It’s ignorantly offensive when people disregard illegalities and rather blame those who somewhat did nothing wrong anytime sex tapes leak—and this time, I am referring to the appalling incident of KNUST students publicly mounting a giant screen to screen a leaked sex tape of two students.
Common arguments such as; ‘why the heck did they record the sex tape in the first place and they deserve it for taking the camera to the bedroom’ are proudly erected all around social media when sex tapes leak by people who are mostly at the upper-echelon of the sharing of these tapes.
Sometimes, these people place a posture as though they genuine care about those affected, when in fact, they are just condemning a lawfully action while endorsing an illegality of sharing.
Contrary to popular misconception, two consenting adults have a legal right to record their own sex sessions—provided they do not intend to make it public. And in many leaked tape cases, the two involved can’t be said to have such illegitimate intention.
So I can decide to record an hour long sex bout with my girlfriend, wife or whoever is interested and we’ve not committed any crime—as long as we wanted to record it for our own private keep or viewing.
However, if this tape somehow leaks and you go about uploading it online, sending to friends via WhatsApp or any other medium, you are committing a crime of distributing obscene material per Section 281 of Ghana’s Criminal Offences Act—and also under the laws of many other jurisdictions.
Of course it’s inherently risky to be recording sex tapes in this day and age where privacy breaches are as common as egg shells but that does not in anyway serve as a legal restriction on the liberty of those who want to do so.
And ideally, people should be cautious when it comes to recording sex because of the hovering risk of leakage but the fact remains that, ‘sexual libertarians and freaks’ have the right to do this—no matter how absurd it sounds.
What’s fundamentally a crime and sincerely pathetic is the sharing or redistribution of leaked tapes by many of us—and worse, those who recently mounted a giant screen to screen a private sex encounter of two adults.
Don’t get it wrong; the legal argument of having a right to record a sex tape borders on the fact that, the two recording the tape must be adults who have consented to the recording and intend not to make it a public material or available to a third party.
It’s a matter of common sense, what two adults do in the privacy of their rooms should not be the headache of anyone, certainly not the law. And even if this is done in privacy, without any intention to make it public, there’s no way anyone would know of it such that it deserves to become a crime.