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arut Regent Aceng Fikri burst into the news cycle a week and a half ago when it was reported that he had taken a second wife, a 17-year-old identified as FO, in a nikah siri or unregistered marriage in July, only to divorce her four days later via text message.

After the teenager and her family went public, Aceng claimed he divorced her because she was not a virgin.

As if publicly questioning a 17-year-old’s virginity was not problematic enough, the man attempted to defend himself on national television, saying, “I spent almost Rp 250 million [US$26,065] to sleep with her for one night. Even sleeping with a celebrity would not have cost me that much.”

This troubling political sex scandal — of a sort not at all unique to Indonesia — is further complicated by the fact that the regent’s name is slang in Javanese for “erection”, creating an endless source of jokes and puns.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono spoke about the case at a Cabinet meeting, saying, “I want this problem handled swiftly and comprehensively but there is no need to be emotional.”

But emotional is exactly what people should be about a 40-year-old man in a position of power taking an underage second wife (and lying to her in the process by saying that he was divorced), then tossing her aside, all while appearing both unapologetic — and perhaps worse — ignorant that his actions were and are in any way troubling.

Last Monday, as the scandal was breaking, Aceng, who has three children with his first wife, issued this non-apology: “If what I did was wrong, even though it was allowed by Islamic law, then I deeply apologize to my family and my ex-wife.”

In a striking bit of kismet, that same day Indonesia was hosting the Conference on the Role of Women in the Development of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) Member States, with the executive director of UN Women and the first female president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, attending the four-day event.

In an interview with The Jakarta Post last Tuesday, Bachelet said, “Sometimes there are issues that are not debated in society, and maybe [it is good] to start speaking of these things […] on the situations that women are living in […] Because I believe when people start speaking of these things there is a minute when you cannot continue closing your eyes, and your ears.”

Aceng and his behavior is one of those minutes, with the great public outcry and women’s groups holding protests, memorably flinging underwear at posters of the man in Garut.

And, the case brings up the many issues related to nikah siri and the rights of women. Unregistered marriages are often employed by men to marry second, third and fourth wives, and they also allow for easy divorce, perhaps even via SMS.

The practice of nikah siri needs to be discussed and questioned as it involves complex issues of gender, poverty, power and religion that are concerns the world over, with the body Bachelet represents, UN Women, started in 2010 to promote gender equality and female empowerment throughout the globe.

Bachelet said, “Look how many jokes — I don’t know here in Indonesia — but at least in Latin America the number of machismo jokes showing women in not a good position are enormous. And you see some very important political figures in the world making these kinds of jokes.”

Perhaps Aceng’s most oblivious statement in the wake of this controversy was reported by detik.com on Dec. 1. “If I buy something and ‘Hey, this doesn’t match the specs’, then it’s no big deal if I return it,” he said, offering up an odious stereotype of women as property to be bought and sold.

Interestingly, the regent’s case oddly parallels one that forced the resignation of US Representative Anthony Weiner, and which also involved the use (or better misuse) of technology. In May of 2011, Weiner accidently tweeted a photo of his “aceng”, then blamed it on a hacker before admitting his own error.

Dubbed Weinergate and creating a supply of humorous headlines, the American affair embodied issues of male hubris as more and more willing women came forward with stories of online escapades with the married man.

But Indonesia’s homegrown scandal has a disgraced victim, a mute wife and money exchanging hands, and while no one will call the current affair “Acenggate”, perhaps this fluke of linguistic fortune can benefit the cause of women’s rights in Indonesia by helping to prolong the conversation and the issues surrounding men and their “aceng”.

After a meeting last Wednesday between Aceng and FO’s relatives, one of her family members said, “Let bygones be bygones.” And while that may be best for the sake of the teenager and her family, we should not let that occur with the larger subject of women and their vulnerability to mistreatment and violence, an issue that this case makes so clearly, and crudely, manifest.