Of Beer and Brothels in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post has an Expat who contributes regularly called Duncan Graham.

The following is an interesting article in this weeks Post regarding Beer.

Although beer is not labeled halal (permitted) in Indonesia, nor is it haram (forbidden) to Muslims according to the straw poll of Muslims interviewed for this story. They say the religious prohibition is on abusing the drink and getting drunk.

Liberal Muslims joke that because beer is only five per cent alcohol they can drink because they're only 95 per cent Islamic.

While the image of beer in the West is benign and linked to friendly socializing, in Indonesia alcohol is sometimes associated with criminality and immorality.

It's also saturated in myths: Some believe one mouthful makes you drunk, and confuse beer with wine and spirits.

When the more simplistic sinetron (TV soap operas) show bad characters they usually pose unshaven actors with long hair swigging beer while plotting evil.

Brothels in Surabaya openly advertise and sell their clients beer, perhaps to dampen their ardor. Alcohol is popularly supposed to be a sexual stimulant, but the reality is otherwise, as the madams doubtless know.

As Shakespeare observed: "It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him."

This condition is more colloquially known as "brewer's droop".