I

love beefcake. No, not to eat, but to feast my eyes upon.

Yep, I'€™m talking about those hunky, muscular, semi-nude male models that so often adorn tabloids and women'€™s magazines, and are a staple of gay mags.

Even bonafide A-list actors such as Marlon Brando, Hugh Jackman, Michael Fassbender, and, more recently, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, have beefcake credentials that don'€™t hurt their craft at all.

And I'€™m not averse to looking at '€œcheesecake'€ pin-ups of luscious, sexy women either '€” from Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s to Farrah Fawcett in the 1970s, Sharon Stone (with her leg crossing antics in '€œBasic Instinct'€!) in the 1990s, to, more recently, the likes of Halle Berry, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence, to mention just a few contemporary beauties.

Of course, the best is when beefcake and cheesecake come together '€” like Anne Hathaway and Jake Gylennhal in '€œLove and Other Drugs'€. Scrumptious!

That'€™s sort of happening here in Indonesia too, but it'€™s more like cheesecake meets '€¦ Beefgate, and it'€™s a lot more sickening than scrumptious.

Yes, Beefgate is the name given to the current beef import graft scandal involving the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).

It was exposed (sic!) in January when Ahmad Fathanah, a close aide of former Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) chairman Luthfi Hasan Ishaaq, was caught '€œin the act'€ in a hotel room with a naked 19 year-old female student and a suitcase containing Rp 1 billion (US$103,000). Maharani Suciyono, the student, later admitted to being paid Rp 10 million to frolic with Fathanah. Cheese indeed!

In the eyes of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), that was not Fathanah'€™s crime, however. No, they were after him for allegedly receiving bribes on behalf of Luthfi to steer government beef import contracts, paid by meat importing company PT Indoguna Utama.

Maria Elizabeth Liman, director of Indoguna, is suspected of having lobbied Luthfi to use his influence on Agriculture Minister Suswono, also from the PKS, to ensure that the company received a larger share of a government-issued quota to import beef. The plot thickens.

And so does the cheesecake. It was in the process of what is popularly known as money laundering '€” attempting to conceal the illicit source of about Rp 10 billion '€” that Fathanah gave expensive gifts and money to 45 women over a period of eight years (2005-2013).

So when the scandal broke out, beautiful women '€” unknowns as well as celebrities '€” started popping out of the woodwork to repay to the KPK gifts and money received from Fathanah to avoid getting into more trouble. As well as Maharani, the 45 women included Elsya Putri Adiyanti (former high school student), Lindi Silviana Indrastuti (doctor and wife of PKS member Ahmad Zaki), Tri Kurnia (dangdut singer), Ayu Azhari (actress), Kiki Amalia (actress and TV host), Vitalia Shesya (adult magazine model) and many, many others (for the full list see, '€œInilah 45 Perempuan Penerima Duit Fathanah'€ [These are the Women Recipients of Fathanah'€™s Money], Suara Pembaruan, May 23).

There are many ways to launder money, but you might as well '€œsambil menyelam minum air'€ (literally, '€œdive into the water and drink at the same time'€, which means '€œto kill two birds with one stone'€), right? If laundering money involves beautiful women, some of whom you can bed, all the better. In addition, Fathanah also admitted donating money to the PKS.

In Indonesian, PKS, which stands for Partai Keadilan Sejahtera, has been twisted to mean '€œPartai Korupsi Sapi'€ (Cow Corruption Party). That'€™s pretty ironic when you consider that in the 2009 election PKS won the fourth-highest number of seats in the House of Representatives (DPR) on a platform of personal morality and zero tolerance for corruption.

The PKS is also the party that pushed hard for the anti-pornography bill, passed into law in 2008. Three years later they suffered major embarrassment when Arifinto, a PKS lawmaker, was sacked from the House for watching porn on his tablet during a sitting. Yep, the PKS certainly have a predilection for shooting themselves in the foot.

When Luthfi was arrested and declared a graft suspect by the KPK, he resigned as president of the PKS. Other PKS bigwigs, including Minister Suswono and Hilmi Aminuddin, the chief patron of the PKS, were also called in for questioning by the KPK.

Now PKS is fighting the KPK, and there are calls for the PKS to leave the government coalition, saying they oppose Yudhoyono'€™s leadership. That sounds like a big bunch of very sour grapes to me, and what does Yudhoyono have to do with PKS'€™ Beefgate scandal anyway? Looks like the PKS is planning to move up from
foot-shooting to head-shooting, i.e. political suicide.

Personally, I shun (red) meat. It'€™s unhealthy, it turns out, not just for your body, but also the body politic, and the nation. That the string of self-induced PKS scandals will cause this '€œreligious'€ party to self-destruct is now self-evident. However, it will also tarnish the image of Islamic parties in general, whose popularity has been steadily declining, still further. And that'€™s a problem for all of us.

Why? Because it will give even more reason for Muslim conservatives and hardliners to do their usual thing: express themselves in ugly, vociferous and violent ways, attacking religious and sexual minorities and imposing their hypocritical and regressive values on society in general and women in particular.

Then we'€™ll really have something to beef about '€” especially if it means a public feeling cowed (sorry!), threatened and vulnerable, start taking the beefed-up, ultra-nationalistic military-style leadership on offer by Prabowo more seriously. Gulp!

The writer (www.juliasuryakusuma.com) is the author of Julia'€™s Jihad.