Anything Goes

Moammar Emka hates to be put in a box. Unfortunately, the greatest thing that ever happened to him — becoming a best-selling author of a series of potboilers on Jakarta’s seamy underside — has turned out to be a very mixed blessing. Maggie Tiojakin meets him.

The mention of Emka, as he is known, became a guaranteed conversation starter with his sudden emergence several years ago. Best known as the man who penned the Jakarta Undercover Trilogy — books which serve more as collectibles than actual guides to Jakarta’s nocturnal high jinks — he became associated with all things sexual, dark and perverse.

Short and slight with an unruly goatee, he speaks candidly in the vernacular of an intellectual-cum-party boy, but that slightly disheveled appearance often results in being mistaken for a grungy, wild-living hippie.

It’s these two contrasting sides to his personality that have helped him in his work as an undercover journalist. Unassuming but observant, he spent six years sneaking in and out of invitation-only parties, private clubs and homes to find out about the sexual adventures going on behind closed doors.

An exhaustive 484-page anthology of sorts, the first of the trilogy, Jakarta Undercover: Sex ‘n the City (2003), details the author’s experiences observing the capital’s wilder side. But he insists the book was never meant to be a “sex tour guide” and he deliberately omitted overtly pornographic elements in the writing.  

“Sex is entertainment, I know that now,” he says. “I didn’t know that before, while I was in the middle of my research. I thought these people must have been out of their minds! … It may seem deviant, but it’s very human,” he adds. “What is happening now with the entertainment scene here, and everywhere else around the world, is a human condition.”

Once the writing was done, it took him a year to find a publisher. Nearly every one rejected the manuscript on the grounds of obscenity. When Galang Press decided to come on board, he was thrilled, but due to the controversial subject matter, he set his expectations as low as possible.

He shouldn’t have: the book tapped into the prurient tastes of the public, and Emka was for a time a sought-after guest on assorted late-night talk shows. The book is now in its 33rd printing with more than150,000 copies sold (the English translations of the first two books have been best-sellers in Singapore and are available worldwide). In 2006, the movie Jakarta Undercover, a fictionalized story loosely based on the book, was released, with a second on its way.

Emka and his books have their fair share of critics, who charge they perpetuate the stereotype of women as sexual playthings to be exploited by men. 

“I was skeptical at first [about the book’s sales],” he confides. “I thought people would be too shocked or too narrow-minded to hear the things I had to say. Of course, at the time, everyone was discreet about their sexual habits.”

He leans back in his seat and sighs. “If I were to publish the book right now, in the year 2008, I would change the title to Jakarta Buka-Bukaan (Jakarta Bares All). Don’t get me wrong: it’s still a secret, but it’s the public’s secret.”

Educated in an Islamic boarding school, he is a graduate of the Public Institute of Islamic Studies in Jakarta and well-versed in Arabic. He spent three long months “testing the waters” in Egypt during his college years. When that didn’t work out, he headed home.

Early in his career, Emka wrote for various dailies. His last stint as a staff journalist was at men’s magazine Popular.  

“I was a reporter for a long time before the book came out,” he explains. “People have this assumption that I had always been interested in Jakarta’s nightlife, but it was just a job.”

He shrugs. “However, once I started, it was like going down into Alice’s rabbit hole.”

He does not see much of a “sacred vs. profane” contradiction in his religious studies background and documenting Jakarta’s sexual goings-on, which like he says was simply another job in reporting the facts. Both, he says, provide their own type of knowledge.

But was he shocked by what he discovered?

“In the beginning, yes. I had no idea any of these places existed, and was even more appalled by the size of the crowd that showed up.”

And now?

“I don’t hold anything against anyone. Even if it’s crazy, even if it seems perverse, it’s merely entertainment. Some people play golf, some people sing in karaoke bars to blow off steam. And some people have sex.”

Asked about the one question he is tired of answering – whether he crossed over from observer to participant --  Emka groans. He opens his laptop, orders another drink and lights a cigarette. “It’s a personal thing; it’s my business.”

For the man who in the last couple of years has churned out no less than a dozen titles, there is always more to life than what we think possible. He has projects lined up all the way to the end of the year. And there is room for more.

So does the book’s popularity qualify him as the nightlife expert bar none.

“I’m not an expert on anything,” he says. “Don’t put me there. It’s a scary place for me.”

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