Ashraf Johaardien: A brief meditation on looking away.

Clear line.

Do not cross.

We all agree that sharing someone’s intimate footage without consent is wrong. Then the footage leaks, and the line softens. Suddenly everyone becomes a reluctant expert on something they insist they haven’t watched.

Have you seen it?

No. I would never. It’s a violation, but I heard…

What did you hear?

The whole internet is performing abstinence while offering shot-by-shot analysis. One hand covers the eyes. The other keeps the clip in circulation. The reactions split in two uncomfortable directions.

One is sustained outrage. Correct. Necessary, maybe. But it keeps talking. For days. Long enough that the anger starts to function as distribution.

The other is comedy. Immediate. We skip the pause where we say that’s awful and go straight to the bit. Even the people who know better do it. People start speaking like jurors.

Well, he volunteered to be filmed.

He did.

He said he didn’t mind being naked on camera.

Yes, that’s what he said.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that volunteering to be filmed isn’t volunteering to have the footage circulated.

Apparently, that’s a distinction we’re struggling to make.

The last room that was supposed to be off the record now comes with conditions. Headlines treat the full frontal as the scandal, as if the controversy is that a man was naked in the shower rather than that someone made the footage public. Anatomy becomes the news. The violation becomes secondary. I know, I know, the title is doing it too.

We act shocked that a human body looks like a human body when the clothes come off. We’ve all got a version of it. It’s not a revelation. It’s just what was behind the door.

I scroll the comments. Because of course we scroll. And suddenly everyone’s a privacy lawyer. Or a body-language expert. An ethicist for the day.

This sets a dangerous precedent.

Yes. The precedent is that the bathroom is no longer safe. It is the one room where no one could reach you. Just you, your thoughts, and the tile that never quite comes clean. Even that room now has an audience.

I’m not going to describe what was in the video. The moment I do, I’m another replay. Another link in the chain. What I’m stuck on is the present tense. A man is having the most exposing day of his life, and we’re all calling it content.

We say the video is circulating. Like it chose to. Like it moved on its own. Someone circulated it. Someone decided to take a private moment and make it public. Someone pressed send, upload or share. The passive voice turns an action into a weather system.

Just imagine the impossible press tour. Imagine having to issue a statement about your own shower. No one should ever have to address their own shower. That room was supposed to be off the record.

And now I am watching how fast we build etiquette around looking.

We invent manners for this exact situation. We say we are concerned. We say we are checking in. We say raising awareness. All while keeping the tab open. We’ve become very good at caring out loud while clicking quietly.

I see friends who would never repeat a rumour in real life. In real life they would stop you mid-sentence. They would say, don’t tell me that, that’s private. Online, the same person will post a paragraph about why you shouldn’t watch, in language more descriptive than if you had actually watched.

We are curating innocence.

There is also a strange audit. People audit his shower. Audit his behaviour. Audit his body as if it had been submitted for review. Did he know? Was he careless? Should he have thought about what might happen? We turn his willingness to be filmed into a test he failed. We move the spotlight from the people who circulated the footage to the person under the water.

I keep thinking about the bathroom logic we grew up with. Door closed equals alone. Steam equals blur. Water running equals no one can hear you sing badly. That was the contract. Close the door, and the world pauses. Now the contract has fine print.

And jokes. I get jokes. I wrote a whole entire play about a comedian, and I’m sitting here seemingly joking too. But there is a type of joke happening now that is not about the situation. It is about the body. The circulation took privacy. The joke takes dignity. It turns a violation into a roast, and it invites everyone to grade something never meant to be graded.

I keep seeing the phrase. Full frontal. Two words that sound like a military manoeuvre. They sound official. They hide what actually happened, which is smaller and more human. A person was naked where people are supposed to be naked. Someone else decided that should be public.

We pretend there is a correct way to be a victim. Be calm, but not too calm. Be upset, but not too upset. Release a statement, but make it the right length. Say nothing and we fill the silence. Say something and we analyse the wording. There is no script for I was just washing my hair and now a private moment is trending.

I think about the next person too. Not just him. The next person in exactly that spot. How we act now becomes the template. If we treat this as content today, we treat the next one as content too. Until the private room feels old-fashioned. Until we start checking the corners of our own showers out of habit.

I do not want to live where a shower needs a disclaimer. Where you have to sweep a room that is supposed to be steam and soap.

I want the line back.

A clear one.

Do not cross.

And crossing does not become less of a crossing because we all crossed together.

So I’m trying to practise a boring version of decency. Not looking. Not describing. Not sharing. Not adding commentary that is secretly description. Not keeping the clip alive with outrage that works like promotion.

It’s boring. It doesn’t get reposted or liked, and it doesn’t get you into conversation. It just leaves the person alone in one room that was supposed to be theirs. That should have been enough from the start.

Controversy isn’t really about what was seen.

It’s about the fact that we looked.

Image: Illustration by M\e.

Ashraf Johaardien is a South African writer\artist working across literary, dramatic and visual forms.

Ashraf Johaardien
ashrafjohaardien@me.com
M\e.
http://www.ashrafjohaardien.com

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