HOOK-UP CULTURE AND THE HANGMAN’S NOOSE
From time immemorial, sex has always been a commodity – something that can be bought, sold or even stolen when it is taken by force, as in the instance of rape. Women selling their bodies did not start today. It is why prostitution is sometimes described as the oldest profession.
I remember that as far back as the 80s and 90s, there were always red spots in different major cities where the business of selling flesh was carried out mostly when dusk fell. One did not need to be a patron of such spots to know of their shady existence or seedy business.
Perhaps, the greatest existential attribute of man is his ability to evolve, to change and adapt to changing circumstances. This in itself may be part of the evolution of man itself or an excess of the tyranny of fate, which Seneca describes as fate leading a those who would, and dragging those who won’t.
Nigeria joined the rest of the world to march into a new millennium in 2001. All those born around the time are considered members of the “Gen Z” generation. With the advent and ascent of technology to the center of our lives, especially with the seismic disruption threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Gen Z considers itself a departure from the old stock.
Indeed, they are a new breed, with a new way of doing things, a breath of fresh air. But, perhaps, their most distinguishing factor is the fact that they are not cut from the same cloth as their forebears.
While the old guard was old and ossified in its ways of morality, Gen Z has brought a kind of zest that lets loose the zip a bit too easily, redefining and refining the business of peddling flesh
.These days, many young girls and even married women do not see the need to localize their services by confinement to a brothel or it’s environs. With the very technology that is the defining feature of Gen Z, especially communication technology and social media, they stick right to their homes, communicate with prospective clients, negotiate prizes and set off for business. This is a loose description of the hook-up culture: women hooking up for sex with men they may have never met before.
As ever, this culture, as widespread as it is, and as ancient in many forms, is an audacious attack on womanhood and the dignity of women. It is, as ever, one more pernicious perks of patriarchy in a patriarchal society where male privilege demands female submission and even commoditization to reassert and reinforce that privilege.
This privilege as pernicious as it is at the heart of the terror that women live in the world today with domestic violence, rape and modern-day slavery serving as twigs in the thicket of this gender-based terror.
At the end of the line which reinforces the hookup culture is a bait which jingles with death. The Nigerian police recently apprehended an internet fraudster locally known as yahoo boy for attempting to murder a hookup girl.
According to the police, 30-year-old from Edo State was apprehended when he tried to flee Top View hotel Wuse Zone 5 after leaving one Olivia bound and gagged in his hotel room.
Many girls have met their grisly ends on the hookup tightrope, and many more will if the trend is not stopped. But how do we stop a trend that is merely a digitalized version of prostitution, a profession as old as time?
It is no news that Nigeria does not place high premium on its women and girls. The highest odds in the country are stacked against them. With no gender equality or gender justice, many women have to battle many odds with very little success throughout their lives. When poverty bites hardest as is the case in Nigeria now, it is women who bear the brunt.
With women so exposed and vulnerable, there is no end in sight to the supply chain of the hookup culture. With a country which is failing in its responsibilities to its citizens, a society actively steeped in reinventing the dynamics of morality, and families failing to rein in their children, there is no end in sight to the debasement of the hookup culture or the danger it poses to girls who are links in the bridge to the future.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
