Pornographic materials are a regular sight in public places across the country. GILBERT ALASA writes that despite the negative effect on young people and recent bans by authorities like the Lagos State Government, the porn business is thriving unrestrained.
THE searing heat of the sun was brutal that clear afternoon. Two students of a high school located off Uselu-Lagos Road, Benin-city stood under the sun as though they were compelled to do so. The air of innocence on their faces contrasted the corruption of the object of their attention. With a shamefaced stretch of the hand, and giggling with embarrassment, they pointed at the eye-popping sexual videos displayed by a vendor beside Osasogie Gate of the University of Benin.
For Ighodalo Moses (not his real name), the expedition did not end there. “I followed my friend to their house one day. At that time, the parents were yet to return from work. All the while, my friend had been telling me about a film he had wanted me to see. So I was curious. When he inserted the CD, I marvelled at what I saw. Everything was strange and exciting. Pleasure ran through my body. I wanted to see more of it,” he recounted.
But what followed Ighodalo’s escapade was more than he bargained for. “Afterwards, I got really addicted to watching adult movies. This, sometimes, puts a lot of pressure on me whenever I am around a girl.”
His experience appears mild when compared with that of ‘Oseni’. For the 17-year-old who stays with her uncle in Osasogie, what appeared to be an addiction later turned out as a narrative in self torture. “For some time now I notice that whenever I see a porn movie, I have this mad urge for sex. At such times, I could form an imaginary vagina with a pillow or soft fabric. And I would begin to penetrate until I eventually climax. It is embarrassing. And I always feel bad each time I do it. It seems I can’t stop it anymore.”
Like Ighodalo and Oseni, lots of young people are trapped in pornography. But not many are willing to admit their predicament. Advances in technology seem to further fan the flames, as the internet is replete with a potpourri of such materials. Family pressure, too, has created huge emotional gaps in many homes. As such, children hardly can relate with their parents or guardians on intimate matters – especially sexuality issues.
Asked whether his guardian was aware of his situation, Ayeni retorted; “My uncle will kill me if he gets to know about it!”
How the emerging Nigerian porn industry fuels it
From the commercial buzz of Onitsha in Anambra State to the equally chaotic Aba city Imo State, a sprawling enclave of producers of sex movies grows by the day.
At the heart of Alaba International Market in Ojo Local Government in Lagos, some ambitious, but clandestine movie lords are responsible for the production, importation and distribution of porn movies across the country. Profit is their drive. Morality is a word they have never encountered.
Their modus operandi ranges from reproducing foreign porn movies to exploiting young but licentious boys and girls to play amateur roles in local sex movies. With an increase in the number of young Nigerians of easy virtue deported from Italy, Spain and other European nations where they worked as street prostitutes, the number of willing, wannabe porn stars desirous of featuring in the sex films, is never in short supply.
And with Alaba International Market, notorious as a hotbed of piracy, the stage is set for an emerging adult industry whose prospects are projected to outstrip Nollywood in the near future.
When this reporter visited the market in September, nothing suggested the presence of porn syndicates in the choked aisles, aside the stale expeditions of movie pirates. The usual hustling continued as buyers and sellers moved in disorderly fashion, elbowing their way through a swarm of persons.
The reporter posed as a final year student whose long essay bordered on Nigeria’s porn business. The first respondent was a young lady of average height and braided hairs with a scarf that nearly covered her face. She would not comment, ostensibly embarrassed by the topic.
But the next respondent, a middle-aged man who gave his name simply as ‘Maduakor’ was more forthcoming. What started as a conversation later brewed into an emotional exchange.
“Can you see that shop,” he asked pointing to a store on Ubakason Plaza, “some of the guys you see strolling in and out of that shop have no business in this market other than making “mojo” films (a street name for porn videos). I expect our association here to wade in and regulate the practice. But nobody blinks an eyelid over the practice in this market.”
A seemingly ruffled young man, who claimed to work with a group that makes such movies, admitted that many so-called foreign porn videos are now produced in Nigeria. Explaining how they make the films, he said: ”One way is by signing up on certain pornographic websites with a Liberty Reserve account. Most times, one is asked to pay a certain amount of dollars to gain full access to all the materials on the site – including free downloads. Once that is done, we proceed to production.”
Asked why he does not produce Nigerian sex videos, he said: ”Most people want to see the Oyinbo sex theatrics. They consider Nigerian porn actors amateurs and unexciting. To cap it all, they don’t usually last long in sex bouts unlike their foreign counterparts. So the demand for local porn is not very high. That’s why many producers prefer soft-porn other than hardcore.”
Though, it all started from the infusion of soft porn scenes in local movies when films like Cruse, Dirty Secret, Spirit of the Workshop, Blackberry Babes and a host of Ghanaian movies hit the market a few years ago, only few observers expected the rapid growth. Later, hardcore sex movies became the trend.
