Egypt ranks second worldwide in terms of the
volume of pornography shared online, coming only after Iraq, according
to the global statistical study “
Who are the largest consumers of online porn?” published by SimilarWeb (an online tool that measures website traffic and analytics).
The
world average for shares of online porn amounts to 4.41 percent, but in
Egypt the number shoots up to 8 percent, with sexual repression usually
cited as the reason.
But this massive viewership stands in stark
contrast to Egyptian legislation banning pornography.
Article 178 of the
Penal Code criminalizes the making and distribution of any materials —
including images, illustrations and publications — that could be
considered indecent or disruptive to public morality.
A few months ago, a criminal suit was filed against Egyptian actress Entisar after an
episode of her televised talk show “Nafsana”
(Rancor), in which she praised a young man who said he exercises
patience and self-control by watching pornography, and confessed to
watching erotica herself. The Nasr City Criminal Court has acquitted
Entisar of “promoting immorality and depravity,” but prosecutors are
looking into pursuing an appeal.
“The state is attempting to
tighten its grip on society by claiming that society is constantly under
moral threat,” argues Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
researcher Dalia Abdel Hameed.
“A moral panic is created, with threats
of social and moral degeneration. This had led to several arrests and
lawsuits against homosexuals, against Entisar, against dancers or
singers appearing in music video clips — on the grounds of protecting
and safeguarding Egypt's morals."
The confluence of this sky-high
demand for porn and a state-sponsored moral panic sets the tenor for the
porn industry in Egypt, an industry that’s as secretive as it is
ubiquitous, and fraught with questions of legality and consent.
A homemade industry raises questions of consent
Millions
of Egyptians visit porn sites every day, with the international sites
XNXX and XVideos among the top 50 viewed nationwide, according to the
Alexa
internet traffic and analytics server. But while Egypt ranks high in
global porn viewership, it does not have a professional erotica industry
of its own. But that doesn’t mean viewers only watch international
high-end productions — locally made sex videos frequently end up being
posted on porn sites.
Most of these domestically produced video
clips are amateur, homemade productions, typically captured on
low-quality cellphone or laptop cameras that are often hidden from view
of the women being filmed.
Very rarely is there a third party filming
the action, and there is never a camera crew involved. The videos are
usually pixelated, grainy and shaky, typically shot from the male
actor’s point of view as he engages in sexual acts while filming at the
same time. The video titles frequently claim that the filmed women are
prostitutes.
Sayed (not his real name) is an amateur producer of
sex films and self-diagnosed porn addict who works in the financial
sector. He explains that “numerous honeymoon sex tapes and private,
homemade sex videos” end up being leaked by third parties, such as
computer repair shops that accidentally find this content in their
customers’ devices, “and whoever uploads them can give them any title of
their choosing.”
Sayed says he has recorded over 30 of his own
sex videos (which he says are higher resolution than average) with his
female partner over the past five years, but has no intention of posting
these private files.
These videos are based on consent with his
partners, according to him, although none of them could be reached for
verification. Sayed stores his films in a secure location on an external
hard drive, as he fears the recordings could be leaked and shared
locally via cellphones using Bluetooth technology, as well as CDs and
flash drives or posted on the internet for an international audience.
His biggest worry is when he sends his laptop to a computer repair shop.
“I
don’t want to end up like ‘Anteel al-Gharbiya’,” says Sayed, referring
to Mamdouh Hegazy, a middle-aged man from the Gharbiya Governorate who
became a local porn star of sorts after his sex videos were stolen from
his computer. Some
media reports
claim that his private porn collection was leaked by an employee of the
shop where he had dropped off his computer to update his copy of
Microsoft Windows.
When a dozen of his sex videos — filmed with
several different women, via hidden cameras in his home — were uploaded
onto the net in November 2014, the man quickly earned the honorary
nickname “Anteel Hezb al-Nour” (the stud of the Nour Party). The
ultra-conservative
Salafi Nour Party quickly distanced itself from the amateur filmmaker and denied he was ever a party member.
“Some
other sex videos are posted online as acts of revenge by a former
lover,” Sayed continues, “claiming that the woman involved is a
prostitute, when she actually isn’t, in order to publicly shame and
stigmatize her.”
A few months earlier, in 2014 Abdel Fattah
al-Saeedi, a karate instructor from Mahalla al-Kubra, earned the similar
nickname, “Anteel al-Mahalla,” (the stud of Mahalla) when videos of him
having sex with several different women, all filmed with a hidden
camera in a gym, were posted to the internet. There are conflicting
media reports as to how the videos wound up online, but the fact that
the cameras were hidden,
as this video shows, suggests that the partners were not informed of the filming process.
On February 24, 2015, the
Mahalla Appeals Court sentenced Saeedi to two years in prison, then on May 31, also
sentenced one of the women in the videos to two years,
as she was married to another man at the time the video was filmed.
Both defendants were convicted of adultery. The woman’s husband filed
the criminal suit against his wife and Saeedi, allegedly after he found
the video in question. He also commenced divorced proceedings.
A
senior employee of a youth center near Damanhour City gained notoriety
as “Anteel al-Beheira” (the stud of Beheira) when he was identified as
the producer of a string of leaked sex videos. He was arrested in July
2014 and later
sentenced to three years in prison.
