We really don’t understand why people are freaking out because Teddy A and BamBam had sex on the reality show
Big Brother Naija’s Teddy A and Bam Bam are two of the show’s most followed housemates; but since footage of the two having sex at 3 am began to circulate, they’ve become everyone’s favourite topic of discussion.
So, a reality show comes around with the promise of putting young Nigerians under one of the continent’s biggest and brightest spotlights.
For a small subscription fee, you get to see how these strangers acclimate, interact and basically, play the game as they vie for the main prize: 45 million naira.
Maintaining the show’s typically spontaneous yet organic energy is important, so the creators attempt to find a combustible balance of personalities: loud, expressive housemates join reclusive, endearing peers.
The formula works; by the second week, half the young population in cities like Lagos is keeping up with the show to varying degrees.
You go to bed hoping that Angel would get over himself and socialise.
On your way to work, you’re on Whatsapp asking if your friends think Cee C is manipulative.
Then, one day, you wake up at 3 am for a nightly drink. Somehow you decide to check on your favourite housemates.
You turn the TV on and there it is: a silhouette of Teddy A and Bam Bam doing the oldest dance in the comfort of the toilet.
Over the next few hours, you tell everyone who cares to hear how you feel: you’re disappointed in Teddy A, Bam Bam and all the young Nigerians who like having sex in the toilet on continental cable television.
The reactions to Teddy A and Bam Bam’s frolicking on the white seat have been varied.
Fans of the duo’s budding relationship are somewhat joyous that their chemistry has now been consummated.
But this goodwill has been drowned out by various shades of criticism from those who feel wronged that two grown adults on a reality show had sex at 3 am in the morning.
It’s hard not to see these reactions as hypocritical.
Big Brother has found success by creating the perfect environment for sexual tension to arise and flourish. Most viewers of the show know this, out of their previous experience and what they’ve heard about the show.
The housemates like any of us on the other end of the screen are sexual beings. The way that usually works is that when two persons share a mutual attraction, they gravitate towards each other until boom, sex happens.
Every fan of the show knew this would happen at some point.
Do you feel like a hypocrite?
It’s funny how after the show became a trending topic, videos of the romp were sprinkled all around social media and they rapidly began to gather thousands of views on the same platform where the two were being criticised en masse.
As at the time of writing this, a file-sharing site has clocked 3000 downloads on “Teddy A and Bam Bam BBNaija Sex Video”.
So, when do we talk about how we are all perverts for sitting in front of the television at wee hours of the morning and waiting for the nature to take its course in the most erotic of manners?
Maybe then we can also talk about how we are hypocrites for judging two consenting adults for having sex?
The only thing that was out of the ordinary about Teddy and Bam Bam’s romp was that there were cameras rolling when it happened, and it was because of you, you, you and you.
An acquaintance of Bam Bam’s went to Twitter to share her pain and disgust at the housemate for having sex on TV after her parents had spent so much effort on her.
This typically Nigerian form of hypocrisy, this holier than thou disposition to trending issues is why people who crept into the sandy bush and laid their backs on shrubs at NYSC camp to have sex are blaming Bam Bam for choosing the privacy of the toilet.
Sexism
The blatant sexism on display is also very disturbing.
A lot of the attacks have been sent towards the young lady for showing a lack of class when it takes two, at least in this situation, to tango.
That the woman in this equation is the brunt of jokes and attacks on her person shows we have a long way to go. Much of the progressiveness associated with the younger generation only comes to play when we’re comfortable with the subject or the conversation has started long before we join it.
When it is something of this nature, our madness is made manifest in the village square that is Twitter.
The question stands: why are we surprised that two people had sex on a reality show?
Perhaps because it allows us the opportunity to project our imperfections and attack them for the same things we’re guilty of.
But deep inside, we’re Teddy A and Bam Bam, some of us wouldn’t even wait to seek privacy in a restroom if we were in their shoes.
Another class of us is waiting in front of the Big Brother Naija channel, watching carefully, hoping that Cee C and Tobi can stop fighting so that something can happen.
Credit: Pulse