A Brazen Affair: Public Exposure and Missing Remorse in Sengkang Car Park Incident

If you ever wanted a case study in keeping a straight face under the most ridiculous circumstances, meet Eugene Chia Hiok Seah. He was allegedly found nude in a car with another man’s wife at a Sengkang car park. The husband arrived, chaos followed, and yet Chia has since explained that the pair were only doing “intimate acts” that were not sexual, because the woman was menstruating.

Let us pause here. Two adults, unclothed, in a car, having a nice little chat. Not sexual, just intimacy. In a public car park. On a day when, by his account, sex was off the table. If this is the new definition of wholesome conversation, someone needs to update the dictionary.

Chia told the court he knew he could not face the husband. He also called the husband “bizarre”. Apparently, the man whose wife was found naked with someone else did not just wave ‘hi’ calmly. Who could have guessed. How ‘bizarre’.

Chia, meanwhile, described himself as a gentle soul who avoids confrontation and does not intend to hurt anyone. Lovely sentiment. The trouble is, you cannot claim to be a non confrontational type while sitting unclothed with someone’s spouse in a parked car, then trying to make a quick exit when the spouse appears. If you are that allergic to conflict, perhaps keep your clothes on and your distance from a married woman.

The explanation about menstruation is the part that has travelled the furthest. Not because it is persuasive, but because it tries to neatly cordon off the obvious. If the defence is “we were naked, but not like that”, it invites a few questions of common sense. Why undress at all. Why sit in a car instead of going up to her home. Why the panic when the husband turned up. It is a whole series of terrible choices. Will someone think of the poor car seats that could be stained red.

What sticks, more than the nudity or the spectacle, is the lack of shame. The confidence with which Chia insists on the harmlessness of it all is doing the heavy lifting. The facts are loud enough. Found naked with another man’s wife, insists it was not sexual, bolts when the husband arrives, then calls the husband bizarre. If you are looking for contrition, I am afraid it is missing from Chia.

That said, I really feel for the husband. Not only was his wife caught naked with another man, he also suffered injuries. That is why I would encourage all readers to recognise that he is the victim here, and that any insults toward him are out of order. I read some comments saying that he is “wearing a green hat”, the insult used to label a man whose partner has cheated. However, I disagree with this characterisation. The wife is the one who has betrayed him.