A
news video
shows security forces interrogating the defendant, who confesses to
filming sex videos with five different women. He claimed the women were
paid LE100 per session and consented to being filmed — but several
media reports alleged he used his stock of sex videos to blackmail the women into continuing to have sex with him for free.
“Anteel
al-Beheira” pleads with his interrogators in the news video, arguing
that he was “sick,” and claiming that his son accidentally contributed
to leaking the videos.
Media
reports
alleged the son took his dad's cellphone to a service shop to purchase
some new ringtones. A shop employee then reportedly copied and
circulated the sex videos, which were widely shared across Beheira
Governorate.
Farah (not her real name), a woman in her early 30s,
says she dislikes the violations of privacy and the non-consensual
aspects of local sex video production.
“It’s all homemade, and
sometimes the videos are taken without informing the female or receiving
her permission,” Farah argues. “We all know that there is no porn
production in Egypt.”
One of Egypt’s most widely viewed sex videos
was a 2007 production featuring the renowned belly dancer Dina with her
then-husband, businessman Hossam Aboul Fotouh. Dina later appeared
on a TV talk show in which she tearfully insisted she wasn’t aware her husband was filming her during sex.
Wiping
the tears from her eyes, Dina asserted that she was filmed with a
hidden camera. “No woman would expect to search under the bed or by the
closet to make sure her husband hasn’t planted a camera here or there,”
she said. “No woman would expect her husband could harm her in such a
way.”
Before finding its way onto virtually every major porn
server on the internet, Dina and Aboul Fotouh’s sex tape was widely
circulated on video CDs and flash drives, shared even between young
students in schools. With the presence of many of these videos online
for free, the locally shared material is not subject to financial
transactions.
The women appearing in such videos who are aware
they are being filmed frequently request of their camera-wielding
partner, “Don’t reveal my face,” while others cover their faces with
their hands or clothes, Sayed explains.
Because it was difficult
to get a response from a female actor performing in a sex video, it
wasn’t possible to confirm whether women typically only believe they are
agreeing to be filmed, or have also agreed to allow the videos to be
distributed.
Abdel Hameed says that anyone who filmed without
their consent has the right to take legal action, especially if the
resulting video was made public, but legal action is rarely taken.
“It
largely depends on the status of the woman,” she explains. “If she’s a
public figure like Dina for example, she may be more inclined to file a
lawsuit. But many, if not most, would seek to avoid such legal actions
in order to avoid the associated social stigmatization, or harm to their
reputation.”
Abdel Hameed points out that "there is an increasing
occurrence of the violation of privacy and personal rights … and the
state usually does nothing to halt these blatant violations of privacy.”
Local vs. global
Egypt’s poor-quality sex videos often pale before the more popular professional productions made abroad.
“I’d
definitely go with local porn, if it was on par with foreign porn
productions,” says self-employed artist Samir Amman, who describes
himself as “a major porn fan.”
Sayed agrees. “If there was
Egyptian porn of good quality with actresses who are physically in
shape, then I’d prefer to watch them. But this isn’t the case. That’s
why I like to watch professionally made foreign porn.”
Awatef (not
her real name) also prefers foreign productions as opposed to the
domestic variety, saying, “Egyptian men in sex videos are burly,
unflattering to watch and rough with their women.”
Egyptian sex videos
“lack creativity,” she continues, “while foreign productions invest more
on role-playing, costumes, and creating a whole environment.”
On
the other hand, as opposed to the professional porn industry, sex videos
are “very real,” Farah says, and that’s why she still likes to watch
them.
But erotica coming from the region also has its charms for many viewers.
ArabSexWeb
is the most popular website for Egyptian pornography, Amman points out.
The site compiles erotica from countries around the Arab world,
including many videos that appear to be private recordings of solo
masturbation performances, heterosexual couples having sex and, to a
lesser extent, same-sex acts.
In a few rare exceptions, there are
videos filmed by a third party or camera crew, indicating a more public
nature to this sort of erotica, or perhaps even a very low-budget,
homemade porn that’s a step above the purely amateur productions.
Amman
explains there are also Western-based porn websites, such as
ArabStreetHookers, that falsely cast non-Arab women sex workers from
Egypt and other countries from the region. Many of these women are
dressed up in hijabs, niqab, belly-dancing outfits, genie costumes and
other Middle Eastern garb as they perform sexual acts.
“Viewers are
very curious as to what lies beneath the concealing hijab or niqab,”
says Amman. He suggests that in cases where porn is falsely promoted as
Arab, the target audience may be Arab men, but is more likely Western
porn browsers curious to view taboo images of sex from this presumably
conservative region.
Why porn is here to stay?
Entisar’s
contentious program intimated that Egyptian youth come to learn about
sexuality primarily through pornography, as adequate sex education is
lacking in the school system. “Both male and female youth learn little
to nothing form their sex-ed. classes,” claims Amman. Indeed,
pornographic movies in Egypt are also referred to as “
aflam thaqafiya”
(cultural films.)
Education aside, porn and sex videos act
sometimes as an alternative to the murkier process of having sex outside
marriage, which are difficult to circumvent due to legal and societal
barriers.
Sayed says that watching porn and masturbating may be more convenient than having sex.
“
Bareeza fil yad walla hawga li 'had,” he jokingly concludes: “Masturbation in hand, there is no need for another.”
