Saudi citizens have taken to social media in anger after a prominent doctor said in a televised interview that ninety-two percent of Saudi women had watched online pornography.
The Saudi Society for Infectious Diseases Director, Dr. Nizar Bahberi, gained a mass following during the Covid-19 pandemic. He has over 230,000 followers. In an interview on the Rotana Gulf channel, Dr. Bahberi was lamenting over access to pornography, which he claims is freely aired on satellite television.
The doctor told his interviewer that he first began collecting data on the problem in 2014. The social media survey results at that time showed that just twenty-three percent of Saudi women reported seeing at least one pornographic video in the last year. The doctor explains that the same survey was repeated in 2019, and the women’s responses shot up to ninety-two percent.
“Therefore, in many premarital seminars, I tell men that you cannot blame you(r) wife, who you recently married, and ask her how do you know about these things because access to this content is much easier than before,” the doctor said.
Saudi Arabia has strict laws against sexual content. It was reported that between 2014-2016, The Communication and Information Technology Commission in the country blocked over 600,000 porn sites. Anyone guilty of sharing, promoting, selling, or possessing pornographic material could receive a five-year prison sentence and/or a fine of around $800,000.
Citizens' reactions were swift, with the hashtag “Nazar Bahberi insults Saudi women” quickly going viral. One user tweeted, “He is sitting there and giving the world the impression that Saudi women are easy.” “Evil, poisonous and malicious words,” tweeted another.
Defending himself, the doctor stressed that the latest survey had a sample of 3,000 respondents. “This doesn’t mean that it happens in all of society, this is a sample which follows my social media accounts, and this means that (women watching porn) may happen,” he said. “In order to create proper awareness content, I do surveys to determine the extent of the problem,” he added.
Dr. Eidan Al-Zahrani, college dean and assistant professor, also challenged Dr. Bahberi’s survey. “I used to call for the protection of doctors against those attacking them…but now I call for protecting society from some doctors and calling them to account for their insults,” he tweeted.