Many porn production firms have infiltrated the Nigerian local movie industry to an extent that is hard to grasp. Many of the organisations are owned by ex-sex peddlers and deportees whose stock in trade is arranging for young boys and girls to act nude in movies, or pose nude for pages of sex soft-sell magazines. They even have outlets in private apartments concealed from prying eyes.
In Gowon Estate, Egbeda, Lagos, an adult firm that is allegedly owned by an Italian deportee of Edo State descent operates like a bar. A resident who did not want to be named said there is a whole lot of disguise in their activities due to fear of harassment by regulatory authorities.
”Most of the brothels and bars in this estate are up to some dirty things that are carefully shielded from the public. Only very few people know what transpires. Some of the prostitutes that besiege a popular guest house on a major avenue with the estate – especially on weekends, do some ‘other things’ during the day. They continue the next phase of their trade at night,” he claimed.
When United States-based Afrocandy, the controversial producer of a soft porn movie titled Destructive Instinct, decided to test Nigerian waters recently, it set tongues wagging. Threats of a possible ban by the Nigeria Film and Video Censors Board followed. But unknown to many Afrocandy’s seemingly overt move was merely a tip of the iceberg. More daring producers are springing up by the day.
Serki Entertainment, a US-based adult production company, has been recruiting would-be porn actors in the last few months in Nigeria. Part of the criteria for selection includes freedom from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), possession of an active Liberty Reserve account for remuneration, non-refundable registration fee of $20 and chief among them all: strong “endowments” in vital statistics for both male and female applicants.
For Nigeria Sex Erotic Academy (NSEA), the take-home package appears to be enticing, as one of the organisers made this reporter believe when he called them. According to the representative who spoke to this reporter on phone, there is free accommodation in Nigeria and abroad for any applicant who scales the screening hurdle. Juicy salaries and a myriad of allowances are also said to be on offer.
Investigations show that lots of unsuspecting girls have been used and dumped by many of these porn outfits. Lately, the social media was awash with sexually explicit photos of a young girl of 21 who reportedly featured in a porn clip.
We gathered that the adult movie firm had promised to take her to Nairobi, Kenya after the video shoot. But when it became clear that her hopes of becoming a porn star in the East African city were merely pipe dreams, she protested. The saga later became messy as her photos were circulated on many social networking sites – a development which a family member described as shameful.
Clearing the Augean stable
Early this year, officials of the Lagos State Taskforce on Environmental and Special Offences began a clampdown on distributors of pornographic materials across the state. Taskforce Chairman, Bayo Sulaiman, said since the government had banned sale of pornographic materials defaulters would be prosecuted.
But checks revealed that the ban and subsequent arrest of offenders in February this year notwithstanding, the practice still thrives. Respondents say the ban is like a bark without a bite. From the reeking, polluted in Oshodi bus stop to the rowdy spectacle of squalid Iyana-Iba, porn movies are freely displayed for sale by hustling vendors buoyed by survival. At Iyana-Ipaja in another extreme of the city, the story is the same. Innocent children gather round the stands to savour the explicit sight of nude men and women that adorn covers of porn videos.
As unemployment bites harder in the country, many young men have taken to selling all manner of movies in mobile carts and wheelbarrows. According to one of them, Ayeni Badmus, the ban was not realistic given that government has failed to create jobs for the teeming populace.
“My brother,” he said, “I sell more of mojo than normal Nigerian movies. That is the fact. So why would anyone want to spoil it all for me? What job has the government created for graduates or for a person like me who managed to complete secondary school” he queried.
A vendor, who refused to give his name, told our reporter that the ban was hypocritical. He said: “We pretend a lot in Nigeria. People should be free to do what makes them happy as far as the act does not constitute a nuisance for others. Placing a ban on the distribution of adult movies is like making a storm out of a tea cup. Many of my customers love watching the x-rated films.”
Seamy side of porn movies
However, other respondents who spoke to The Nation said there was a need to regulate the distribution of the prohibited materials. “Sale of adult movies should be regulated by government. The films are so cheap that with a paltry N150, one can purchase a full porn DVD. These things definitely corrupt our children. I don’t think that is good enough,” said a woman who owns a video shop in Shagari Estate, Ipaja, Lagos.
Sulaiman argues that pornography has negative implications on young people, particularly children. “Whenever you see pornographic materials being displayed, you always see children, viewing or looking at them. It influences them negatively,” he stated.
A Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College in Illinois, William Struthers, said in his research published in the Christian Research Journal, that pornography “provides a false, or counterfeit way of feeding the need for intimacy. On a cultural and social level, men and women are portrayed as objects for our consumption.”
He concludes by adding, “There is no such thing as “just looking” at porn. There can be no doubt that it affects us neurologically in long-lasting ways. How we choose to exercise that knowledgefor sanctification or for depravityis up to each one of us.”
While the moral debate continues, the porn merchants are smiling to the bank oblivious to the psychological havoc they are wreaking on the nation’s social fabric.
