Elsie UdohDid you hear about the Equatorial Guinea sex scandal?
Now we’re not asking you to look it up yet (at least not until you’re done here), but just to keep your curiosity in check in case you have no clue what we’re talking about, here’s the gist.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelSo, storytime, and it’s a quick one. A certain man named Baltasar Ebang Engonga, who is the head of Equatorial Guinea’s financial crime agency, was found with over 400 sex tapes with the wives of high-ranking individuals, including his brother’s wife and cousin.
Now, that’s jaw-dropping, right?
As expected, this revelation has set the internet ablaze since it came to light, with many people rushing to watch the videos to satisfy their curiosity. However, watching these tapes could have a more profound impact on you than merely satisfying curiosity.
Here are the dangerous effects we think watching these sex tapes could have on your mental, emotional, and even social well-being.
Normalising Voyeuristic Behaviour
Voyeuristic behaviour—that sounds like too big an effect for a video that was probably barely five minutes long. But well, it’s something that you need to be wary about. Let’s break it down for better understanding.
You see, regardless of the intent behind watching sex tapes, it does something to you, sometimes even more than you know it.
It’s more than just relieving yourself of the curiosity or having a ‘seeing is believing’ mindset, but then, for some, observing people in ‘the act’ could lead to experiencing intense arousal and when that happens again and again, it could pan out to be a disorder—voyeuristic disorder or behaviour.
Now, what if you viewed the tapes just once, and that’s all? At least you got the gist, so there’d be no need to return to it. What harm could possibly come to you that way?
Well, we’d say you got away ‘scot-free’, but then watching the tapes means an invasion of privacy boundaries where personal lives become a fair game to play with at any time, and this could blur the lines of what’s acceptable and what’s invasive.
That doesn’t make you so scot-free now, does it?
Desensitisation to Moral Boundaries
If we’re to go into the extent to which morals have degraded today, we might need a supporting article and more to follow them because there’s no end to that conversation.
But then the issue of moral boundaries seems more like what we can tackle in just a part of this article, so here it goes.
Now with those tapes on the Net, anybody could easily click on them to watch at any time they want to, and what happens to the already degraded morals in the society?
You guessed right—it goes farther down the drain, and you could even start to become more tolerant of actions that you would have otherwise condemned.
Fueling Distrust and Paranoia in Relationships
You might wonder how this applies to you and your relationship when you weren’t the one in front of the camera, nor was it your partner. But the truth is that you all form part of the bigger picture.
Take, for instance, you read about the scandal and show your partner the news; maybe even watch a few of the videos together for ‘verification’ purposes.
Along the line, this simple act might leave an impression in one of your minds as to whether the other person watches videos like that in your absence, and this could be a building block for an unhealthy relationship, creating unnecessary tension and scepticism.
Sexual Health Issues
This is actually a gradual process. When you watch sex tapes and persist in them, you could begin to develop some sexual health issues.
Too much exposure to such content could kill your sex drive and cause you to develop and derive more pleasure from habits such as masturbation.
READ ALSO: 5 Sexual Health Benefits of Bitter Leaf
Promoting Objectification of Individuals
It’s a normal reaction for us to judge people based on what we hear or see them do.
This case is no exception. Before the release of the tapes, you probably had no idea whatsoever as to who the head of Equatorial Guinea’s financial crime agency was, but we’re quite sure you have a ton of negative impressions about him now.
While we are not trying to take sides, the point is that engaging with these sex tapes can objectify the individuals involved and cause you to focus solely on their role in the tapes rather than as a whole person.
This can be dangerous because it ultimately fosters a harmful mentality and could result in forming a stereotype towards the individuals involved and even others around them.
Developing Unhealthy Obsessions
You probably might have been expecting this one. Although scandals like this are juicy and sure give us something to talk about, they are also sensational and spark strong curiosity.
If care is not taken, a one-time viewing could turn into two and then become even more frequent.
This could lead to compulsive consumption, create an unhealthy obsession with sexual scandals, and reduce your control over sexually explicit content.
Increasing Anxiety and Mental Distress
A mere move to satisfy your curiosity could lead to you being haunted by feelings of anxiety or distress.
This is especially true if you’re not previously used to consuming such content. You might wind up with a feeling of guilt and shame after watching the videos, leaving you with internal conflict and mental strain.
This long-term effect can even be more debilitating than stated here.
Hindering Personal Growth and Social Connection
You see, sexual scandals can be like viruses. They start small and then spread until they leave everywhere they affect, contaminated.
Getting too engrossed in this sexual scandal could make you begin to find others like it, and that’s you feeding your eyes with more degrading content.
Slowly, your mind is occupied by them, and you find yourself getting involved in related gossip and even making jokes about it.
When this continues, people might become repulsed by your conversations, and you could chase away well-meaning individuals who might have been an essential part of your growth and network.
Decreased Empathy and Compassion
Experts have proven that viewing private, vulnerable moments such as those given off in sex tapes can reduce emotional sensitivity.
Remember what we said about objectification? Well, it applies here too. The impression you form could be extended to a particular gender as a whole and cause you to be unable to relate to them.
Risk of Relapsing into Bad Habits Like Masturbation
For some who have struggled with overcoming habits like masturbation and managed to overcome it, watching these sex tapes could make it very hard to resist the urge to return to the old habit, and if care is not taken, this could end up in a relapse.
The long-term impact of the relapse could be a feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself and even attributing self-blame for failing to break free from the habit.
What Next?
Now, with all that has been emphasised, choosing to watch these sex tapes or not depends solely on you and what you think you can handle.
However, reviewing the dangerous effects of watching these sex tapes and weighing them against the positive—to satisfy your curiosity—should lead you to rethink to determine what will be best for you.
Elsie Udoh is an SEO content writer who specialises in writing engaging stories that resonates with diverse audiences. She studied mass communication at the Lagos State University.
