CHENNAI: The ban on pornography does not necessarily imply a blanket ban, but only a ban on the most popular mediums of distribution. With regular porn haunts having been pulled down, the number of hits on remote and dormant channels have risen to meet the supply curve, even on the first day of the ban.
For instance, an underground WhatsApp group in the city that distributes pornographic videos has seen an instant jump in the number of video uploads. “From an average of 3 videos a day, it has increased to 15 videos this morning,” says one of the members of the group who wished to stay anonymous. Torrent-sourcing content also currently stands to supplement the porn needs of netizens until a clamp-down is declared for these sites as well.
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“I downloaded 5 Japanese porn (Hentai) videos, it really was not difficult to source them despite this ban,” says a college-goer in the city.
A section of women are also on tenterhooks in the aftermath of the blocking. With the alternatives extending beyond just new ways to bring porn to the screen, there is also the looming threat in the surge of cameras in trial-rooms, bathrooms and its ilk of voyeur-esque content that could jeopardise privacy and safety of women.
“I am usually conscious about trial-room cams and now I am paranoid about them. There is also the obscene pictures and video-sharing which can come back in a big way now that there are WhatsApp like services to speed things up. The lesser the access to porn videos, the more the number of other avenues that will open up to compensate and perverts are always on the loose” says a 27 year old ad agency woman employee.
“Ideally porn websites should not cater to fetishes that are illegal in nature, and content like violence and child porn should be flagged. And searches and videos along these flagged terms should be clamped down. But in the absence of these specific problem-oriented measures, the only viable option seems to be for the government to not hold double standards and ban everything that is held as “obscene” as stated by this current ban."
And this starts with Honey Singh videos as well doesn’t it?,” quips Anubhav Nair, a lawyer.