Watch out for those camera phones and digicams!

I am not too comfortable about writing this in the first place. My worst fear is that this article would give the impression that I’m saying it is okay for Moslem Malaysian Malay ladies to go out dating with non-muhrim males. The issue that I’m about to share with the whole world today is actually highlighting the dangers and perils of dating or pre marital relationship. The best thing that I could hope to accomplish from this writing is that Moslem Malaysian Malay ladies would realize upon reading just how cruel this world can be to innocent and naïve women.

This writing is more or less a follow up to my last article highlighting the dangers of uploading personal photos or pictures on Social Networking sites. Today, I’m going to give Malaysian Malay ladies especially another not so pleasant reality shock. The world today has seen many developments in technology but yet many are oblivious to the dangers that they might pose to our daily lives. Everybody today does a lot of sweet talking especially on the topics of new technologies. Come on folks, we cannot continue living in this world pretending that everything the world threw at us today is okay for everybody. Every good thing has a price and sometimes we have to pay dearly for their so called convenience.

Let’s take a look at mobile phones nowadays. Almost every model today comes with good quality built-in camera that can snap digital photos or short videos real quick. Even a 6 year old kid could take quality pictures or videos with ease nowadays! Over in Malaysia, owning mobile camera phones are considered hip and trendy especially by city folks. It is common to see folks changing or swapping their old mobile camera phones to newer models at least once a year, much to the delight of our local mobile phone distributors! They are laughing all the way to the bank indeed!

Let’s go back to the issue in hand. From time to time I did approach a few Malaysian Malay women and ask them whether they are aware of any potential dangers that camera phones might pose to them and their answers really surprised me! Majority of them are oblivious to the many dangers that as matter of fact have been reported so many times in the newspapers and even in the internet. It is sad to see that some women are not at all aware of current issues that inadvertently put them in the spotlight. Malaysian Malay ladies, please do a lot more quality reading especially on issues or topics regarding women in general. Malaysian Malay ladies who socialize quiet openly with members of the opposite sex should take note of what I’m about to share here today.

Malaysian Malay ladies and men here have more or less silently accepted dating or pre marital relationship as their common social practice. It is not too apparent in small towns but you can see it clearly in big cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johore Bahru. You can see Malaysian Malay couples here and there like a pack of hungry sardines. Teens that are living with their parents are subjected to parental curfews like in any other countries and they would normally be safe at home in the evening. However, those that migrated far from their home towns living carefree lives away from their parents could be seen walking together holding hands late in the evening. Sometimes you can even see them in the wee morning hours! When they are into something this deep, you can bet that there would trouble brewing down somewhere.

Malaysian Malay ladies should take note that not all men are worthy of trust. Some are just pretending to be nice just to get close to you and the next time you know, they would take something very precious from you. I’m not talking about the ‘S’ word here. I’m talking about your dignity and reputation. It is not easy for me to say this but believe me, some men are indeed beasts! Many Malaysian Malay ladies have fallen prey to this indescribable type of men. They have this sick passion of either secretly or openly taking pictures or videos of their lovers often in awkward situations (making outs and so forth) and later sharing them with their male friends and even goes to the extent of posting them on the internet. This sick trend bothers me deep inside for it has gone too far! I certainly could not blame this entirely on women. No women in the world would have the heart to share their private or intimate moments graphically with the whole world. Malaysian Malay ladies may have been modernized but I do believe that they still have those strong Eastern values left in them. There is no way in hell that Malaysian Malay women would do this sort of thing by their own accords.

To be fair though, this abuse and misuse of camera phones by irresponsible parties should not be singled out to males alone. Women among themselves may indirectly inflict harm to each other. Female students or working singles living in shared quarters may sometimes take photos or videos of their mates while changing clothes for an example and share those with their female friends maybe just for the fun of it. The fun ended when it got out of hand and some jerk would later post and distribute them on the internet causing much emotional pain and embarrassment to the innocent victim! YouTube have seen a lot of this nonsense and some of those victims are our Malaysian Malay ladies!

Most of the innocent victims of camera phone abuses and misuses suffered tremendous emotional pain. Those that did not seek help from professionals have succumbed to great anxiety and some even have committed suicides! Some unfortunate women meanwhile have been blackmailed by those in possession of their personal photos and videos. Extortionists would demand either sex or money in return for the photos and pictures. This is not a joke, folks! Feel free to visit any of our local NGO offices and ask them about this problem here in Malaysia. Their figures and statistics are very disturbing indeed!

I have collected a few noteworthy tips and pointers given by professionals on this issue and I hope by sharing them here today might help women anywhere in the world:

• Be fully aware of what is going on around you! Be alert at all times!
• Learn to say NO! Don’t just give in to what your lovers are asking you to do!
• If you are living in a shared quarters, make ‘no camera phone photo or video shooting’ as the number 1 all important house rule! Make sure that everyone understands why such rule exists in the first place!
• If you and your companion succumbed to the heat of the moment, make sure that both of you are safe from peeping toms! If your idiotic male companion is making an attempt to take photos or videos of your err.. activities, ask him to stop immediately. Delete whatever is necessary and switch off his camera phone or digicam. (I should repent and perform Taubah for saying this…)
• If you find that somebody has uploaded your photos or videos online in some video sharing sites such as YouTube, call or send an email and kindly ask them to remove your photos and pictures because they have been posted without your given permission. Under normal circumstances, they would normally pull back any photo or video postings within 24 hours.
• If you have been blackmailed by somebody, don’t simply listen to their demands. File a police report quietly and let the authorities take charge.

To those perverts who love to destroy other innocent women’s lives by posting their personal photos and videos online, I want to ask you something today. How would you feel when one day you would get married and have children of your own and later found that personal photos or videos of any one of your daughters have been posted or distributed on the internet? Would you still be smiling then? Please remember that whatever goes around comes around!