After Bali announced that it will be booting Aussie bogans back to Australia if they get overly grotty, Indonesia has now announced that it will put you all in jail if you decide to have extramarital sex while visiting the country.
According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the increasingly-conservative Indonesian government are planning to introduce a series of sweeping legal changes that’ll make extramarital sex a jailable offence, even if it is consensual.
But lawmakers aren’t just cracking down on unmarried folks who want to get freaky in the sheets. Living together without being legally married – which can include simply sharing a hotel room with a friend – and obscene acts in public both will land you a six-month prison stint.
But look, these draconian laws aren’t all doom and gloom. The Indonesian government also plan on criminalising fake news, bestiality and black magic so it’s not all bad for us tourists from Australia.
If this extramarital sex law sounds like something ultra-conservative Indonesian lawmakers pulled out of their arse to punish tourists in Bali for not taking their pearl clutching seriously, well you’d be right actually.
Melbourne University and director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society Professor Tim Linsday says the highly regressive “extramarital sex provision is new to Indonesia” and can be pinned on the growing “moral panic” and “increasing conservatism” in the country, which has already targeted people from the LGBTQI+ community and other minorities.
Lindsay does note that the country is “awash with laws that are never enforced, so there’s that to take into consideration.
With hanky panky likely to be made illegal in Indonesia, this will undoubtedly have a massive impact on tourism. With the threat of jail looming for unmarried tourists, visiting Bali has suddenly become a travel risk should these new legal changes go through.
Don’t expect Bali to turn into a haven for married couples either as they’re likely to be vulnerable to extortion from corrupt cops who will insist you’re not married unless you pay them.
Unsurprisingly, these planned legal changes have sparked concern from human rights groups. Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono thinks the laws will be passed but will be “lobbying multiple parties to try and stop this.”
In the worst case scenario that where the laws do get passed, it’ll be a “couple of years” for the laws to be enforced so there’s a tiny silver lining.
So to all those tourists from Australia or wherever, if you’re planning to visit Bali then better get in quick before the ridiculous extramarital sex laws get passed.
Otherwise, I hear that Japan and Fiji are quite nice places where you can have all the fun and extramarital sex you want.