By John M Glionna, Los Angeles Times, November 23, 2006
SINGAPORE — It’s past 4 a.m. and the music is throbbing at the Attica nightclub as Wei Siang Yu works the still-surging singles crowd like a celebrity.
Drinks in hand, patrons lean in close, shouting into his ear over the booming bass. Most just want to say hello, but a few seek something else: sex tips.
The doctor is in the house.
From taxi drivers to tax accountants, residents in this conservative city-state seek out Wei for bedroom advice. With the self-styled sex guru who bills himself as Doctor Love, they know they’ll get good counsel — without any moral judgment.
“This city is still very repressed when it comes to open talk about sex,” he said. “With me, they get a listening ear. I don’t judge them. I just answer their questions.
“Sex problems are normal. I tell them, ‘Go ahead, try it again.’ “
A kind of Larry Flynt-meets-Dr. Ruth, the 37-year-old physician presides over an Eros empire that has so far included a late-night sex-advice TV show, holiday “love packages,” sex-strategy books and a drop-in advice center known as the Playroom. Last month, he launched Singapore’s first adult magazine.
Wei embodies the lower-case sexual revolution now sweeping Singapore. In this tightly controlled island nation of more than 4 million people where Playboy magazine is still forbidden, the government is loosening long-standing restrictions on adult-themed entertainment to allow frank public talk about once taboo subjects.
The reason: Singaporeans aren’t having enough babies.
With Asia’s lowest fertility rate outside Hong Kong, in 2004 Singapore saw only 35,500 births, a number far below the 50,000 needed to replenish the population. It was the 28th straight year that the birthrate fell below the population’s “replacement rate,” experts say.
A recent survey of 22 nations by a condom maker put Singaporeans at the very bottom in terms of sex drive.
In a speech this summer, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sounded the alarm, warning that Singapore would have to produce more babies or welcome more migrants to sustain economic growth and living standards.
Officials have unveiled a $185-million package to encourage baby-making, including cash perks, child-care subsidies, tax rebates for working mothers and longer maternity leaves. They also introduced programs such as “Romancing Singapore,” which encouraged people to meet, fall in love, get married and procreate.
Reasons for this baby bust are complex.
In this hyper-expensive city, many young workers still live at home. Others are deferring marriage in favor of career and lifestyle. Those who do have children stop at two because of the high costs involved.
The job market is so competitive here that when young workers land a good position, they’ll do anything to keep it — such as staying long hours at the office or taking work home.
“This society is a pressure cooker,” said Singaporean sociologist Angelique Chan. “The feeling is that you’ve got to keep performing on the job or you’re going to be left behind. People feel so overworked and stressed out, they don’t have time to go out and find a partner. Married people have even lower sex drives.
“People are always talking about this here. And the consensus is that Singaporeans just don’t have enough sex.”
Carmen Leow is typical of many residents.
“I work 10 hours a day and when I get home and my boyfriend even mentions sex, I just sort of recoil,” said the 20-year-old bartender, adjusting her serpentine bicep bracelet. “A relationship in this city is like a second job. You just get so tired out.”
Although she plans to marry next year, Leow said, “we’re not having kids for at least 10 years. I just don’t have the time or energy.”
To counteract this paucity of sexual interest, the government has loosened its tie. Singapore now has a bar with topless dancers and recently sponsored its first sex exposition featuring bedroom aids and sex therapy. Newspaper ads such as the one for the recent movie “Black Dahlia” feature ads that trumpet, “Hottest sex scenes ever.”
Into this more permissive atmosphere has stepped Wei. Sporting oversized, box-shaped glasses that look like relics from a 1950s 3-D movie audience, he was an unlikely recipient of approval to publish the new adult magazine, which features soft-core nudity.
But Wei doesn’t aim merely to titillate.
He calls it “adult edutainment,” a concept that includes forums, advice and articles on vaginal surgery and maintaining healthy sperm and eggs. The main feature for the launch edition was a story on “Tokyo Love Hotels: Made for Extreme Pleasure.” In the mix also are artsy black-and-white nude photographs in heavy shadow.
“The magazine is not men-centric,” Wei said. “It’s for sex-doers, not lookers.”
Both have the same goal in mind, but Wei says he differs from government officials on how to boost Singapore’s fertility rate.
“Making a family should first be about passion, not duty,” he said. “It’s not about numbers. It’s about good, healthy sex. The baby comes as a bonus, the icing on the cake.”
He attributes high divorce rates to a sexual disconnect.
“Babies should be born into a sexually and emotionally stable environment,” he said. “That way the marriage will last.”
Educated in Australia, Wei rejected a typical medical practice to apply modern wireless technology to sexual research.
His first project was a hormonal mapping program aimed at helping women understand their ovulation and menstrual cycles so they could plan their pregnancies. He used a cellphone to alert women of their ovulation period.
He made headlines in 2002 when he organized a teenage sex education campaign called “Sex in the Air,” in which youths could anonymously text-message a panel of doctors and therapists.
What soon followed was a string of ideas based on better sex — such as Love Boat cruises that ferried stressed-out couples by yacht to luxury resorts, a series of sex-strategy books and newspaper advice columns.
In 2004, when government restrictions began to loosen, Wei aired a series of 30-minute TV programs that offered sex tips and tutorials — at midnight, when many couples were getting into bed.
He also launched Love Airways, taking the Love Boat concept into the air via charter flights to exotic destinations.
His Playroom in downtown Singapore, decorated in 1960s Austin Powers-like polka dots and bright colors, features a love swing, sexual aids and outfits for visiting couples to dress up in for carnal role-playing.
Wei has his critics, who dismiss him as a pornographer or a flake.
“He’s supposed to have a following,” sociologist Chan said. “But most people see him as an opportunist and entrepreneur with a bunch of wacky ideas.”
Wei acknowledges that he is no run-of-the-mill sex guru. He’s coy about his own sex life. Still single at an age when many men are already fathers, he lives at home with his elderly widowed mother.
“People ask, ‘Why are you qualified to talk about sex? You’re not even married. You live at home with your mom,’ ” Wei said.
“If they ever got to know me, they would know that this is my life’s work.”
He is also coy about his finances, saying only that he makes enough to launch new projects.
In the works is a new unscripted TV show, a “super baby-making contest” that will offer $100,000 to the first of 10 contestant couples to conceive.
He sends women in miniskirts and leather boots onto the streets of Singapore for sex surveys to be published in his magazine. He’s also researching his own line of condoms as well as Asia’s first “clothing optional” resort.
“I’m in the right place at the right time to help shape public attitudes about sex,” he said. “Because of the fertility dilemma, officials are willing to stomach Doctor Love. Hopefully, they’ll see that what I’m doing is part of a public health effort.
“Maybe one day they’ll understand it.”
