in the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Europe. There are also brutal, gory horror and suspense movies from all over the world. The MTRCB has no power to stop the proliferation of these movies.

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The problem of anti-porn groups lies in the delivery of their message. When you threaten heathens with the wrath of God, and warn that kids who watch Hostel and Casanova are likely to become the rapists, killers, liars and corrupt public officials of the future, the initial reaction is likely to be laughter.

If the anti-porn groups see nothing funny about their warning, they will be told to lighten up.

And yet all that violence on TV and movies must have surely inspired in some way real-life violence, such as those perpetrated in schools.

The sexual revolution has been helped along by mass media. Whether that revolution has created more rapists is debatable.

Where do parents, already suffering from information overload, turn to for guidance?

Sometimes even religion isn’t much help. The exercise of free will is one of the bedrocks of Christianity. The greatest test of faith is one where the believer is exposed to temptation and given a choice between good and evil. Salvation goes to the one who chooses good.

What can parents do with kids who are growing up precociously in the age of the Internet and pirated DVDs? Cut the kids some slack, and pray that after processing all that information, the kids will know enough to choose good.

And then Mom and Dad can gulp down the Prozac.