Singapore has a shockingly high prevalence of rape. That is undoubtedly the impression one would get from watching MediaCorp's television series. In too many dramas on Channel 8, women characters are subjected to rape, and sometimes more than once.

In the blockbuster The Little Nyonya, the mute Juxiang (Jeanette Aw) is the daughter of a maid who was raped by her rich Peranakan employer.

Years on, her niece, Yuzhu, played by Joanne Peh, is raped by the villainous Robert Zhang (Zzen Zhang), on a dark and stormy night no less, and later violated by a Caucasian man - with Robert's permission.

In the current series, The Ultimatum, rape is one of many hackneyed melodramatic devices the scriptwriters resort to, which include babies being swopped at birth. One sometimes gets the feeling that there is a huge Wheel Of Misfortune the writers on Caldecott Hill spin around to mix and match calamities from series to series. Felicia Chin's character, Sun Min, is gang-raped by three men, after which she teeters on the verge of a mental breakdown.

It is as if we have never moved on from the black-and-white Cantonese melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s in which a heroine's deflowering would be followed by a shot of a vase being tipped over.

Only difference is, with each rape scene in a new show, it seems that the ante has to be upped to prevent viewer fatigue. Hence Peh's double rape and Chin's gang-rape.

Also, actresses nowadays are expected to show a little more skin - no more fadeaways a la the 1950s and 1960s for modesty's sake. For her trials and tribulations, though, Peh won Best Actress at the Star Awards this year.

The most recent on-screen rape in The Ultimatum stirred reader Jennifer Tay to write to Life!: 'Is showing rape and violence the only way Channel 8 scriptwriters are able to draw audience sympathy for their characters? Are rape scenes truly necessary to create 'deep' and award-winning characters?'

Responding to the letter, Mr Paul Chan, vice-president of Channel 8's branding and promotions, denied that rape is a key ingredient in their programmes, adding: 'While we maintain high programming standards for content scheduled in accessible time slots, there is also a need for the programmes to strike a realistic chord in their story-telling, and be able to engage viewers with relatable content.'

And exactly how is rape considered relatable content for most viewers? Although there was an increase in the number of reported rape cases last year compared to the previous two years (172, up from 129 in 2007 and 118 in 2006), we are not a nation of sexual miscreants that TV makes us out to be.

Channel 5 is also guilty of resorting to rape as a convenient plot device. In Fighting Spiders, a drama about three schoolboys in 1960s Singapore which ends on Tuesday, Simon (Timothy Nga), a doctor, forces himself upon the virginal Annie Tan (Ezann Lee).

Not only is scripting a rape scene a lazy way of quickly pushing viewers' buttons, the frequency with which it is used suggests a pernicious misogyny.

No one is suggesting that MediaCorp churns out high-minded series focusing on positive family values all the time. But that cannot mean pandering to the lowest common denominator through titillation.

The overuse of rape in plots risks trivialising and desensitising the very real trauma of this horrific atrocity. And that would be a crime.

FIGHTING SPIDERS (2009)

A side plot in this nostalgia drama about three schoolboys growing up in the 1960s has the virginal Annie (Ezann Lee) raped by her fiance.

RED THREAD (2009)

Celest Chong plays the kind-hearted Kong Li-Ann, who falls prey to her boyfriend Robert Leong (Simon Wong) during their university days. Years later, he again attempts to assault her sexually.

METAMORPHOSIS (2007)

Yvonne Lim had to endure a two-day shoot for the rape scene in this crime drama. It marked a crucial turning point for her character, a gentle psychiatrist. She won the Best Actress award for this role.

THE ULTIMATUM (2009)

The pitiful Sun Min (Felicia Chin) is gang-raped by the baddie Ye Rende (Jerry Yeo) and his henchmen and is driven to the brink of madness.

THE DEFINING MOMENT (2008)

Rui En rejected the high-profile role of an ambitious businesswoman struggling with mental illness because of a rape scene in the script. It went to Fann Wong instead.

THE PRICE OF PEACE (1997)

Carole Lim has been cast as a rape victim several times. In this war drama, she played a long-suffering woman who was raped, and later stripped on a busy street. Her performance won her a Best Actress award.

PRETTY FACES (1991)

Zoe Tay played the materialistic Bobo who is raped by her drunken lover (Desmond Shen). That episode set a record then with over a million viewers tuning in.

This article was first published in The Sunday Times.

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