Editorial response to the ridge-NUS Sex Survey, February 2008
13 03 2008To all readers:
Last month, the ridge published an article that reflected the results of the sex survey carried out by yours truly on behalf of the magazine.
It has been brought to my attention that the main gripe readers had with the article was the lack of crucial information to put the numbers in the article into context. This is totally my oversight and I would like to apologise to all readers who felt misled by the information. I hope that by putting up the survey results available for download on ridgeonline, the ridge has taken one baby step to clarifying the issue.
For the record, the sample size of genuine respondents was 56, and the sample size from each faculty was not the same. The survey was disseminated to NUS students through Facebook, Yahoo! groups and emails within the period of 2 weeks in January 2008.
To ‘Alvin’, thank you for posting up your comments on ridgeonline. The article was not meant to be totally comical or parodic, but it was meant to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Some readers have accused the ridge of sensationalism. This is untrue. While it is arguable that anything related to sex is of interest to the masses and therefore deemed sensational, the article’s focus was on the issue of safe sex and sexual education in Singapore.
It has come to our attention that a mainstream newspaper has exploited my mistake and, without further research, deemed itself fit to run the headline “64% of NUS undergraduates have sex”. I would like to point out that the original article made it a point to say 64% of all respondents, instead of the entire university, have sex in hostels. The survey results, after removing multiple identical respondents, show a result of 62.5%. Unfortunately, the good people of that particular newspaper failed to read the original article properly, much less refer to the sex survey results provided online.
A large part of the article was on safe sex and sexual education, something most people do not pay attention to. I regret to say that the original article has failed in its attempt to highlight a major issue in the sexual practices of some NUS students; not the sex itself, but the lack of protection used.
There is a basic misunderstanding of the nature of the article. It was not a news report but a commentary. The student interviewees were an attempt to shed light on some of the results of the sex survey, and there was a conscious effort not to involve ‘professionals’ because it was assumed that NUS students know themselves best.
An English Language senior is obviously not an expert on sex and sexual morality, but as part of the NUS community, his perception may reflect the perception of many others in his peer group.
Some of the interviewees’ opinions may be factually wrong but that is because they were personal opinions. Many behind the Repeal 377A campaign share the opinion that homosexual intercourse is not a crime. The law does not decide what an individual believes in.
I thank Moses for pointing out that the correct reference to 377A is ’section 377A’ instead of ‘Act’ and apologise to more informed readers for the glaring mistake.
A comment left on the NUSSU wall at YIH went as follows:
What does this sentence mean? What is your vendetta against SDE?
There is no vendetta. Respondents from SDE amounted to a grand total of 3, and all indicated that they were virgins. I’m sure that being a virgin is not seen negatively in NUS, and I assert that it was not my intention to paint SDE students as in any way negatively. I apologise to all SDE students for any perceived disrespect.
As to the perception that the idea of a larger concentration of homosexual and bisexual students in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is “defam[atory]”, I urge the reader to show more respect towards a group of people who are every much a part of our community.
Yes, I am an undergraduate of FASS, and yes I did my research. I refer you to an article in the Washington Monthly by Richard Florida (“The Rise of The Creative Class”, 2002)
which surmised that diversity in all forms- whether in terms of ethnicity or sexuality- influenced the amount of creativity in a community. You may argue that my usage of the information provided in the article was a classic case of cognitive error, and in any case, you have the right to think so. But I did my research.
To the reader who had an issue with the fact that there are couples who engage in sex and sexual activities in halls and residences; I stand by my statement. Yes there are. Yes I live on campus. Yes I have seen and heard enough.
Finally, to the reader who states that the article contained “appalling quality of writing [and] editing” and asked if it was the “writer’s folly or [the] editor’s irresponsibility”, I will say both.
I apologise for the grammatical error in the second column on page 16 and the typo in the first paragraph of page 17. Editing should have been more stringent. I am sorry you were appalled and I am sorry for readers who were disappointed with this lapse in standard uncharacteristic of the ridge.
I would like to thank readers who took the trouble to tear off the pages and pin it on the NUSSU wall with their comments and those who visited ridgeonline and kindly informed us of their opinions not only on this article but others as well.
I would also like to thank members of the NUS community who took part in the survey in January.
But more than anything, I would like to apologise to the ridge, its writers and loyal readers as well as NUSSU if my article contributed to any form of embarrassment and inconvenience on their part. I hope that the numerous merits of the magazine far surpasses my clumsy blunder in the aforementioned article.
Nurhayati Khan
Chief Editor
The Ridge
An excerpt of this response is published in the March 2008 issue of the ridge.
Related articles:
why your survey only has 26 non-virgins but in the question that follows (how often to do engage in sexual intercourse) there were 27 respondents? or like a figure of more than 26 respondents responded to whether they used protection in sexual intercourse?
…. maybe some of the ‘virgins’ were lying. there might be more of them lurking around.. you know? those lying-virgins………….
lol. lying virgins?
ahck… that’s why i hate surveys. u can never be sure if the person filling it up is just plain bullshitting or not.
and then there’s the problem of random sampling..when the survey was carried out through Facebook, Yahoo! groups and emails, perhaps only those who feel strongly about the topic will bother to respond. that may be why the survey results seemed to be ’skewed’..
Hmm… I was just thinking: perhaps it should also be conveyed to the local media that the survey statistics have been misrepresented, considering that the local media has already went to town publicising the idea “64% of NUS students are having sex more than once a week”.
I mean, it is rather disconcerting to see STOMP bloggers talking about this issue.
To the Chief Editor of The Ridge,
Your mistakes simply point out your sloppiness and lack of professionalism. I am greatly disappointed and I can’t believe someone in your position could report such figures based on a badly done survey. You must have known that such sensitive issues would cause a lot of commotion and yet, didn’t take any steps to obtain more accurate and representative data.
I also deplore your use of defamatory language targeted at some students and reporting things such as “free live shows” which are unheard of and possibly not true and aimed towards creating sensationalism. In all, I also despise the media for taking such “reports” too seriously since you all are just students writing stories for ‘CCA points’ and ‘having something to write in your CVs.’
I strongly urge you to apologise to the media and other affected publics for publishing such distorted reality about NUS students. I also suggest you to re-do a better study in the future in order to clear the misconceptions people have about NUS students.
I am sorry for using such offensive language, I have nothing personal against The Ridge and/or its members but you should know that “with great power comes great responsibility” and your responsibility here, is towards students and other readers which you failed to respect.
On the other side of the coin, your article gains credit as an eye-opener by raising concerns about on-campus sex safety which has often been disregarded by the NUS.
For the umpteenth time, your report entitled ’sex survey’ was deplorable!! I was amazed how juvinille sense of reasoning was:S:S Please dont be offended ,but, I don’t think you have the right to assume that gays and lesbians are crowed in arts because they tend to like softer fields to hard sciences. There is no proof for your claim.
On a much more positive note, The ridge is a wonderful magazine. Hence, this small slip cannot stop me from wanting to read all the lovely articles you guys come up with month after month.
softer fields? hard sciences?
oh dear. that’s just stereotyping isn’t it?