On Monday morning, a Facebook post shocked and left the author speechless. The post had a screenshot of a popular porn website's trending searches. On top, even above the celebrities and sought-after porn genres, was the name of the little girl who was gangraped and murdered in Kathua.
As India grieves the death of 8-year-old who was kidnapped, sedated, gang-raped and then brutally killed, porn websites have seen a surge in searches linked to her name. The trending search proves the large voyeuristic and sadistic consumer base for miseries of other people in India, which according to a recent study are among the most "prolific consumers" of internet pornography, accounting for 40% of the website’s 14.2 billion visits.
So are we living among sociopaths with suppressed sexuality?
The death of a child is just another misery that can be consumed to satiate perversion. Out to relish any last videographic material on the victim, porn enthusiasts have searched multiple websites to find some sort of a clip. Hence, search terms have gone from uncivil to savage --.starting with her name, then coupled with ‘MMS’, ‘rape’, ‘clip’, ‘Muslim’ etc.
Porn enthusiasts have now created tags with the name of the rape victim, to which video are being added that are mostly clickbaits. The creation of tags on porn websites is like a marker for any future porn content that will be uploaded. There is still hope amongst those who are searching or have searched without much success that somebody out there will supply them with a clip!
Another reason for watching videos depicting extreme sexual acts, psychiatrists say, is suppressed sexuality that leads to abnormal curiosity, reported Hindustan Times.
“Sexuality is often a non-discussed topic and that leads to curiosity. Many a times, people can actually be suffering from paraphilia, a condition characterised by abnormal sexual desires,” said Dr Sameer Malhotra, head of mental health and behavioural sciences at Max Healthcare.
The total number of rape cases registered in India was 38,947 and there were over 106,000 crimes against children. The problem with the rape number is that government data suggests that 99% of victims of sexual violence in India do not report the incident to the police.
India's rape problem is an outcome of the deep rape culture that, in private conversations, is often celebrated. It is a public secret that rape of women in moving vehicles is popularly seen as a sport in North Indian states. With free data and access to pornographic material via websites, the burning desire to watch the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal has only increased.
Whenever something new happens, WhatsApp groups are flooded with fake porn videos. This time around the victim's videos haven't reached that stage yet, probably because of the huge public outcry.
Dig a little deeper and you will come across the communal tension! Yes, there are tones of porn videos tagged with 'hindu-boy-muslim-girl videos', 'Hindu Muslim Sex Porn Videos' etc. The videos are labeled with unsavory names often describing the male sexual organs that are enjoyed by the other religion's women.
Nobody knows who started the communal fight in the under-belly of pornography. Yet, such videos only seem to be growing in number and popularity. As soon as one group of hate videos get uploaded, the others continue their fight by uploading another bunch.
This trending search shouldn’t come as a surprise in India where a business -- of selling gangrape videos filmed by the rapist – was reported to be on the rise.
Sales of gang-rape videos are said to be on the rise in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. According to The Times of India report, “Hundreds, perhaps thousands” of recordings of violent sexual atrocities are bought and sold daily.