Permit me to state, as a starting point, that as Africans, and like in many parts of the world, it is admitted that there are several traditional or cultural activities or events and even tribes that encourage or involve predominantly showing off a lot more flesh than is generally regarded as normal.
Among that tall list from Africa are people from the Mursi tribe of Ethiopia, the KwaZulu Natal people of South Africa, the San and Himba people of Namibia, during the Dipo puberty rites of Ghana, the Hamar from Ethiopia, and the pygmies from Congo (DRC), Angola, Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic, among others.
In many of these places and among these tribes, what has become synonymous with them is that it is the way they live and the way they interact, mostly keeping it within their jurisdictions only. It is not common to see people of any of these aforementioned, step into any public place without caution or for want of a special occasion or event, just to display what is generally regarded as private parts of their bodies.
But something different seems to be flooding social media and it is catching on really very fast. Nudity has become a craze that rather interestingly, so many women – young and old, seem to have gotten so comfortable with. Men get crazy seeing them and fellow women say almost nothing about it. And for those who dare to talk about it, they are shut down by the overpowering and perverted majority of masculine voices.
And that is beside the overwhelming statistics online that prove that the internet is replete with more pornography data than largely any other form of content on it. Today, what is seen as tradition or culturally acceptable, has crept its way so easily onto the internet, with welcoming hands awaiting them. Or, is it not the case?
But here is the bigger problem with all of these. In many of these social media nudities that seem to be growing so quickly among African women, the reasons for engaging in them is pretty much unbelievable.
On this site, some 16 women shared what their motivations for posting nudes online were and it is pleasantly surprising to find out that for the majority of these women, it is the social acceptance, tied into the reactions they receive on their nudity posts and the desirability they charm in the minds of people that motivates them the most. African tradition
It’s not art as many of them claim to want to push down our minds, nor is it anything close to the assertion that they are personal choices to post any such things, knowing too well that if it was so personal, they should never have found their ways onto the internet in the first place. #African tradition
Otherwise, what is there to say of a new mother, stark naked, with her baby clutching onto a nipple, and one of the hands of the baby, supported by the mother’s on the other nipple, looking directly in a lens, and then after such a shot is captured, this same mother decides to share the details with the rest of the world through an online page managed by herself? And then when the criticisms and backlash arise, the only defense we get is that it is their own space and they decide what to do with it? #African tradition
That is madness! It is arrant nonsense and plain stupidity.
It is people like these that encourage rapists, perverts and pedophiles to be more emboldened to think they can always have their way with women especially, and children. African tradition
And you know why this is such a graduated level of madness – the world is constantly fighting for the place of the woman in this unequal world. The world wants equality for women and men as well are calling for equity to be accorded to all persons. African tradition
This campaign and crusade has been hailed around the world, gaining popularity and a lot of endorsements as we fight for both men and women to live in a more equal world but have you ever heard the infamous saying that ‘women are their own enemies?’ Well, if there weren’t any truths in that, these examples of several African women importing alien cultures of nudity into their daily lives, calling it fashionable and feeling unashamed about it, when all they are expecting from it is some endorsement for the stupidity it is, should be all the reasons we need to buttress that assertion.
Woman, you don’t need anybody to see you naked to prove anything to you – whether it is about your beauty or just for regular compliments or even for ‘empowerment’. When a man sees your body, all that runs through his mind is objectifying it. If not too, how do we continue the conversations surrounding discouraging men who seek to sleep with women searching jobs before they offer them any, among other issues?
Already, there are several examples of music videos, for instance, showing very explicit forms and ways that women have exposed their bodies while the men (most of whom engage them to act in these videos) appear almost always fully covered. Do you get the irony of madness here yet?
The idea of showing some skin to feel wanted or desired is a failed trick of the mind and a societal breakdown and just as many people who ever engaged in things like these grew up eventually realize, open nudity is not such a wise decision. You have a chance to rethink that choice and remember that the internet never forgets. African tradition
