Sign of the Times: Porn Now Doing Brisk Business in Iraq

I blame Bush.

The nude women on the DVD cover in a Baghdad street stall say it all: Change, whether you like it or not, is afoot in Iraq.

Hundreds of porn DVDs are stacked elbow-deep on a wooden table in Jassim Hanoun's ramshackle stall on a downtown sidewalk. His other tables have Hollywood blockbusters, like "King Kong." But not surprisingly, it's the sex that sells best.

"I've got everything," Hanoun says of his sex selection, flashing the kind of impish grin only a 22-year-old in tight jeans and slicked-back hair can pull off with any real conviction. "What do you want? I've got foreign films, Arab, Iraqi, Indian, celebrities — whatever you like."

The porn, in an odd way, has told the story of Iraq's security and political situation since Saddam Hussein's ouster in 2003. It emerged in the anything-goes atmosphere that erupted in the vacuum immediately following the U.S. invasion — then went back into hiding amid the anarchy when armed militias roamed the capital through 2008, targeting those they saw as immoral.

Its reemergence since then reflects how security has improved but also how the fragile government is busy with more pressing issues than spicy videos.

You want spicy? How about some very creative movie titles?

And the demand is there. Hanoun unloads scores of adult movies a day — at nearly $3 each.

His stock ranges from the mundane to the startlingly extreme, including bestiality.

The titles alone — many along the lines of "The Rape of the Coeds" — offer disturbing insight into the possible psychological effects the years of indiscriminate violence have had on Iraqis.

Many have seen, if not first hand, then certainly on video and TV, children blown up, people kidnapped and beheaded and prisoners abused by U.S. forces.

The films don't show actual rapes — they're just titles tacked onto mainstream porn films downloaded from the Internet as well as homemade movies of amateur Arab couples.

In a nod to the politically elusive dream of Arab unity, Hanoun carries a collection entitled "Cheap Meat."

"It's got Syrian, Egyptian, Lebanese girls," he says. "All the Arabs."

But, in an ironic symbol of the difficulty with which Arabs have had coming together, the DVD gets stuck in a loop in the first five minutes.