Our wasted youth, or is it the wasted press?

There's this alarming news yesterday on the Standard and my beloved Apple Daily. According to the poll conducted by the Evangelical Lutheran CHURCH, we again have every reason to worry about our kids. Yes, again. The Standard reported that about ONE percent of our Primary 5-6 students, reads 11.1 of the 1,110 interviewed, said it would be "fine to have sexy or naked pictures taken and have intimate physical or sexual contact in exchange for payment". This is a big deal, you know? That means pedo bears will only need to try 100 children to get one who will take the bait. Moreover, five percents of them found it "acceptable for a friend to be paid for having a meal with someone, or having their pictures taken in exchange for money". Here I echo my TDS mate by asking what these fucking questions they've asked are. I actually expect far more "yes" than five percent. I'd say yes as well, wouldn't you?

One thing that puzzled me is that the above figures didn't appear in the Apple Daily report and that is so not Apple Daily! Instead of heading the "news" with an alarming and eyes-catching title like "Pedo Bears WIN" or "Alarm as kids say yes to pedophilia compensated dating" like the Standard, Apple Daily took a more moderate reporting angle of sexuality among peers and gave us a list of acceptance of different intimate or sexual acts by our kids (from 1,100 Primary 5 to Secondary 3 kids; so was it 1,110 or 1,100?):

• Dating - 46.8%
• Holding hands - 47.5%
• Cuddling - 45.6%
• Kissing - 28.7%
• Caressing - 16.2%
• Fucking - 7.2%

That made the piece of "news" far less alarming as the Church intended it to be. Unless you cling on to that Stone Age belief that students should not have romantic relationships, you wouldn't be surprised by these figures. It doesn't take a poll to tell that kids are more open to relationship and sex these days compared to our days, and virtually more channels to get acquaintance. Let's not debate on whether kids should fuck before 18, but I think 7.2% is about the right percentage of acceptance to sex. I imagine the percentage of positive replies to that question would actually be higher if they asked us when we're in school, when sex was still a mystery to be unveiled through the secret viewing of our dads' porno. Everybody wanted to get laid in my school and we spent hours everyday pondering on how. That's just normal adolescent life, isn't it?

Whether they would really fuck, if it is right or wrong, and how adults should handle the issue, is another question. I wholeheartedly support that they should be better educated on sex. They should be taught about safe sex and stuff. It's nothing worrisome but an opportunity. They will do it anyway...teenage is about sex, sex, sex. Been there, done that.

"In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation." - Roger Allen

Anyway, the difference in how this piece of junk food news from certain obscure church was handled by the two papers was interesting. There're certainly more gweilo and gweipo readers for the Standard than the Apple Daily, so maybe Kaylene Hong thinks that gweilos and gweipos are more into pe...pedo...ah, well, I mean, people who like to buy somebody meals and have their pictures taken. Lesson to learn, Jimmy. Apple Daily should have been more tabloidish than a real tabloid.

On a side note, I thought the cracking down of the 300 millions worth of cocaine on Sunday night would make it to the headlines of every single newspaper of our Village. This is historic, isn't it? But no. The Standard headed the first page of their Monday paper with the Taiwanese leaders' debate. Tony Chan and the Church poll headed the local news section. Maybe the reporters there don't work late on Sundays? Oh, Kaylene Hong was busy reporting on the ICC "top jobs" on Sunday as well. That explains why they missed the real news.

I start to love the Standard more than Apple Daily.