Soeryo Winoto, Jakarta – Thank God! Finally, the government has made its position clear on the controversial pornography bill.

State Minister for Women's Empowerment Meutia Hatta Swasono said Wednesday the focus of the bill should be on limiting the distribution of obscene materials, not prosecuting personal conduct, especially the conduct of women.

The day before, the chairman of the House committee deliberating the bill, Balkan Kaplale, said the bill on pornography would focus on pornographic materials and their distribution.

Meutia and Kaplale demonstrated strength of leadership and clear thinking among all the absurdity in the House surrounding this bill, including those legislators who insist the bill target personal conduct, particularly of women who wear a "certain" type of clothing.

This change in the emphasis of the bill was made only after waves of public protests, the latest by about 500 performers of the traditional tayub dance in Surakarta on Wednesday. Though the government was slow to respond to the public outcry, it could no longer ignore all the voices opposed to the bill.

While the legal definition of pornography here remains hazy, it is interesting to consider the American Family Association's online definition of pornography. This definition states, "Pornography is sexually explicit pictures, writing or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal."

Given that women are the target of the bill, it is pretty clear the House committee deliberating the bill is dominated by men. This underlines the results of a survey conducted in the US by Harris Interactive Inc. and released in September 2004. The survey found 57 percent of women believe pornography is demeaning to women, and showed that men and women differ in their views about pornography. This may help us understand why the majority of the protesters against the bill are women.

Of the many surprises surrounding the deliberation of the porn bill, the biggest is that none of the committee members have been able to offer a clear definition of what exactly constitutes pornography.

What is defined as pornography in the bill differs very little from the definitions of porn offered in articles 282, 283 and 284 of the Criminal Code, which have in the past been used to prosecute people from the entertainment world, including models.

The Criminal Code clearly is still relevant and workable. The problem seems to be the classic one of poor law enforcement.

Perhaps the House committee deliberating the bill should have considered the American Family Association's definition of pornography, whose key words are "to cause sexual arousal".

So, can a woman's outfit be considered sexually explicit material? Probably, since men apparently are so easily aroused, at least according to the original draft bill. This just highlights the absurdity of the definition of pornography. So how can the House committee decide something is pornographic when the exact definition of pornography is so unclear?

Perhaps inspired by the absurdity of the House members, the Tangerang mayoralty has passed its own regulation on prostitution, which has drawn criticism for targeting women. The mayoralty, however, remains unbowed and is preparing another regulation on the dress of female students.

Since the 1950s, students in the country have been playing a game of hide-and-seek with their teachers and a kind of moral police over their clothes. In those days female students were not the only targets. Boys with tight trousers, called Napoleons, had to be extra careful out on the street to avoid being caught by the police, who would insert a bottle inside the leg of their trousers. If the trousers proved to be so tight the bottle would not fit, the officer would slit the pants. And nobody complained or questioned the legality of the officers' actions.

In the 1970s, a lot of teens got into trouble over their hair. Quite a few boys sporting Beatles-like hairdos received unwanted haircuts from their teachers in front of their classmates. Teachers were also prone to confiscating "Beatles" shoes from unlucky fashion wanna-bes.

The authorities and teachers defended their actions by arguing that young people had to be protected from "destructive Western culture".

History clearly shows that the authorities here have always been impractical idealists who have turned quite trivial matters into major affairs. And if fashion caused moral decay among the young, as the authorities believed at the time, what are we to think of the moral state of people now in their 40s, 50s and 60s, who grew up with Napoleon trousers and Beatles shoes? Maybe lawmakers should consider adding an article to the Constitution governing how people dress, to save the country from moral decay.