Sex Tapes in Ghana: Morality over Privacy?

I start with questions. Before you also spoke on this matter (the  leak of video of a teenage girl dancing nude), did you ask yourself the most important question; “what is wrong with this”. And what was your answer? My intention here is not to defend or castigate the young lady. I am neither the devil’s advocate nor his or her executioner, here. What I seek to do is to show why it is important to break issues up and think through them systematically and not swallow the dominant narrative like porridge with plenty sugar.

What is wrong with taking your clothes off and taking a photo of yourself or a video of your naked self showcasing various erotic moves? Our usually conservative minds may quickly erect and say, it is wrong. But please quench the premature erection and think through it again, more carefully. Have you stood in the mirror before and taken such a photo? Was it an offence? Did that make you a bad person? Do many of us not have some of these photos as part of our ‘personal records’ or even, ‘collection’?

Now, we can move one step further. What is wrong with sharing such a photo or video with your lover (as is the case with many leaks)? Do many of us not do same in our bid to energize, re-vitalize and re-re-vitalize our marriages and other amorous relationships? Is it wrong to spice up your relationship every now and then especially using an approach that has serially worked for you and even your ancestors? If you get my drift, this matter goes beyond Rasheeda. It is our matter.

My point is simple. This video, like many other leaked ones, was not meant for you, onua dɔfoɔ. It is a young lady’s private video (unless she posted it online herself). Be worried about the person who leaked it? If it is Rasheeda herself, be worried. If it is a third party, be more worried. As our forebears have said, if you see the beard of your neighbour on fire, place a bucket of water beside yours.

You see, people take their phones and laptops to repairers and some of them concentrate on the fault with the device and also undertake the bonus service of, turning into investigators as they treat your device’s memory like some crime scene in an episode of CSI Las Vegas. The next thing you know, your private photos and videos are front page. Sometimes, it is our own friends. They ransack the folders on our electronic devices and the funny thing is, they don’t leak that great academic essay you wrote, they only want to publish your nakedness (impact factor 5.5). So that what? Sometimes, it is those we think are in love with us. Sometimes it is those who used to be in love with us or we used to be in love with. But whoever it has been, I am yet to hear of how the law dealt with them.

That is the bigger threat that should occupy us yet it hardly gets spoken about. But we are all at risk. A person knows that such videos and photos could affect the sensibilities of the public, so he/she took them and never posted them publicly. Somebody in search of clicks and likes or just to disgrace the other, accesses these materials and posts them online and he or she rather becomes the hero (even if unknown).

This matter is a golden opportunity to deal with the substantive malaise. It is not the award she was given. I doubt she did this to go viral so she gets another award. The public’s focus should not be distracted by a housefly this easily.