In 2016, the Washington Post ran a story titled “Reddit tried to introduce a remote Kenyan tribe to porn. It did not go as expected.” Upon encountering Western porn, apparently, the Maasai chiefs “thought it was fake and not real life, like a cartoon.” The story provoked much hilarity amongst Westerners online: Just imagine not having porn! The reactions, needless to say, were far more revealing than intended.
Forty years ago, Western influence in developing countries meant exports like freedom, capitalism, and mass-produced technologies that made life easier. Today, it means the aggressive promotion of abortion on demand, ‘LGBT’ ideology at all costs, and cultural neo-colonialism. And as the internet and the smartphone arrive in even the most far-flung places, so does perhaps the most ubiquitous and poisonous of Western products: pornography.
Ubiquitous porn use has transformed sex, dating, and marriage across the Western world as usage and addiction rates approach 90% of the male population in many countries and over 60% of women. Most mainstream content features sexual violence and women and girls being violated and humiliated. The UK and French governments have recently raised the alarm as a generation of young people, fuelled by porn, now see choking, violent anal sex, and other abuse as normal.
As digital porn arrives in developing countries, it is having a similarly poisonous effect. A number of media outlets recently reported the story of a remote Brazilian tribe in the Amazon rainforest who were given access to the internet through Starlink satellites by Elon Musk. In many ways, the gift proved beneficial. For example, the internet allowed the Marubo tribesmen, who live in settlements alongside the Ituí River, to call for urgent medical help. But the downsides of the internet became apparent within days.
According to media reports, the Marubo promptly began falling for online scams and got addicted to social media and online porn. According to The Sun:
Leaders of the Marubo now say that people in their community are increasingly becoming lazy and are always stuck to phones. They say young people have got hooked on porn as well as doom scrolling on social media sites such as Instagram. Enoque Marubo, 40, told reporters from the New York Times how access to the Web has forced the tribe to change and transform drastically. He said: “It changed the routine so much that it was detrimental. In the village, if you don’t hunt, fish and plant, you don’t eat.”
Another member of the tribe, Alfredo Marubo, revealed how the sudden exposure to pornography sparked a worrying sexual behaviour among the locals – especially young men and women. They also began sharing obscene images, scenes, and explicit videos in the group chats, Alfredo added. TamaSay Marubo, the first leader of the tribe, said the internet has now caused the people in her community to be lazy. She said: “When [the internet] arrived, everyone was happy. But now, things have gotten worse. Young people have gotten lazy because of the internet. They’re learning the ways of the white people.”
Leaders complained that online pornography in particular was driving both lethargy as well as a new and disturbing sexual aggressiveness on the part of the young men, which is particularly alarming in a culture that frowns on most forms of public affection. One tribal elder, noting the brutal nature of much of the pornography, expressed his fear that young people “are going to want to try it.” It is a reasonable fear, as other countries grappling with a massive influx of digital pornography have discovered.
In 2018, the Daily Mail reported that Nepal had “implemented a sweeping ban on all forms of pornography in its latest efforts to tackle the country’s rape problem”—the rate had risen 300% in a decade—with a statement by Nepal’s Ministry for Information and Communication citing “pornography as one of the primary drivers behind the country’s rape problem.” The Nepalese Criminal Code now prohibits “the production and dissemination of sexually obscene content … to prevent the access of such content through electronic media … pulling down such websites inside Nepal has become necessary.”
Pornography is a key contributor to India’s notorious rape culture as well. In 2018, human rights activist Mari Marcel Thekaekara of the All Indian Women’s Conference penned an editorial for The Guardian titled “Sexual violence is the new normal in India—and pornography is to blame.” Her report paints an ugly picture.
Boys as young as 10 download pornography from mobile phone shops for as little as 10 rupees (12p). The combination of endless, violent porn videos and alcohol appears to be a lethal trigger for many rapes in India – a country where traditional Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh society strictly forbids not just sex outside marriage but any mixing of the sexes in towns and villages. Arranged marriages are still the norm across all religions. For repressed men to be fed a constant diet of porn on their phones is a recipe for disaster.
The infamous gang rape of a 23-year-old student in Delhi in 2012 that led the city to be called the “rape capital of the world” was carried out by six men who had just been watching violent porn while drinking alcohol, another taboo in orthodox Indian families.
Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, a child rights activist for nearly 30 years, told me: Society is being sexualised; there is sexual content everywhere, in films and music. Rampant, vicious porn is easily available to children. Middle-class families may monitor what their kids watch, but uneducated and illiterate people haven’t a clue about what their kids see on their phones. The vegetable vendor near my house sits glued to his mobile all day. Two young boys, with one wire plugged into an ear each, sharing a video. I can assure you they are not watching the news.
Thekaekara demanded that action be taken on porn, and she called out progressives for the libertinism that prevented government action.
“My liberal friends have fought for civil liberties and freedom of expression over the years,” she wrote. “As a journalist, I support that. But grassroots activists like me are increasingly sick of liberals fighting for freedom to watch violent, sadistic porn. One tired human rights defender said: ‘It’s hard to stomach glib sermons on the right to freedom to use a potential ‘driver of rape’ [porn] when faced with a wounded, bleeding raped woman or child.’ I have to say I agree with her. It’s time for the courts and government to look seriously at how we can clamp down on porn in India.”
As Western governments increasingly wake up to the reality that omnipresent pornography has transformed our societies, we should consider the fact that porn is having a similar effect in developing countries as well. My wife spent several years working at a street center in Tanzania. Around thirty children lived there, and sponsors paid for education, clothes, school supplies, and other necessities. What the kids wanted most, however, were cell phones, and when they got them, they immediately started downloading porn (which could be done very cheaply). Pornography made their behavior change; some of the boys even abused younger boys as a result.
It is obviously not possible to put the internet genie back in the bottle, although I am increasingly convinced that the digital age will prove to be, on the whole, one of destruction rather than convenience. Our lives are certainly easier in some respects, but the cost we have paid in terms of our relationships, the obliteration of our sexual economy, and other deleterious consequences yet to come does not seem to be worth it. This monstrosity is upon us, and this is our world now—but as others have noted, it is time to consider banning pornography to the greatest extent that we can.
