Not so simple
Reading Michael Logan's commentary on the VCD scandal ("It's just a simple act of lovemaking," Dec. 21, page 12) made me think that, although he has a point in highlighting the ease with which Taiwan's residents are titillated by "scandal," he is missing one prime ingredient.
The media in Taiwan does a poor job of presenting what they consider "interesting and provocative" news. Next magazine did not blaze the trail for scandal sheets, but it does provide sensational reports that seem not to cross the threshold of true invasion of privacy and retain some sort of professionalism, but just barely. Next showing a surreptitiously taken, grainy photo of a young starlet making out in public with a boy is of little real interest when stripped of the hype, but it also does not offend.
Every society is guilty of rubbernecking at accidents or sneaking a peak across the apartment complex at that open window. But Taiwan's media have a senseless fascination with the sensationally mundane. Nearly every evening TV news broadcast features an intoxicated driver acting foolish at a police checkpoint, or the aftermath of a traffic accident, or someone being "wrongly" accused of something, complete with shouting and the ever-present clutch of camera crews. Is this news? Is it interesting? Does it inform the public?
Scoop Weekly may be guilty of several transgressions, but the biggest transgression is not having the common sense to know that releasing the sex VCD would be in poor taste, likely result in a lawsuit that the magazine will lose and, most importantly, leave the public once again shaking their heads in the knowledge that the media are nothing but a hoard of insensitive and base dunderheads.
Yes, this latest stunt will sell magazines, but it will not sell the masses on trash-can journalism. "Interesting" doesn't have to be infantile.
Until the media in Taiwan learns that the public is not made up of slobbering, bum-scratching voyeurs, we will be subjected to more pathetic episodes of pandering to the low-est common denominator.
Mark Wolfe
Taipei
Many people are afflicted with a strain of gawking voyeurism. I have not seen the VCD to which Logan refers to and I have no intention of viewing it. How-ever, on the basis of Logan's description of the contents, it appears that his article was mistitled. It's not "just a simple act of lovemaking," it's a simple act of immorality.
Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral (Hebrews 13:4, New International Version).
Not only devout Christians -- whether Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant -- but also devout Jews, Muslims and Buddhists recognize that sexual activity between partners who are not married to each other is wrong.
To a penitent woman who had committed sexual sin, Jesus said, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace (Luke 7:50)." To a woman caught in the act of adultery, whose accusers excused themselves in tacit acknowledgment of their own guilt in that sin, Jesus said, "... neither do I condemn you .... Go now and leave your life of sin (John 8:11)."
Cheryl J. Rutledge
Changhua
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