Monday, December 04, 2006

News you can use

Phone sex bill drives 14-year-old to suicide from The Times of India, World Digest/International, Page 18, December 4, 2006, Delhi Edition.

A 14-year old Chinese boy killed himself after running up a bill of 1,800 yuan ($230) calling phone sex numbers. Li Hongbin, from a village in poor northwestern Gansu province, dropped out of school last year and began calling expensive hotlines in August. He committed suicide by drinking pesticide after a telephone company clerk called at the family home asking for payment.


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Sad indeed. I can identify with the situation, no, I never called phone sex hotlines but at 14 and in a conservative world with hormones beating, life offers difficult choices. The shame and the shock, Li Hongbin, felt when his family was called for payment is at that age as good a catastrophe as the end of the world. The same-ness of human lives across cultures and in time is so innocently familiar. Plus ca change, Plus ca la meme chose [the more things change, the more they remain the same].

9 comments:

Agyan said...

Yeah you are right, and I can imagine your identifying with it. And there is no obvious solution to it. I am convinced you cannot allow 14-yrs old to have sex easily, especially in today's STD-driven world. I guess that's why nature provided us free hands, to quieten the hormones. Ever seen a primate struggling in heat??

... said...

Short comment:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm

itinerant said...

I didnt mean to say so much about letting him have what he wants, what I meant was let him meet girls, experiment and dabble, test the waters, it can work as a easier non expensive, non shameful way of hormonal release. This is exactly what paranoid and controlling cultures likes ours doesnt allow so it pushes an extremly normal biological growth into a shame and even more shameful and difficult ways of release.

... said...

You know, Satya, that movie script we were talking about better make it at some point of time. All it requires is that one of us becomes famous and gets given a serious amount of money. We have the ideas, and obviously there is a crying (weeping, sniffling, wailing) need for them.

... said...

man.. i thought of writing something abt this boy... imagine hormones making a person make calls and then when societal reality crashes in the poor chap killed himself... well, i didn't write considering the abuse of the phone that i was first-hand privy to..and other stuff... my heart goes out to this little boy, all he wanted was what practically everyone is looking for: gratification..

Anonymous said...

I think the rightness of the act is not being discussed here ... the maturity of the society to understand why was the boy doing what he was doing is the question. A growing kid overwhelmed by the demand of his harmones may do things which are not within the code of conduct of the society. However is the society mature enough to understand that this is quite a normal process ...

itinerant said...

Omair, yes, I know. But I am working on my craft....hahaha.....

Tharki in Turkey!

Anon, yeah.....but well I dont think any society represented as a society is mature....one can trust individuals but i think societies on the whole are very distrubing entities and invariably representative of the worst in individuals.....

I dont even suggest that western societies are better, no they arent, not in that communal sense but its the individual rights which make all the difference....

Amit Bajaj said...

my first visit to your blog, and i immediately zeroed in on the tinies of labels, sex and see where i landed. No wonder, i had called up these hotlines when i was 14!!

but that's a really nice post sat..you have said so little, and that's where it's worked so well - i guess.

Anonymous said...

That's why I didn't call you til I checked with my cell plan ; )