miércoles, 6 de febrero de 2013

Another sex video scandal - Sun.Star

I HAVE been invited a number of times by mass communications students in a university in Cebu to speak about opinion writing. The last time I was there was only a couple of weeks or so ago. Every time, I focus on responsible use of the medium, whether print or radio or TV. I recently added social media into the mix.

The said university is a conservative institution run by a conservative officials. At the height of student activism in Cebu in the '80s, the school administration successfully walled the campus off from the radical wave that had engulfed other Cebu schools. It could not, however, prevent itself from being drawn into an issue started online.

Or should I say it started with the indiscretion that often hounds the young. By "indiscretion," I mean the decision of two students, one of them from the said university, to record an act done in private and ideally only by married couples. One of the recordings has gone online and is being feasted on both by the honestly interested and the vultures.

In the video, the woman erred twice. Since it was the man (reportedly a student of another university) who was holding the cell phone used to record the sexual act, it was the woman's face that got exposed. And since she did not bother to undress, the uniform she was wearing gave away her school.

The video was reportedly recorded two years ago. An official of the said university said the woman is no longer connected with the school. But even then, current enrollees of the university, the women most specially, are feeling the after-shock.

They feel like when they are in uniform, people would look at them from head to foot.

This has prompted the admin to suspend the policy on the wearing of school uniforms.

Here, my sympathy goes mostly to the woman, who I believe is now filled with worries about being ridiculed. I think she should be advised to stay away from the internet where vultures and sadists lurk. She should not read comments about the video because commentary portions online are often visited by the rash, shallow and rude.

"Getting away" is the operative phrase because answering the rash, shallow and rude won't work, more so advising them to be educated in their commentaries. People with closed minds won't listen.

Having said that, I think it pays for people to finally learn the lessons of past online "scandals." The Hayden Kho-Maricar Reyes-Katrina Halili episode of years ago may not have been lost on the student that figures in the current sex video controversy. Kho taped his separate sexual encounters with Reyes and Halili and the recording went online. The incident almost cost the acting careers of the two women.

What couples should note is that recording sexual trysts even if only for private consumption is dangerous in that these can find its way online where their spread would be difficult to contain. And once these are spread, these would remain online for years. The Kho-Reyes-Halili recordings for example can still be accessed in the internet.

In the sex scandal involving the university student, it was obvious that she knew that what she was doing was being recorded. That she allowed it only means that she refused to heed the lessons of the past. As a result, she is going through the same suffering that other women involved in similar incidents experienced.

(khanwens@yahoo.com)

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