Kompas article on condom use

THE SEX trade was a favorite topic of Southeast Asian newspapers. Nhan Dan apparently considered safe to write about, but like three of the other papers, it chose to focus more on those who provided the service and not on the clients. Nhan Dan shared with Thairath a tendency to vilify female sex workers as moneygrubbers who did not want to invest in hard work — as if having sex with several potentially violent strangers in one night were easy.

Ironically, the only newspapers that tried to see the flesh industry from a wider perspective were the two that came from countries with conservative dominant religions. Kompas of predominantly Muslim Indonesia also had the highest volume of stories on sexuality, churning out almost half of the total output of the top newspapers. And for all the misgivings of some religious leaders in Indonesia regarding condoms, the paper, along with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, had more stories on condom use than the others.

Kompas considers its political analyses as among its selling points. At the same time, though, it markets itself as a voice for the voice for the voiceless or the marginalized and the discriminated, such as women and people living with HIV/AIDS. It even has a section devoted to women's issues, which are given generous spreads in the newspaper.

Kompas thus covers a variety of topics involving sex and sexuality, although in the period studied, AIDS emerged as its top sex subject. In part, this may be in recognition of Indonesia's growing HIV jitters. Just like Vietnam, Indonesia has been seeing precipitous rises in new HIV infections in certain areas during the last several years.

Top Ten Sex-Related Topics Reported in Southeast Asian Newspapers

TOPIC	Cambodia (Rasmei Kampuchea)	Indonesia (Kompas)	Philippines (Philippine Daily Inquirer)	Thailand (Thairath)	Lao PDR (Vientiane Mai)
HIV/AIDS	97	312	38	35	70
Rape	139	270	71	95
Commercial Sex/Prostitution	18	241	49	2	1
Sexuality and the Law	11	76	4	17
Sexual Abuse	3	94	56	14	1
Pregnancy/Birth/Post-partum	1	134	2	18	4
Sexual Norms in Society	2	78	23	78	1
Sexuality in the Media		41		46
Sexual Harassment		102	18	21
Sex Education	111	30	2	7
Rest of categories (47)	64	1,087	244	980	8
TOTAL	444	2,465	507	1,313	85

TOPIC	Vietnam (Nhan Dan)	TOTAL	%
HIV/AIDS	282	834	13.75%
Rape	7	582	9.60%
Commercial Sex/Prostitution	187	498	8.21%
Sexuality and the Law	143	251	4.14%
Sexual Abuse	23	191	3.15%
Pregnancy/Birth/Post-partum	32	191	3.15%
Sexual Norms in Society	8	190	3.13%
Sexuality in the Media	96	183	3.02%
Sexual Harassment	40	181	2.98%
Sex Education	26	176	2.90%
Rest of categories (47)	406	2,789	45.99%
TOTAL	1,250	6,064	100%

In general, Kompas's coverage of sexuality issues was relatively unencumbered by religious considerations. This was also the case with the Inquirer, which reported on sex without so much as glance at the Roman Catholic Church and its vocal and often fuming leaders. That the Inquirer came only fourth in terms of the number of stories it produced on sex-related subjects reflected not so much unconcern about these issues but an obsession with politics. In 2000, the Inquirer ran just 63 sex-related stories, largely because it was too busy covering the crisis of the Estrada presidency.

Still, the examples of the Inquirer and Kompas show that where there is separation of church and state, the views of a country's dominant religion would not necessarily end up dominating news space.

There was, however, one glaring omission in all six newspapers: men were missing. There was little discussion on the role of men in relationships and their culpability in many of the problems stemming from attitudes and behaviors regarding sex. In a region that keeps on emphasizing its supposed cultural values as ideals that should be preserved, there appears to be communal denial that underlying some of those values is a macho culture that foments gender imbalance and fosters unhealthy attitudes toward women and sexuality.