I was feeling cocky today, because what I said yesterday in the post regarding the JC kid who committed suicide due to self-imagined poor endowment came out in the papers today. Doctors think what drove him to suicide might have been stress from being in a high ranking school (and other factors) that led to depression. This depression could've came in the form of BDD (read previous post) when he thought his penis wasn't big enough.
After digesting the whole article, I felt that the reporter who came up with yesterday's article stating misinformation during sex education in schools clearly didn't think deep enough or didn't watch The Opera Show. Anyway, some easy thinking will bring a question to his/her claims. When has sexual education ever covered anything with regards to the size of one's private parts? It was just plain weird.
I thank Oprah for letting me be cocky for one day, and shall resolve to watch the show whenever I have the time to.
I am the reporter who wrote the article. Although I myself believe that depression played a huge role in his suicide, my assignment was to report on the comments made by the coroner regarding sex education.
In general, The Straits Times does not report on suicides as we have been informed by authorities that the suicide rate spikes every time we run a suicide story. The only reason why the story ran was because someone important (i.e. the coroner) gave an opinion regarding the suicide.
Since my article ran, we have carried several stories about depression, the latest in Mind Your Body today (April 26).
Do email me if you have any comments.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Yap
ysteph@sph.com.sg
PS: No, I don't watch Oprah... I don't fall into the target audience of middle-aged ladies ;)