Week 2: Free Seks

           One of the most popular issues in Indonesia’s adolescent which closely related to
pacaran or dating. This issue has been acknowledged since the early years of the reform or
the mid-2000s. Many beliefs that this issue is one of the unwanted results of globalization or
westernization. Meanwhile, in the early reform era, Indonesia’s entertainment industry is
more liberate than it is today. This supported by western tv programs that used to air in
Indonesia’s television. However, this phenomenon resulted in moral panic in many sectors in
Indonesia. Regarding this issue, Indonesian adolescent’s moral is one of the main concerns of
the following sectors. First, mainly focuses on magazines, newspapers, and books, in this
section explained about how these media portrayed adolescent and to give ideas regarding the
standards of being a teenager and to emphasize that sex before marriage is wrong, the
negative influence of western culture, and the sloping trend of adolescent’s morality. Second,
government and law where just like the previous topic it focuses on West Sumatra as they
implement Syariah law where it mainly based on Islam’s law as every law there are based on
the Quran. Third, from the education system in Indonesia, there are no specific course or
material which focused on sex education as the education focuses on the student’s moral.
Fourth, the moral panic discourse of young people where it explains about adolescents who
are already concern about these aspects of morals and things that are right or wrong in their
point of view. Fifth, in approaching Zina or pre-marital sex talk about things that are
considered Zina by an interviewee who is a Muslim and a tourism vocational student, where
she considered holding hands and kissing as pre-marital sex acts. Sixth, the topic of
Berpacaran tells perspective from someone who refuses to have a boyfriend, how pacaran
affects their lives, and how they get into pacaran in West Sumatra and Solo. Last, good girls,
in this part a perspective from young women who has strong Islamic beliefs and how they
interpret pacaran and soul-mate. After all that, my concern regarding this topic is that one of
the cause that free sex has become a national issue is the lack of sex education and safe sex
knowledge. Globalization may take the blame on this occasion, but not as much as people
think. The government should evaluate its way to prevent free sex or even unplanned
pregnancy, which may not be relevant anymore. To have mandatory sex education in school
will teach adolescent about sex even more from the biological aspect such as diseases from
free sex. Also to not classify sex as taboo is very important, as some adolescent still do not
know what is condom let alone how to use it. Although, to have religion knowledge is
important to as some may avoid free sex and even pacaran because of god or in Islam called
fisabilillah.