Guns and genitals: Between murder and sex

A more highbrow approach to the title of this article would be “Eros and Thanatos” — the Greek personifications of love — the energy of life — and of death, respectively. In the media world, the phrase “sex and violence” is portrayed as the chief nightmare of parents and censors. But it is precisely this, sex and violence, that the general audience — especially young men — are looking for. Americans and Asians stereotypically are more sensitive toward nudity than they are toward violence.

 

Europeans, on the other hand, are thought to be more squeamish toward scenes of violence while being more generous toward portrayals of naked human bodies. TV5 Monde, a French cable channel, was suspended in Indonesia for showing a nude scene from a film.

 

While we are still making sense of how the murders of seven Army officers and an alleged coup attempt resulted in the mass murder of perhaps a million Indonesians 50 years ago, we are shocked by the alleged torture of two villagers by dozens of men largely known to them — in a public space and in broad daylight. At least the reason for the attack in the East Java village against Tosan and Salim Kancil, who died soon afterwards, was clear. It was for sand, a precious commodity as more Asian cities and countries push their reclamation projects forward. In two more developed countries, people were killed for more obscure reasons.

 

Nine people were killed for no reason in Oregon, US, on Oct. 1. The next day an employee of the New South Wales police force was killed in Sydney, Australia — by a teenager chanting Islamic slogans. The young men who committed both murders ended the day in a body bag.

 

Australia banned and restricted the legal ownership of self-loading rifles and pump-action shotguns after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania. It is still unknown how the teenage killer acquired his firearm and learned how to handle and operate it, but he was not the first Australian planning to commit mass murder in recent times. Channel Seven, a television network, reported that the killer, Farhad K. Mohammad Jabar, had attended a Hizb ut-Tahrir lecture in Lakemba, Sydney, although the Islamic organization denied the report. There are concerns, however, that Muslim youth in metropolitan Australia have been exposed to conspiracy theories and violent ideas from an early age.

 

Had Jabar met online with Christopher Harper-Mercer, the Oregon killer, they might have argued with one another about the nature of Islam. Like the 2014 Isla Vista mass murderer, Harper-Mercer was a man of mixed race who hated his colored background and embraced white supremacy. He also blamed religions, especially Christianity, for his shortcomings in life, especially in love. There was an unconfirmed message warning of a mass shooting in the northwestern US before Harper-Mercer’s action, posted on the anonymous message board 4chan. The website’s responders welcomed the threat, and after the tragedy they congratulated the shooter and blamed women for not going out with guys like them and Harper-Mercer, “forcing” them to go on a killing spree.

 

A perplexed US President Barack Obama said that prayers were no longer enough. Gun control is the solution (Harper-Mercer and his mother reportedly possessed over a dozen firearms legally), but, as usual, the National Rifle Association and Republican politicians, including most presidential candidates, stand against America’s president. To support the president, several bloggers and journalists have created diagrams that show that so far more Americans have died from gun violence in this century than from terrorism.

 

The conservative refusal to discuss gun control coincided with a push to defund Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health NGO. Many Americans and foreigners ask how people could fear female sexual health more than assault rifles.

 

Indeed, the legality of firearms possession in the US, based on the Second Amendment of the American Constitution, baffles the world. It is easy to ridicule America as a cowboy country, and wonder how Americans haven’t learned anything after so many have been killed in several mass shootings, including children. It is hardly clear why conservatives defend the policy strongly. The most common argument is that mentally ill people undertaking a killing spree could be defeated sooner if everyone carried guns legally.

 

Certainly the normalization of violence and the fear of sexual freedom are also with us here in Indonesia. Some of us have ridiculed and condemned the arrest of two women in Aceh suspected of being a lesbian couple, simply because they hugged and because one of them had short hair. More controversial is the criminal probe into a hotel in Bali that was said to have hosted a marriage ceremony for a gay couple. On the other hand, you might not have heard that the Pope received Iwan Bagus, a native of Jakarta who is now a photographer in Washington, DC, and his longtime partner Yayo Grassi, at the Vatican Embassy in late September.

 

Pope Francis does not have to agree with their romantic preferences to accept them.It’s easier to hate than to love, although birth comes easier than death. It is still a mystery why we are less comfortable with the depiction of romance than the depiction of violence. It is also easier to explain to children how people die than how babies are made. Some horrible people even can explain why certain kinds of people deserve to die, instead of why they deserve to be loved. Some others confuse sexual violence with love.

 

Perhaps it’s because we can attribute mortality to God and nature, but not love and sexuality.

 

 The writer Mario Rustan is a columnist for feminist website Madgalene.co