Sex tapes and scandal

Nylon Magazine once looked into why people make sex tapes. In its investigation, it cited a scene from “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” where Kourtney asked Kim: “Why did you make a sex tape?” Kim, who had cashed in on hers and profited from it, replied: “Because I was horny and I felt like it.”

As far as understanding sex tapes can go, that may be just about it. People who made a sex tape may have simply felt like doing it. But as far as understanding the tug-of-war between society’s curiosity and its culture of sex-negativity can go, the questions (and the ironies) are just about endless.

Ever since video recording was made more accessible and practical as an indispensable feature of mobile phones and laptops, video scandals have held a firm grip on society’s idle chatter and locker-room conversations. From their pixelized beginnings leading to their proliferation, video scandals seem to be the most relevant barometer for measuring a person’s moral ascendancy. Or perversion. Or a mix of both. Besides, some form their judgments only after watching sex tapes.

Celebrities deny theirs in fear of breaching morality clauses in their contracts. These scandals quickly become attached to a school, or to a city, or some other place. We get so curious, so scandalized, and so amused nonetheless. It did not take long for the word “scandal” to be dismissed as sexual in nature.

In the age of social media, these scandals have amassed an exponential audience. The list of the celebrities who have had their private moments exposed constantly lengthens. And some private persons suddenly become public consumption.

You’ve read of public figures who owned up to the sex tapes. Or chanced upon unknown names that suddenly started trending online. Or know someone who has been in one. What is certain is that for as long as we are plugged in to our devices—and today, that is almost always—scandals are a staple.

Until recently, we never really knew what to do about them. But they have cost careers, ruined reputations, affected relationships, created buzz among government officials, and occupied significant bandwidth space. For some names, their scandals will be like a shadow for as long as they live.

The most important question is: How much of these scandals are spread without the subject’s consent?

Last year, Britain’s The Telegraph reported the rise of “revenge porn,” defining it as the “uploading or sharing of intimate pictures or videos without the subject’s consent.” It has become a criminal offense in some countries. Earlier this year, 1,000 individuals in Denmark were reported to be facing charges for spreading video scandals of two minors on Facebook.

Here in the Philippines, the Commission on Human Rights was reported as condemning revenge porn as a human rights violation when a public figure’s video scandal spread four years ago. The commission, through Jose Manuel Mamauag, cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that no one should be subjected to arbitrary influence with their privacy.

Sex tapes are one of the many ways that humans express their sexuality. Most of us will be at the receiving end of these videos, however. Our sex-negative culture has subconsciously accommodated us the entitlement to form judgments on how this sexuality is expressed. Perhaps it is this sex-negativity that has geared our attention toward the video’s subject rather than the video taker, or spreader.

The real scandal, therefore, is that a person, a face, and a name are reduced for society’s viewing pleasure—a mere number of pixels on the screens to satisfy a lust. Society has allowed a video to shape people’s lives, and the kind of relationships they will have after.

“The problem with pornography,” said St. John Paul II, “is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”

michael.baylosis@gmail.com