By Ian Ortega
So why in the world did Desire Luzinda apologize? A human being apologizing for being photographed naked is like the Sun apologizing for shinning.
Let me say I am very annoyed. Perhaps apologizing to the Textile Industry. But to the fans, to us? No way. I see nothing wrong with nudism as long as a person deems it right and fitting for themselves.
Perhaps, she’s apologizing to the many that still have a puritanical attitude that is exacerbated by the radical religious right. There is also an economic factor in that how else are textile manufacturers supposed to stay in business if nudity rather than being clothed becomes the norm?
I had stayed away from addressing Desire Luzinda, but let me be open and say, an apology over someone’s private fantasies that were enjoyed by men and women alike is sheer stupidity to me.
We all know the anatomy of the human body. What then is wrong about one taking photos of this body?
Perhaps because everything in Uganda has been sexualized. To most Ugandans, naked simply implies sex. That’s how dumbed down we’ve become as a society.
But allow me to say, nudism has been with us as far as years back. Our great grandmothers were known to let out their breasts in the open. One should also realize that in the 60s, women in Uganda wore micro-skirts, not just mini-skirts. They also wore the hot pants and nothing was wrong with it. A woman was never judged for exposing too much because the society back then wasn’t sexualized in that nudity back then didn’t imply sex as we’ve now taken it.
I will never judge Desire Luzinda for taking nude pics. However, I will judge her permanently, I will question her motivation for taking these photos in the first place and her conscience at the time.
Apologizing over something is rubber-stamping it as an evil, as an immoral thing. But we all take off our clothes at the end of the day when we get in our shower areas. Do we apologize over this?
Why should we hate our human bodies to this extent?
Perhaps our puritanical approach could explain why women of late would rather see a baby cry itself to death than breastfeed it in public.
For the first time, let me speak out as a liberal. It’s time the young men and women did “liberate their minds” from this societal conditioning and repressions on social and sexual freedom. I will boldly state; “there’s nothing wrong with nudism. Nudism doesn’t imply sex.”
Shaming people who take nudes is supporting the beauty and cosmetics industry that builds on our insecurities about our bodies to sell us crap that we don’t actually need. The Ugandan society is awash in media and advertisements trading upon and magnifying our physical insecurities to sell us cosmetics, clothing, programs, and services such that we might use them to improve our less-than-perfect selves to meet the unrealistic ideal male or female image.
The result, as I see it? We have a society of people uncomfortable with their own body, who believe that nudity and sexuality are effectively synonymous and shameful and should be hidden.
Ben Reimers writes;
“People think that just seeing others’ bodies is itself sinful. We are told from a young age that the naked body is taboo. We lock doors when we have a shower. We’re told to knock before we enter in case they’re not decent. We go into a gender-separated room that has its own little rooms just for changing into our swimwear instead of just doing it beside the pool or on the beach.
The entirety of the media we consume and all of the lessons we get from our parents when we’re young not only drills into us that being naked in front of others is wrong, but that should you avoid accidentally seeing another naked person and if you do you must avert your eyes. Even the Bible has a story where the seeing of nakedness is wrong (Noah and his sons—though an allegorical interpretation of the text suggests it was actually about incest, a literal one certainly provides one origin of the taboo against nudity in and of itself).”
So I take shots at Desire Luzinda because in choosing to apologize, she’s sacrificed more girls in future who will judge themselves to the points of desiring suicide when their nudes leak. I blame Desire for setting a very wrong precedence by apologizing over mere nudism. I blame her, because for her one apology, hundreds and hundreds of young ones in future will think they’ve committed a very grave crime by waking up one day and finding their nudes circulating in the media.
So I repeat, what Desire Luzinda did by taking nude photos is not immoral and will never be immoral. We have no right whatsoever to judge what’s moral and what’s not as far as what people choose to do with their bodies. As long as an act doesn’t directly interfere with another’s right to live in anyway, you can’t call such an act immoral. The religious dogma and conditioning should stop. Thus, even as a country, we should stop passing laws based on religious books that colonialists brought in, brain-washed us and taught us to hate everything black and African. No wonder because of what we read in those texts, we hate our bodies so much, we hate our languages so much, we even hate our African gods so much.
Morality is a word that should not actually exist in this world. There is nothing moral or immoral. There are illegal and legal actions. The reason I say is that when you define an action as immoral its arbitrary and based on personal opinions devoid of any debate on the truth of it. And those illegal and legal actions should not be based on what religion has defined as moral or immoral, they should be based on acts that threaten another’s right to live or enjoy that life wonderfully.
So was Desire wrong to take nude pics? I say NO. Was she wrong to apologize? I say, A MILLION TIMES wrong.