November 3, 2007
By Kashiefa Ajam and Janet Smith
After a week of media frenzy over an alleged sexual assault in the Big Brother Africa house, an exclusive viewing to the Saturday Star shows that this never happened.
Newspaper reports alleged that Tanzanian housemate Richard Bezuidenhout forced himself on Nigeria's Ofunneka Molokwu and almost had sex with his girlfriend in the house, Angolan Tatiana Durao, while all three were in a highly drunken state.
Carl Fischer, M-Net's head of original programming, has said that alcohol will be banned for the last week of the show because the housemates had in this incident consumed too much, requiring paramedics to intervene.
Bezuidenhout, Molokwu and Durao are the only housemates remaining. The winner of $100 000 (about R650 000) will be announced next Sunday.
The Saturday Star viewed the material- taken from live footage archived last Saturday afternoon - and saw that Bezuidenhout was indeed in bed with Molokwu and Durao, but that Durao had passed out, while Molokwu was engaging in consensual sexual activity with him.
Viewers had alleged that, after stripping the two women, Bezuidenhout had sexually assaulted Molokwu, who, it was claimed, was comatose.
M-Net has stated that a sexual encounter did indeed occur, but insisted that it was consensual.
Earlier this week, the advocacy group Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre to End Violence Against Women was said to be considering sending a lawyer's letter to the broadcaster to demand unedited footage of the incident for perusal by experts in sexual violence.
But, after viewing the footage on Friday, Lisa Vetten, of Tshwaranang, said: "In relation to Ofunneka there is no sexual assault there - it looks very consensual. I think that in relation to Tatiana, I would have been concerned if he tried to have sex with her, but it appears that once he put her on the bed and she continued to demonstrate a lack of interest, he left her alone. I'm satisfied that nothing untoward happened."
M-Net said earlier this week that a fishing game which led to the three-in-a-bed incident had involved alcohol, but the viewing revealed that Big Brother's instructions were that housemates "sip" the cocktails after catching a fish, while the participants are clearly heard to be urging each other to "gulp" the drinks..
Shortly thereafter, the four housemates - including Maureen Namatovu of Uganda, who was evicted the day after the incident - are seen collapsing on the floor on top of each other, laughing uproariously. Bezuidenhout then simulated sex standing behind Durao, but both are fully clothed.
He referred to his penis as "a weapon from Tanzania" and posed like a soldier shooting a machine-gun. "Tell them how nice Zanzibar is," he said to Durao.
"I'm going to bump you all before you leave this house," he added.
Bezuidenhout, who is newly married, then scooped up Durao, with whom he had already had consensual sex in the house, and carried her to the bedroom, suggesting he would like to have sex with her again. She said "no" and then passed out.
A few minutes later, after Molokwu had arrived in the bedroom and vomited repeatedly, Bezuidenhout lay between the two women under the sheet. Durao was also under the sheet, apparently asleep. Molokwu grabbed Bezuidenhout's face, trying to kiss him, but he refused.
He then turned his back on her playfully, and she grabbed his crotch and rubbed herself against his body. This activity went on for several minutes.
Bezuidenhout laughed and giggled throughout the encounter with Molokwu, which was cut short when paramedics arrived in the bedroom. They removed Durao for medical attention, and Bezuidenhout was escorted out.
"There are strict guidelines for the producers on the breaking of any house rules," explained Fischer when asked whether M-Net would have intervened had Bezuidenhout indeed been sexually assaulting any of the women.
"Even if nothing raunchy is going on, there is quite a fine line defining at which point we would intervene."
Getting drunk is not against the rules of the reality show. Big Brother Africa is regarded as adult content and is restricted on parental control.
Contrary to reports, M-Net did not close down its internet forum after the incident was reported earlier this week.
The producers of the fourth season of Big Brother in the United States stacked the deck for sex on-screen two years ago by filling the house exclusively with singles who had previously been in romantic relationships with each other.
Sexual activity did happen on the show - ironically not between any of the former couples - after significant amounts of alcohol had been consumed. A woman known as Amanda had turned up the heat at one stage, when she showed off to her fellow house guests her ability to stick her legs behind her head.
There has been plenty of unedited sex on Big Brother shows in Hungary, Poland, Sweden and Norway, and Britain's seasons have also included physical action - some of it confirmed, some of it assumed.
Eccentricities not involving sex have had mixed fortunes on other Big Brother shows. In France and Canada, as in the US, couples have also competed. In Holland, the house has been separated into halves - one with money and luxuries and one emptied of excess.
A German edition has run for a year with three teams, but another season, called Das Dorf (The Village), was supposed to run for several years but was axed after 12 months due to lack of interest. - Additional reporting by Noor-Jehan Yoro Badat
- This article was originally published on page 3 of The Star on November 03, 2007
  
 
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