The last time I wrote about pornography was in 2007. I chose a ‘sexy’ caption for the column and didn’t expect the reaction to be as sexy: “Pornography brewed in Ghanaian pot: Actors speak Twi”.
A Ghanaian movie producer had released the Ewewani series, a pornographic project which featured Wapipi Jay as the protagonist, and some voluptuous Ghanaian ladies.
In obstinate disgust for our Ghanaian values and for God, we saw citizens born on Ghanaian soil showing naked flesh to cameras and slugging it out like agents of Asmodeus (god of lust).
No ID, no porn
As usual, consumers of the column misread the title as advertisement for porn actors, and did not bother to engage the body of the article.
Instead, they flooded my email with honest requests and naked photographs, to help them act in the movies.
If they could speak Twi and were audacious enough to trade off their dignity, they qualified to build a career as porn actors.
In total, I received 102 emails and about 45 photographs from young Ghanaian men and women, many of them bearing Christian names. I don’t remember recording Muslim names.
I was just as surprised as Hon Sam George, Minister of Communications, Digital Technology and Innovations, at the number of Ghanaians who are willing consumers of pornography.
However, Mr George has a more troubling responsibility to shape and define the policy terrain, especially regarding access to children in an age of computers, tablets, phablets and an avalanche of websites offering free porn.
It used to be called blue films.
Today, porn has no colour; they are in our sights and on our sleeves, competing for space with the little honour left in us.
At the Fourth Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family, Values and Sovereignty, the Communications Minister proposed a ‘No ID, No porn’ policy, where all porn patrons will be required to verify their identity by registering their national ID card/ Ghana Card or driver’s licence, to be able to get a pass to visit X-rated sites.
The minister explains that the policy will protect children, contending that “when a child is oversexualized at an early age, it affects their development; it affects their thinking; it affects even their morality and their standards”.
Politicians and policicians
As Cabinet puts together appropriate vocabulary to flesh out the policy for parliament, politicians and ‘policicians’ (policy wonks) continue to interrogate the initiative as a puritanical overreach by a political administration, or a well-intentioned measure that is best left to stall in its tracks because morality cannot be legislated.
Like the passage or the near passage of our anti-LGBTQ laws, which presently stands on an island surrounded by legalese and officialese, the ‘No ID, No porn’ law may cure one mischief and replace it with another.
Our communications systems are not as robust as those in advanced jurisdictions where similar restrictions apply, for instance the UK.
We are yet to combat momo fraud, online food delivery tricks and fictitious digital transmissions where money is exchanged.
Leaving IDs on adult sites may only be preyed on by diabolic characters in the clouds as an invitation to treat.
Agents on the dark web are sprawling the space to misuse people’s digital footprints and browsing history.
They are at liberty to use the ID of innocent Ghanaians for other unrelated purposes.
Innocent people do not visit pornography, do they? What is the typical profile of the average porn patron in Ghana?
Is it a sin for an adult Christian gentleman to watch pornography for Asmodeus’s pleasure?
To protect our children, an adult must identify himself with a government-issued ID when he signs up and enters a porn site. What is the connection?
My kids will not see what I am watching. So why does Uncle Goerge need to see my ID? I might be a pastor or the Odikro of the town.
One eye pornography
Watching porn may be sexy. The unsexy truth, however, is that our kids are watching it too.
Ever had the awkward experience when you open your laptop and naked photos of strangers pop up, even on church and educational sites?
The kids see it too. Even with limited access to the internet, tithe-paying Christians in Ghana reportedly make time for porn with one eye half open, or are fed pornography without the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Dating sites flash pornographic advertisements disguised as promotional material. The kids see it too.
They see our chats on Whatsapp and pretend not to see our faces on facebook. If we are decent parents who do not need Uncle George’s permission to watch porn, the kids know.
Similarly, they know our pet phrases and favorite idioms. They know how to step outside the Parental Guidance controls we plant on their tablets and chromebooks, to watch suspicious content hidden in places we will never know.
The other day, an American teenager killed himself when he sneaked onto sites where he encountered Nigerian criminals who blackmailed him after getting his nudes.
Our kids need legal and parental protection to preserve their culturalization. What protection can the ‘No ID, No porn’ policy render to the pretentious girl who confided in her siblings that daddy is dirty because he watches dirty stuff on his phone?
Or the self-assured 9 grader whose digital activities are difficult to monitor because his parents do not know that www stands for World Wide Web?
Or the 12 year old who suggested to her auntie to visit a dating site?
We wonder who needs to leave their porn ID with Uncle Sam: our kids or their parents?
By KWESI TAWIAH-BENJAMIN
Tissues Of The Issues
bigfrontiers@gmail.com
Ottawa, Canada
