Is Libya the birthplace of bunga bunga?

I am a shallow man. Sitting here in Tripoli, in the midst of a civil war, I should be contemplating the morality of liberal interventionism, or the legitimacy of autocratic government in a tribal society, or the efficacy of air power to effect regime change. I occasionally ponder these big questions—but I am also intrigued by the much less vital, albeit sexier, story of the Libyan roots of bunga bunga.  For those of you who don’t read The Sun or La Repubblica, bunga bunga is the term of art for Silvio Berlusconi’s alleged sex parties, in which naked and nubile women are said to cavort for the amusement of rich and powerful cronies of the Italian prime minister.

In at least one way, we journalists are like whores: luxury does not buy our love.  The international media here in Tripoli is housed (some say imprisoned) in a sumptuous hotel. One day, worn out by filming yet another pro-Gaddafi rally, I decided to check out its Turkish bath. After an enjoyable steam in a beautifully tiled room, I went to swim some laps in the pool. Now most hotel pools have an antiseptic quality about them, designed either for athletic businessmen to swim laps or for their bored children to frolic. This one, heated to 30 degrees, dimly lit and romantic, was much more sybaritic. It looked like the perfect set for a big budget soft-core porn movie about a Roman emperor.

If Ruby Rubacuori, the under-age belly dancer at the heart of the most recent Berlusconi sex scandal, is to be believed, the prime minister told her “that the bunga bunga was a harem that he copied from his friend Gaddafi in which girls strip off and have to give him physical pleasures.” The Wikipedia entry informs us that bunga bunga is  “a sort of underwater orgy where nude young women allegedly encircled the nude [host] and/or his friends in his swimming pool.”

As I finished my swim, I remembered this oddly specific definition of a sex party, and wondered if this very hammam could have been the birthplace of bunga bunga. Circling the pool I observed a number of small rooms, each with curtains that could be closed for privacy.  Every room featured a painting of an oriental odalisque, lounging as if awaiting her man’s pleasure. Hmmm. It looked to me like the ideal location for an orgy. Later that day, I casually asked the manager if the Italian prime minister had ever stayed at this hotel. Oh yes I was told, and he enjoyed it very much.

On the big questions in the first paragraph, I worry that the logic of liberal interventionism entails that after Libya why not Bahrain, or Syria or Saudi Arabia? I suspect that because of urbanisation and generational change, we may be overstating the importance of the tribal nature of Libyan society, and I am certain that air power by itself cannot overthrow this regime. Of course I cannot be sure that bunga bunga originated right here in this hotel, but at least it distracts me from the tedium of hearing yet another Libyan government minder claiming that “100 per cent of our people love the Leader.”

Tom Streithorst is a cameraman currently based in Libya