The Nigerian social media space is being bombarded with nude photos of celebrities in the Entertainment Industry and the society in general. In some way, it is as if nudity is becoming the order of the day. Our celebrities seem to forget that they should act like ambassadors, who the younger generation can look up to and take a cue from them, in terms of dressing and general conduct.
At glitzy, glamorous events, you find that some celebrities attend such occasions in nude attires. It is as if they compete to out-do each other in degree of nudity. Nude dressing by celebrities became so bad that a comedian once teased female superstars to buy enough fabrics when making their outfits for occasions. The audience laughed over it, but he had passed a strong message across. With the arrival of 2023, when people have made resolutions to exhibit better lifestyles, one has seen that at the few events that have taken place, rather than decrease, nude dressing has grown. There is hardly any event that is devoid of ladies in very revealing clothes.
Such clothes fall under any of these categories: badly punctured see-through holes, deep-V open neck cuts that expose more than half of the boobs, earth-brown skin fabrics that live little to the imagination, noticeable G-strings undies, push-up breast tops, very long and deep slitted frocks. Other types of nude clothes are all bareback gowns, all midriff exposure, then scarves that are folded and tied loosely across the boobs area while the rest is bare body. Then you have swimming trunks which of late have been converted into a show-piece, all legs wide open to pose for the camera; bare pregnancy belly of celebrities.
These days, you can hardly attend any wedding without seeing the bride and her train in all shoulder, breast-popping bare tops on floor sweeping frocks. One then asks: who are the target of all the nudity and see it as sexy and attractive? Who are the people cheering on the ladies? The situation has gotten so bad that some religious worship centres detail ushers/protocol people at the entrance to the churches gently turn back erring members, yet the spread of nudity continues by the day.
Evidently, the main culprits encouraging nudity in dressing are the menfolk. It is very obvious and simple that if there is no patronage (men to admire nudity), certainly there will be no urge for nude dressing. After all woman would ordinarily ogle a nude lady. It is the men that look and look, mentally analysing the curves and the shape of the breasts – whether standing at attention or not. Prostitution thrives because there is patronage. With the patronage, a shop would naturally go out of business and shut down. If the men begin to discourage their women from posing nude, they would stop it immediately. If a groom cautions his bride during their dating period, she would respect his wish in that regard. It would also reflect in the way members of the bridal train would dress.
The trend towards nudity has been driven essentially by the smartphone, which makes it very easy to take pictures, especially with fantastic cameras in the upscale models of phones. Smartphones with advanced features designed to make the use of the phones pleasant and exciting, have also put several people into trouble. All those very private pictures taken with Android phones and stored in the memory cards of the devices have often put the owners in trouble, whenever such phones fell into the hands of criminals who stole them. Such pictures when extracted often hit the internet, sometimes in stage managed manner. Recall that the steamy video of a certain personality was published online. Till date, no one can say with certainty how the video was released online, whether by an estranged lover or deliberate publicity stunt.
When a certain political personality allegedly leaked the nude video of his ex-girlfriend, it was an eyesore. Many thought the sordid incident would have made ladies to learn a lesson. Instead, more of the same kind of videos continue to be uploaded to cyberspace. Foolishly, some women still get carried away and they take nude pictures, forgetting that they have no control over tomorrow. It is so difficult to understand the reason for this practice. This is more so when you consider that the nude queens are also mothers that are raising children. I wonder the explanation they would give in future, when the children see such pictures and ask why they were naked. The internet does not suffer memory loss, it never forgets. Instead, it carefully catalogues and saves anything given to it. What legacy are they creating for themselves? To be remembered as nude queens?
Granted that there is a general trend of decay in people’s conduct, driven by the devil, and as knowledgeable people wait for Rapture, there is no time irresponsibility will become the accepted standard for measuring character. Character will always be measured on the basis of good morals and responsibility. We have seen some of Nollywood’s best actresses post pictures of themselves on social media platforms, wearing just bikinis to mark their birthdays. Several have worn breast-popping outfits to occasions. With several A-List events scheduled to hold this year, it is quite easy to predict that nudity would be more boldly put on display. Now that Big Brother Naija Titans Edition opens, the viewing public would expectedly be treated to a heavy dose of nudity. Consider the show put up by one of the winners of the reality show, who is known as a nude-queen. For her Yuletide celebration last year, she wore a short dress made from Wanyosi lace, which has unique big holes. A normal lady would have made the dress with underlay to cover the openings. But the Nollywood celebrity would have none of that “morality nonsense” and so her dress was made without underlay. Needless to say that it was very revealing. Nothing was left to the imagination. It was all there for any that cared to look to see, all her “assets and liabilities.”
Another weird female Afrobeat artiste is a nude video specialist who wears no undies at all. She feels no qualms about showing her “up” and “down” zones, showcasing her boobs and private area.
Indians respect their culture wherever they find themselves, civilization does not affect their principle, culture and norms. It is, therefore, bothersome that some ladies choose to ridicule themselves and pose nude for men to see and savour them. I tell you ladies that those men who enjoy your nudity might not take you home to Mama. It starts and ends there. Hardly do men openly show nudity. Besides the society is not interested in looking at the nude picture of men. Actors Guild of Nigeria has been at the loggerheads with a certain man who has been releasing nude photos of his ex-girlfriend. One is left to wonder how these celebrities walked into the den of lion in their relationships? How many male artistes appear on stage without clothes? But right there on the same stage you find that the back up singers are scantily dressed, to attract and arrest attention of the men at the concert.
The nudity craze is increasingly seen in advertisements, to promote products. Pray, what is the connection between a semi-nude lady lying seductively on the bonnet of a car being advertised and the performance, quality and features of the car? Companies who use half-nude ladies in promoting all kinds of products are also complicit in this offence. I guess they still in this manner because the society has not expressed outrage, instead there is patronage of such products. I ask, if the ladies cover up a bit, would that product not be sold? This odious practice of objectifying women needs to be stopped. Until men are ready to stand on stage in revealing boxer shorts, their erect manhood and six-packs showing as they sing and prance about on stage, thereby put them at par with the semi-nude female back-up singers, then this rascality called nudity should stop. That a pregnant lady, her bare breast and pregnancy belly, posed her man in the same level of nudity was simply an eyesore for both.
Dear Celebrities, you are supposed to be torch-bearers. God will hold you accountable for the errors and for encouraging other to commit the same errors. Do a sober reflection and ask yourself whether you will be proud of the decisions you are taking today in the years to come. Make your life and time now, worthy of tomorrow.
