There was a time when the term “sex tape” immediately evoked images of something secretly recorded: an intimate moment captured without the knowledge or consent of the people involved and later released to the public. But something about the current trend feels different.
Increasingly, we are confronted with intimate videos that appear to have been knowingly recorded by the people involved. Whether these recordings were actually intended for public consumption, deliberately released, or simply shared privately and subsequently leaked is a question that deserves investigation.
But the bigger question is this:
Why are we becoming increasingly comfortable recording our most intimate moments, and what happens when the private becomes public?
That is where the phenomenon we now casually refer to as “Azigi” deserves more than laughter, gossip, and forwarding. It deserves a conversation.
The First “Leak” Was Not on a Smartphone
Interestingly, the idea of nakedness becoming a subject of public exposure is not new.
Long before smartphones, WhatsApp, TikTok and Telegram, the Bible recorded an incident that offers us an interesting starting point for understanding the human fascination with another person’s nakedness.
In Genesis 9:20–27, Noah became drunk and lay naked inside his tent. His son Ham saw his father’s nakedness and went outside and told his brothers. Shem and Japheth, however, walked backwards into the tent and covered their father without looking at him.
There is an important lesson here: Seeing something does not give us the right to expose it.
Ham had information about his father’s vulnerability. His brothers chose dignity over exposure.
Fast-forward thousands of years, and technology has given us something Ham could never have imagined: the ability not only to see, but also to capture, preserve, reproduce and distribute someone’s most vulnerable moments to thousands or even millions of people within minutes.
The smartphone has effectively put a broadcasting station into the hands of almost every young person. And that should concern us.
The Smartphone in the Hands of Digital Natives
We have entered an age where parents sometimes give children smartphones simply to keep them occupied.
The child is quiet.
The parent gets some peace.
Everybody seems happy.
But what exactly have we handed the child?
A camera.
A browser.
A social media account.
A dating platform.
A recording device.
And potentially, access to millions of strangers.
The problem is not the smartphone itself. The problem is that many young people are being introduced to powerful technology without being properly introduced to the responsibility that comes with using it.
Some young people receive their first smartphones from their parents. Others acquire them through friends, relationships or even sexual partners.
But regardless of how the device was obtained, the lesson remains the same: Giving a young person technology without teaching them how to use it responsibly is like giving them a car without teaching them how to drive.
The numbers should make us uncomfortable. This is not merely a theoretical concern.
A Ghanaian study involving 576 high-school students in the Tema area found that 24.7% had shared sexually explicit material using mobile phones. The study also found that students aged over 16 were more likely to have engaged in sexting.
Another Ghanaian study published in 2025, involving 401 adolescents from Junior High Schools and Senior High Schools in Drobo, found that more than 60% had received sexually explicit material through social media, while 47.6% reported sending such material to others.
These figures should not be interpreted as representing every young person in Ghana. The studies were conducted in specific communities and schools. However, they give us a glimpse into the environment in which today’s young people are growing.
International studies point in the same direction.
A large meta-analysis of 79 studies involving young people found average rates of 14% for sending sexts, 31% for receiving them and 7% for forwarding them. Importantly, sending increased substantially with age, with the estimated rate rising from about 4% at age 12 to 21% at age 16.
Another meta-analysis of 28 studies involving more than 48,000 young people estimated that 19.3% had sent sexts, 34.8 per cent had received them and 14.5% had forwarded them without consent.
So the question is no longer whether young people are engaging with sexual content through their devices. The question is whether we are preparing them for the consequences.
But Why Record It in the First Place?
Why would two people voluntarily record themselves during an intimate moment? Researchers have identified several possible motivations.
For some, it may simply be the excitement of recording themselves. For others, it may become a form of sexual memorabilia—a way of preserving an intimate moment. Some may see it as a way of reinvigorating their sex life, while others may produce such material because they enjoy amateur pornography.
There are also people who record intimate encounters as a kind of trophy or evidence of having been intimate with a particular person, especially when that person is famous or socially desirable. But perhaps we need to look beyond the obvious.
Why are people so interested in the leaks?
Because there is another side to this phenomenon.
The person recording may have one motivation.
The person releasing it may have another.
And the millions watching may have an entirely different motivation.
Several factors may be at work:
1. The Desire for Attention
In an age where visibility is increasingly treated as social currency, some people will do almost anything to generate attention.
2. The Pursuit of Numbers
Views, likes, shares and followers have become metrics of relevance. For some, going viral is an achievement in itself.
3. Peer Competition
Among some young people, sexual experiences can become a form of social competition: who has dated whom, who has access to whom, who has the latest video and who can produce the most shocking content.
