WWW- IT’S NOT exactly sleeping with the enemy – very little actual slumber seems to be involved – but an Israeli Internet site has found a unique way to make Arabs and Jews come together in friendly – very friendly – relations.
Bringing people together in a way the politicians and peace plans have so far failed to do, the website, called Parpar 1, features 325 Israelis and Arabs engaging in “Middle East amateur porn”. The site features such movies as Sex in the Army, Amal and Rachel, The Rabbi’s Daughter, Army Power, and Israeli Breakfast, although it is doubtful whether this last features eggs, cheese and diced salad served up in the traditional way.
The site was set up in 2000, by two Israelis, one of whom, Shay Malol, confessed that in so doing he was fulfilling a childhood dream. “Israel is a unique country and we decided to make pure Israeli porn,” he says.
Parpar 1’s contents are also via cell phone and membership costs R77 (10) for three days, R123 for one week and R200 for 30 days. Billing information appears on bank statements as “fuel supplies”. Parpar is Hebrew for butterfly but the word also means a “swinger” and from it has evolved a verb, “l’parper”, which means “to sleep around”.
“We believe that each and everyone one of us is a small butterfly that wants to be free,” Malol says. He says the site employs only people born in Israel, whether Jewish or Muslim, and takes on three to four new actors each month, from the many requests for starring roles.
“We film our actors having sex in front of the cameras naturally, no silicone, no make-up,” he says. “Exactly as they do it at home, exactly as you want to see your neighbours having sex.”
Malol says the site has around 20000 surfers per day, reaching up to 50000 on weekends, and, apart from criticism in the first two years, when the Palestinian uprising was at its height, reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, including from such countries as Iran.
“When we see e-mail from such countries as Syria, Egypt, Jordan,” he says, “it is important to emphasise that people are just people”. — Sapa- DPA