Singapore bans game over lesbian scene
An X box game has been banned by state censors in Singapore because of a lesbian love scene.
The authorities in the city state are among the most repressive in the free world. Computer games are not allowed to “feature exploitative or gratuitous sex and violence, or denigrate any race or religion.”
The game, Mass Effect, will be launched across the world next week.
The deputy director of Singapore’s Board of Film Censors said that because of “a scene of lesbian intimacy” the game has been “disallowed.”
This is not the first time that lesbians have fallen foul of the authorities.
In October 2006 Singapore’s main cable operator Star Hub Cable Vision was fined 10,000 Singapore dollars (£3,390) for showing a scene involving lesbian sex and bondage.
The Singapore Development Authority deemed the television show “sexually suggestive and offensive to good taste and decency.”
During the summer the authorities banned a gay photo exhibition, a gay poetry reading during Pride celebrations and a picnic and fun run from the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
Last month the Singaporean parliament legalised oral and anal sex in private between consenting straight adults in the first changes to the penal codes in more than two decades.
However the ban on “gross indecency” will remain in place and male homosexuals still face up to two years in prison for gay sex.
