There is much more to the controversial viral sex video of singer-composer Jim Paredes and it’s not even politics. It’s about sincerity.
The admission, albeit a complete 360 from an earlier denial, by the 67-year old staunch critic of President Rodrigo Duterte and his pronouncement of being truthful is not the main point of a discussion that is not seen to die soon. His supporters are blasting back with defenses of all sorts for the embattled musician from tempering the sexual act as humanly normal to claiming that it is made to silence the outspoken critic of the Duterte administration.
The issue is not about politics but it was Paredes himself who politicized it in his apology statement when he accused his political enemies of violating his privacy in an attempt to silence him especially in this period of the mid-term elections. Had he not dragged politics into the mess, it would not have blown out in massive proportions. But of course, video scandals, whether involving ordinary people or celebrities, are attention magnets. These are viral material and in its natural course, it will spread like wildfire.
In desperate efforts to cover up the scandal, Jim’s allies treated it rather tamely compared to the sex tutorials of Duterte supporter and former Palace communications official Mocha Uson. Mocha’s videos are in nowhere the same category as Paredes’ as the former made the videos for commercial purposes, hence scripted for effect. Paredes’ video is unedited, undirected, and unscripted. That’s the difference. But before the narrative goes elsewhere beyond the main point, the issue is not Jim being apologetic in his admission and asking that he be liberated for saying the truth after the fact, and wishing to come out clean after having made that.
Truth is, he addressed his apologies wrongly for he actually did not owe other people an apology. The people he owed apology to, and it’s big time, is his family–his wife most specifically.
The point is not about the sexual act per se, but the commission of an act of infidelity in engaging in a filmed sexual act with another person not his wife. That is the point many people, Jim included, missed out. While they insist masturbating may be normal, the act revels beyond normalcy when the circumstances are as convoluted as one made in unfaithfulness.