4. The Need for Affirmation
There is also a deeper issue of identity. When people constantly seek affirmation from peers and online audiences, they can begin to measure their worth by attention rather than character.
5. Money
Where there is an audience, there is eventually a market. Some people may see intimate content as an opportunity for monetisation.
6. Psychological and Behavioural Factors
We should also be careful not to reduce every case to immorality or stupidity. Human behaviour can be complicated. Some patterns may involve impulsivity, poor judgement, a desire for validation, compulsive behaviour or other psychological factors.
But we must be careful here too: not everyone who records or shares intimate material has a mental health disorder. We should not diagnose people from a viral video.
The Person In The Video Is Still A Person
Perhaps this is the part we struggle with most. Once a video becomes viral, the person in it can stop being seen as a human being.
They become content.
A joke.
A WhatsApp status.
A Telegram post.
A trending topic.
A source of entertainment.
But behind every video is a human being with parents, siblings, friends, colleagues, a reputation and a future. Sometimes, the person who made the original mistake is not the person who commits the greatest wrong.
Someone may have foolishly recorded an intimate moment. But you did not have to forward it.
Someone may have trusted the wrong person. But you did not have to turn their betrayal into entertainment.
Someone may have made a poor decision. But you did not have to make thousands of copies of that decision.
That distinction matters.
So, What Do We Do?
The answer cannot simply be: “Take the phones away.”
Technology is not going away. Instead, our parenting, teaching, youth ministry and discipleship must catch up with technology.
1. Groom Them Before You Give Them Freedom
The home must become the first place where young people learn about sexuality, privacy, dignity, relationships and consequences.
We cannot leave these conversations to TikTok, WhatsApp, pornography and friends.
Parents must talk. Not only when something goes wrong. Before it goes wrong.
2. Teach Children How to Use Technology
A smartphone should come with more than a charger and a data bundle. It should come with conversations about:
- privacy;
- consent;
- online strangers;
- pornography;
- sexting;
- screenshots;
- forwarding;
- digital footprints;
- cyberbullying;
- manipulation;
- blackmail; and
- what to do when someone pressures them for an intimate picture.
Young people need to understand one fundamental principle: Once you send something digitally, you may lose control over where it goes.
3. The Church Must Enter the Conversation
And this is where the Church has a responsibility. We cannot spend every Sunday talking about the problems of the previous generation while ignoring the problems confronting this one.
Our youth meetings must address the technology young people actually use and the trends they are actually discussing.
If “Azigi” is being discussed on their phones during the week, then the Church should be able to discuss digital purity, online dignity, relationships, pornography, sexting, consent and responsible technology use from the pulpit and in youth meetings.
Not merely with condemnation, but with wisdom.
4. Parents and the Church Must Work Together
The home cannot do it alone.
The Church cannot do it alone.
Schools cannot do it alone.
We need a generation that understands that being technologically connected does not mean being morally disconnected.
The Real Danger of the ‘Azigi’
Perhaps the greatest danger is not one particular video. It is what happens when repeated exposure makes us insensitive.
Today, we gasp.
Tomorrow, we laugh.
Next week, we forward.
Eventually, we stop asking whether the person in the video is hurting.
And that is when the real problem begins.
The rise of the Azigi should therefore not merely provoke another round of gossip. It should provoke a conversation about what we are teaching our children, what we are celebrating, what we are consuming and what kind of society we are becoming.
Noah’s nakedness was exposed once.
Today, a smartphone can expose a person’s private life to an entire nation in seconds.
The technology has changed.
Human vulnerability has not.
And perhaps the lesson from Genesis remains as relevant as ever:
Just because you have seen someone’s nakedness does not mean you have the right to expose it.
References
- Gyane, C. O., Gmayinaan, V. U., & Osei, E. (2025). Association between social media use and adolescents’ sexual behaviours: A cross-sectional study among high school students in Drobo, Ghana. BMC Public Health, 25, 537. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-21585-y
- Madigan, S., Ly, A., Rash, C. L., Van Ouytsel, J., & Temple, J. R. (2018). Prevalence of multiple forms of sexting behaviour among youth: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(4), 327–335. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.5314
- Madigan, S., Villani, V., Azzopardi, C., et al. (2020). Prevalence of multiple forms of sexting behaviour among youth: A three-level meta-analysis. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0243653. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243653
- Madigan, S., Ly, A., Rash, C. L., Van Ouytsel, J., & Temple, J. R. (2022). Are youth sexting rates still on the rise? A meta-analytic update. Journal of Adolescent Health, 70(4), 555–564.
- Sesar, K., Simic, N., & Barisic, M. (2020). Sexting among high school students in a metropolis in Ghana: An exploratory and descriptive study. Journal of Children and Media, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2020.1719854
- Written By Eld. David Broohm