Perang Masyarakat Ngeseks (Basis No. 03-04, Th. ke-52, Maret-April 2003) [The War of a Sex-Obsessed Society (Basis No. 03-04, Year 52, March–April 2003)]

Abstract

A piece by Sindhunata in the Tanda-Tanda Zaman (Signs of the Times) column of Basis magazine, Sex Edition, March–April 2003, written when the United States attacked Iraq. Starting from George W. Bush's speech at West Point (June 2002), which denied imperial ambition, the author recalls the history of the Spanish-American War of 1898, "the splendid little war" in the words of Secretary of State John Hay, which was triggered by mistaken accusations over the explosion of the USS Maine and ended in the annexation of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Referring to film critic Katja Nicodemus on Hollywood films, the "Rambo" style of CIA special forces, America's ambivalent attitude towards sex in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and the controversial book A Natural History of Rape by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer, Sindhunata argues that sexual repression and ambivalence can turn into aggression and violence, so that he reads the aggression against Iraq as a sign of the psychological unease of a superpower.