The Jakarta Post, Wednesday 8 February 2006
A letter from a mother, who turns tricks as she breastfeeds her baby screamed Tuesday’s headline in Lampu Merah, the daily’s front-page photo showing a woman reclining, wearing a red bra and black shorts, and cuddling a baby.
As the police attempt to sweep provocative magazines from the city’s streets, the yellow journalism of the gutter press is alive and well and finding a lucrative market among working men.
Without differentiating between obscene materials and those featuring cheesecake photographs of scantily clad models, police seized mainstream publications Indonesian Rolling Stone, Male Emporium and For Him Magazine among the smut last week.
Lampu Merah (“red light”) escaped the dragnet, despite its gory, sensationalized tales, crass language and lurid photos.
“Our paper wasn’t confiscated because we’ve never sold porn. What we sell are crime stories, including those about sexual abuse,” executive editor Gatot Wahyu told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Gatot acknowledged that photographs sometimes showed women’s cleavage, “but that’s usual right? You see artists bearing their cleavage every day on TV”.
He approved of the police sweep of newsstands selling sex-themed magazines with provocative photos, saying the models should be arrested for agreeing to pose.
He argued that Lampu Merah — first printed in 2001 and with a daily circulation of 125,000 in Greater Jakarta — provided a public service by information people about crime.
“Sexual abuse should be disclosed to society, otherwise the felon could escape society’s punishment, they might even become arrogant because of it,” he said.
Popular magazine managing editor Buyung Pramunsyie said he was perplexed about the confiscation of his magazine in the raids.
“I can’t understand it, we’ve held a publishing license for the past 18 years and we’ve never had any trouble before this,” he said, disregarding the reprimand the magazine received from the now defunct Information Ministry in 1991.
Although the magazine often features pictorials of swimsuit-clad models, Buyung reiterated Popular was not focused solely on sex, but a men’s entertainment magazine, providing articles including movie reviews, an automotive section and interviews that “have nothing to do with sex”.
Music magazine Rolling Stone Indonesia was a surprise among the raided materials, with copies taken from two vendors.
“I guess it was because they saw the cover was of Madonna, in her trademark Madonna pose,” managing editor Indra Thamrin said.
The experience has left his team nervous and cautious about the magazine’s content.
“Limitations on what is pornography are still so fluid that we are afraid what we consider art might be interpreted as smut,” Indra said.
