News
Blue Movies Proliferate in Post-Saddam Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Outside the cinemas on Saadoun Street, groups of men loiter round film posters of naked women, whose private parts are crudely super-imposed with underwear drawn in colored pen.
Behind doors in Baghdad's main movie strip, there is no such teasing.
Barely a seat is empty as hundreds of men, most puffing cigarettes, sit in total silence and darkness to enjoy scenes of nudity and sex for 1,000 Iraqi dinars ($0.50) a time.
'Under Saddam, forget it. You would go to jail for showing or watching this,' said movie-watcher Mohammed Jassim at the Atlas Cinema where one of the films on offer was disturbingly named 'Real Raping.'
The fall of Saddam Hussein liberalised Iraq's cinema industry overnight.
Pornographic movies which had circulated only secretly before suddenly came into the open. The smuggling of films from abroad became overt importing. And demand has proved high despite Iraq's strict Muslim morals. "
Blue Movies Proliferate in Post-Saddam Iraq
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Outside the cinemas on Saadoun Street, groups of men loiter round film posters of naked women, whose private parts are crudely super-imposed with underwear drawn in colored pen.
Behind doors in Baghdad's main movie strip, there is no such teasing.
Barely a seat is empty as hundreds of men, most puffing cigarettes, sit in total silence and darkness to enjoy scenes of nudity and sex for 1,000 Iraqi dinars ($0.50) a time.
'Under Saddam, forget it. You would go to jail for showing or watching this,' said movie-watcher Mohammed Jassim at the Atlas Cinema where one of the films on offer was disturbingly named 'Real Raping.'
The fall of Saddam Hussein liberalised Iraq's cinema industry overnight.
Pornographic movies which had circulated only secretly before suddenly came into the open. The smuggling of films from abroad became overt importing. And demand has proved high despite Iraq's strict Muslim morals. "
Comments