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It's about Bang for Your Buck, Bro: Singaporean Men's Online Conversations about Sex in Batam, Indonesia

2008; Routledge; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/10357820701870767

1467-8403

Sophie Williams, Lenore Lyons, Michele Ford,

Socioeconomic Development in Asia

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. The research on which this paper is based was funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grant In the Shadow of Singapore: The Limits of Transnationalism in Insular Riau (DP0557368) – see project website http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/intheshadow/. Sophie Williams would also like to acknowledge fieldwork funding support provided by CAPSTRANS and the Faculty of Arts at the University of Wollongong. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. 2. The sex industry in the Riau Islands relies heavily on its Singaporean clients, over a million of whom visited in 2003 (BPS Kota Batam, 2004 BPS Kota Batam. 2004. Batam Dalam Angka 2003 (Batam in figures), Batam: Badan Perencanaan Penelitian dan Pengembangan Kota Batam. [Google Scholar]). According to an NGO survey, almost half of all sex workers' clients are from Singapore, and in 2004 one NGO in Batam had over 3500 sex workers on its books (Interview by Ford and Lyons, December 2004). 3. The term "uncle" is commonly used in the Singaporean popular vernacular to refer to a middle-aged and older generation of working-class Singaporean men, and as a term of respectful address to an older male. 4. Most sex workers in Batam charge between S$50 and S$100 per night, depending on their location within the industry and other factors like ethnicity. Singaporean prostitutes may charge the same amount for one hour. 5. In her focus group research with different groups of Singaporean Chinese men, Williams notes that "Having the five Cs – car, condo, credit card, cash, career" is often used as a trope to describe what it means to be "a successful man". In contrast, middle-aged unmarried working-class men were described as "having a character flaw". 6. The Sammyboy Times is available at: http://www.sammyboy.com. The postings used in this article are all taken from the publicly accessible pages of the January to October 2007 postings on the Batam Info Thread. 7. There are two other sites designed specifically for a resident Singaporean audience –nedbatam forum, and the warrenssingapore.com forum. These cater primarily to the needs and interests of expatriates living in Singapore. The blogging space, www.tomorrow.sg, contains information about commercial sex in Singapore and abroad in Batam, but is not solely devoted to this topic, and functions as a space for Singaporean bloggers to come together to discuss a variety of issues, both sexual and non-sexual. 8. A study by the Singapore Internet Project in 2002 reported that 46 per cent of adults (aged 18+) and 71 per cent of students (under 18) were regular users of the Internet. By the year 2000, 61 per cent of homes had a computer and 50 per cent of homes were connected to the Internet. By 2003, almost one million homes had access to broadband. Singapore has the highest density of Internet users in the world, and has the largest number of Internet messages and chat groups within Southeast Asia (Lee, 2003 Lee, T. 2003. Internet use in Singapore: Politics and policy implications. Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 107: 75–88. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 76). For a discussion on the place of the Internet within Singaporean culture see Lim (2005 Lim, A. 2005. "The culture of technology of Singapore". In CyberAsia: The internet and society in Asia, Edited by: Baber, Z. 41–56. Leiden, Boston: Brill. [Google Scholar]) and Goby (2000 Goby, V. P. 2000. Social interaction and the internet in Asia: A study of young Singaporeans. Australian Journal of Communication, 27(3): 79–90. [Google Scholar]). 9. There are a range of legal issues associated with accessing, downloading, and storing online sexual content, particularly where it relates to minors. The legal responses to these issues vary from country to country. For the purposes of our research, we were required to obtain approval from the Australian Minister for Justice and Customs prior to using an Australian Internet Service Provider (ISP) to conduct this research. For a discussion of the legal issues associated with this project refer to Lyons and Ford (2006 Lyons, L. and Ford, M. Certified product of Bintan: Disjunctures between the virtual and lived realities of the Riau Islands. Paper presented at Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Annual Conference. September27 – 30, Brisbane, Australia. [Google Scholar]). 10. As feminist scholars, our readings of The Sammyboy Times Talk Sex Forum are informed by Third World Feminism (see Mohanty, 1991 Mohanty, C. T. 1991. "Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses". In Third world women and the politics of feminism, Edited by: Mohanty, C. T. 51–80. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), critical race theory, and queer theory. Many masculinity scholars have noted the ethical and political dilemmas associated with studying the behaviour of men whose behaviours and views one does not share (see Connell, 1995 Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities, St Leonards: Allen and Unwin. [Google Scholar]; Flood, 2007 Flood, M. 2007. Men, sex, and homosociality: How bonds between men shape their sexual relations with women. Men and Masculinities, OnlineFirst[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 11. Quotation taken from the top banner of The Sammyboy Times, Singapore Asian Values Forum pages http://www.sammyboyforum.com/. 12. The Singapore government has sought to regulate Internet content through a range of measures, including censorship of websites and the introduction of rules pertaining to the publication of pornographic and violent material. Lee (2001 Lee, T. 2001. Auto-regulating new media: Strategies from Singapore's internet policy. Australian Journal of Communication, 28(1): 43–56. [Google Scholar]; 2003 Lee, T. 2003. Internet use in Singapore: Politics and policy implications. Media International Australia Incorporating Culture and Policy, 107: 75–88. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) suggests that auto-regulation of Internet use is the most active and effective form of censorship operative in Singapore at present. 13. The FAQs on the site state that, although welcome elsewhere on the site, "Non sexual topics are NOT to be discussed at Sam's sex forum". 14. The term "hub" has become a buzzword in Singapore in recent years. The term is used to designate spatial areas within the city which the government seeks to develop for particular purposes – education hub, arts hub, science hub. Sammyboy's status as "Singapore Virtual Sex Hub" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to these developments. 15. Singapore-English – a local creole. 16. Sammyboy Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). 17. National Service of two years is compulsory for all male citizens and permanent residents of Singapore upon reaching the age of 16½ years, and men continue to be called up for active reservist training until the age of 40 or 50 depending on rank. 18. The postings contained within the Batam Info Thread vary in length from short questions (1 – 2 sentences in length) to detailed field reports (FR) that last for several pages. 19. Waskul and Douglass (1997 Waskul, D. and Douglass, M. 1997. Cyberself: The emergence of self in on-line chat. The Information Society, 13: 375–97. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 384) note that emoticons provide a "mechanism for communicating contextual and emotional cues to others and hence validate them as experientially real in a social context". 20. Danet (2002 Danet, B. 2002. "Flaming". In Garland encyclopedia of semiotics, Edited by: Bouissac, P. 1–4. New York: Garland. [Google Scholar]) defines flaming as "sudden, often extended flare-ups of anger, profanity and insult".