As the first light of dawn brightens the streets of Rangoon, news vendors are busy distributing the day’s magazines and journals. With Burma freeing up its press and the country taking faltering steps towards democracy, circulation is booming.
But there is one magazine missing this morning:
Nhyot, Burma’s first sex magazine. Only 1,000 copies of the first and only edition of
Nhyot (meaning ‘allure’) were published, and it sold out as soon as it hit the shelves. But the magazine had its licence immediately revoked, the first since the end of military rule.
Editor Ko Oo Swe admits the first issue of
Nhyot raised many eyebrows, but said his magazine was aimed more towards educating readers about sex than titillating them.
“Nowadays we’re exposed to many kinds of adult entertainment such as online sex, sex web pages, and offline adult entertainment in hotels or clubs,” he says, “we wanted the magazine to make people aware about sexually transmitted diseases.”
The first issue did combine sex education and entertainment and a red label on the front page warned readers the magazine contained adult material, and was to be sold to those above the age of 18 only.
Burma’s Information Ministry, which now allows coverage of opposition figure Aung San Suu Kyi and critical political coverage, found sex too hot to handle. It accused the magazine of breaching its licence as a fashion publication by printing sexually explicit articles and photos.
Official estimates put the number of Burmese with HIV/AIDS at 200,000, but in reality the number is said to be much more because of prostitution and injecting drug users. Nearly half of those afflicted are women.
Burma is still a conservative society compared to neighbouring Thailand, and many are shy to talk about sex or HIV, or even to read about it in magazines. Public health experts say that only by openly discussing sex can the spread of diseases be stopped.
Says Hmu Hey Thar Khae, a health worker: “This magazine helped our work a lot because it reached lots of people across the country, we have to spread awareness about preventing sexually-transmitted diseases such as HIV.” But she adds that the pictures in the first issue need not have been so vulgar.
But Zin Mar, a 22-year-old accountant, says she can’t wait to see the next edition. “We need a magazine like
Nhyot to spread knowledge. We can’t learn about this from our family or from school, our culture doesn’t allow it,” she admits. “If we don’t know anything,” she says, “we’re always more likely to do something wrong.”
Ko Oo Swe plans to appeal the censor board’s decision, and once the magazine restarts, wants to add more content, focus on HIV prevention, and tackle issues like violence against women.
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