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The blocking of pornographic websites in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan by the Jamali-led regime in October has dismayed not only the men but also women and teenage girls who happen to be equal admirers of pornography.
?The pornographic portals provided us a ?safe? and easy source of pleasure in a draconian society where women are not treated as a human beings, but as sex objects. Regrettably, it has been snatched from us,? was the reaction of Samina, a 32-year old married woman from Rawalpindi. She was upset when she tried to access her favourite porn website, www .desibaba.com, and found that it blocked.
Pakistani society is narrow-minded and rigid, and there is a lot of chauvinism that works against women. Except for a few big towns, women cannot dare to come out on the streets alone. Even in metropolitan cities like Karachi, they cannot imagine riding bicycles or motorbikes. They have to face tremendous embarrassment and harassment if they go out alone to eat or even walk.
So what do literate women who have no ways to amuse themselves do? They surf the Internet ? and, often enough, they try out the porn sites.
The dependence on internet for pornography increased in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), a province that borders Afghanistan, when the government of pro-Taliban clerics banned music, dance, kite flying, cinema houses, fashion exhibitions, music concerts, video shops, etc. The clerics? clique also banned co-education and womens participation in sports and ordained a strict law that did not allow women to move out alone unless they were chaperoned by a male kinsmen.
In this milieu, the Net offered the only release, and young women aren?t pleased about the ban. ?We could have satisfied our desires by watching sexy images on the Internet, without inviting any risk. With the ban, we will have to find ways to rent out XXX CDs like boys and men from the shops, thereby facing some embarrassment. So, the ban is not going to make us saints, but force us to opt for an outlet that is not embarrassment-free,? says Ayesha, a student of sociology at a NWFP university.
?I was inclined to browse pornography because of lack of sex in the marriage. My husband was too busy with his office work and was not interested in having sex. So, I ventured into the cyber sex because of boredom,? says Jamila, a housewife based in Islamabad. ?I will have to buy XXX-CDs now to continue my adventures,? she adds.
Looking for variety
?I have a desire for fun and variety that I find in the porno websites. It is very stupid of the government to block such sites. Some sites might be successfully blocked but everyday hundreds and thousands of new porno websites are launched. I have not suffered from the block. I just visited www.google.com and found innumerable sex websites to spur my passion,? said Rubina, wife of a government clerk, who is a frequent visitor to internet cafes.
?By banning something, you cannot cleanse the society. Several females ? married and unmarried, school and college girls ? visit my internet caf? to browse pornographic websites. They download images and save them in disks. When they could not access certain websites, they asked me for XXX-CDs and thus had fun,? said Mustafa Ahmad, an internet caf? owner in Rawalpindi.
?It is one of my hobbies to visit pornographic websites. My husband is a good person, but he is incapable of satisfying me. I copy the pornographic images and clips into my imagination and derive sexual pleasure from them. In my imagination, I surrogate for the porno heroines and experience the ecstasy that the porno heroes provide them,? says Farah, a primary school teacher.
Fifteen-year-old Nisha is in tenth grade. She is a regular visitor to pornographic websites. She discovered the pleasures of porn during chatting. Her boyfriend Ali started sending her porno links. She enjoyed watching them.
She hasn?t had physical sex but she does enjoy the cyber sex. Nisha says that her mother also visits porn websites and has a collection of pornographic magazines, videocassettes and CDs too. Therefore, she feels no sharam (shame) in watching pornography, says Nisha.
Her preferences are clear. ?I like watching lolitas sex. Unfortunately, most of the sites have been blocked by the government. Please do let me know of some unblocked lolita websites if they are in your knowledge,? Nisha says.
One finds it almost impossible to digest the reality that women too could seek erotic ecstasy since Pakistan is an Islamic country where women are perceived to be chaste and pure.
?What makes you think that women are not involved or interested in such hobbies? This is a misconception on your part as whatever is available on the Net or even on TV is no longer gender specific?, says Rumana, a manager at an Islamabad telecom company.
?There are a lot of women who watch wrestling, which previously had an all-male viewership. Likewise there are a lot of men who visit cooking or fashion design websites?, she says.
Her explanation as to why women visit pornographic sites is simple. ?For the same reasons as men! They want to see what is there to see?. According to Rumana, the thrill of the forbidden is an added draw. ?Some women do it for the excitement of doing something they shouldn?t be doing?, she says. ?Since the internet provides an easier access than buying a Playboy or Hustler magazine. I personally have never visited a porn site though I have gone through porn magazines which usually left me with a feeling of disgust,? says Rumana.
Mohammad Shehzad is an independent writer based in Islamabad. | 
