Sugar Girls and Seamen

History of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa

2008-05-21T22:00:00.009+02:00

While preparing my forthcoming book, Sugar Girls & Seamen, I researched and wrote an article about the history of dockside prostitution in South Africa. This exercise gave me greater insights into the reality I was encountering at the seamen's clubs of today. Just published by the journal History Compass, it is titled "Dockside Prostitution in South African Ports."

Here's the abstract:
Prostitution has been a staple of dockside social life for centuries. In South Africa, it dates from the Dutch East India Company's establishment of a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope. But unlike other prostitution sectors—streets, brothels, agencies—the women of the dockside sex trade in Cape Town and Durban participate in a global traffic of ideas, diseases, DNA, contraband, and currency through their ceaseless interactions with foreign sailors. They exploit their knowledge of the seamen's languages and cultures so as to more effectively solicit their marks in a competitive and cosmopolitan environment.

Social historians provide passing glimpses of dockside prostitution in their consideration of larger historical themes—Company rule, slavery, British colonial governance, the Mineral Revolution, the Anglo-Boer War, and apartheid—but they have yet to treat it as a distinct analytical category through which to view the past. Yet popular intellectual trends suggest that research into the dockside sex trade would add new dimensions to the histories of cosmopolitanism, gender, globalization, maritime recreation, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

This article provides a quick and accessible introduction to the historiography of dockside prostitution in South Africa.

Note: This article is available for subscribers to History Compass. If you are a student, you will be able to download the article through a university computer if your institution has an account with History Compass.

Click on the PDF icon to go to the History Compass article page:

Trotter, Henry. "Dockside Prostitution in South African Ports," History Compass Vol.6, No.3 (2008): 673-690.

Kinky Sex on the Dockside?

2008-04-17T13:46:00.002+02:00

Though you might think that all sex workers are sexually adventurous, many dockside sugar girls cling to a host of idiosyncratic sexual taboos. Some refuse oral sex, others kissing, and most balk at anal play. (These taboos can change if they're drunk or high, though.)

One reason for their "conservatism" is because, in Cape Town, they come from Christian and Muslim households where sex is fraught with ambivalence. So the women bring their anxieties about sex with them to their work. However, in contrast to other sectors (like escorting) where men expect to enjoy "no limits" sexual service, sugar girls can hold on to their taboos because their foreign seafaring clients often don't demand anything more than conventional intercourse.

Indeed, most dockside encounters never go into the realm of fantasy, like playing roles, wearing costumes or using artificial devices. Those sorts of situations are usually found in other sex sectors that are dominated by local and international whites.

For instance, one of dockside prostitutes I interviewed used to occasionally service European tourists. But she said that, compared to the seamen’s rather traditional tastes, these white johns were quite kinky.

One time she went with a German guy. After eating a big meal together at a Chinese restaurant, he took her to a hotel where the coffee tables in each room were made of glass. After they stripped for sex, he asked her to straddle the table so that he could lie below her and look up at her naked butt. Then he asked her to dump her bowels on top of the glass so that he could masturbate while he watched.

She couldn’t believe the request. But once he forked over a few thousand rands for the pleasure, she simply straddled the table and shat her sweet ‘n sour pork all over the show.

It was one of the strangest experiences in this lady's sexual career. But the more that she interacted with white tourists, the more she realized that these men were seeking unusual experiences, not just sex. One guy gave her a "golden shower" while she was in the bath-tub: he got a thrill from peeing on her.

And another fellow yelled out his own son's name while she was giving him a blow job.

Of course, human sexuality is incredibly diverse and complex. But that complexity seems to narrow in certain prostitution sectors. For while some men purposefully seek out prostitutes to make their wildest fantasies come true, the seafarers seem to be content with "conventional" sexual encounters.

Part of the reason for this, I suspect, is that the seafarers seek out sugar girls for more than just sex. They also crave companionship and conversation. The women provide this at the nightclubs, by hanging out with their men for hours: drinking, dancing, and chatting together. Thus sex is just one of many services the dockside prostitutes provide. It is part of a larger package of social amusements. The women can maintain their conservative (though promiscuous) sexual boundaries because the men will still be satisfied and will still pay.

Madams, Mama-sans or Matriarchs?

2008-03-08T11:42:00.002+02:00

On my first visit to one of the Cape Town dockside nightclubs, I saw a woman in her fifties dancing with a group of younger girls. She was dressed in a mini-skirt and already drunk. When I asked a barmaid who she was, she said, "She's the pimp of those girls."

I later found out that her status was much more complicated. And the relationship she had with her girls much more complex. But it highlighted the interesting role that women have long played as authority figures in prostitution.

Westerners typically think of female vice profiteers as "madams." We tend to imagine them as brothel owners who manage a group of prostitutes in their houses. Asians refer to such women as "mama-sans." But they're also associated with running nightclubs as well.

In South Africa's dockside sex trade, however, these older ladies don’t control the younger women, like pimps do. They don’t run brothels, like madams do. And they don’t dictate the women’s actions at the clubs, like the mama-sans often do. Their role is something else altogether. I call them "matriarchs."

There are currently only a handful of matriarchs at the dockside nightclubs in Cape Town. All of them are ex- or semi-retired prostitutes who have chosen to stay in the game by providing a lodging to the younger women. They rent out rooms to ladies for around R800 (US$110) per month, then charge them R100 ($15) for every time they bring a guy home for business. In return, they feed them, help care for their kids and see to their sundry needs. Together they form a loose domestic unit.

Many younger ladies appreciate this because, even if they don’t live at home with their parents, they still desire maternal attention. They need structure because they’re not responsible enough to see to themselves or their kids (often due to drug use). So for reasonable rates, they can get maternal supervision from these matriarchs.

The girls don’t always like the conditions placed on them, but they’re always free to leave if they’re unhappy. The girls often do just that. If they're dissatisfied, they move back home, move to another matriarch's house, move in with some other girls, or move onto the streets. (The majority of sugar girls do not live with matriarchs, but almost all of them do at some time in their careers.)

Matriarchs have been Cape Town figures for a long time. Historians report that some freed slaves in the 1700s (who may have bought their freedom with the proceeds from freelance sex work) rented out rooms to local girls who entertained sailors. Today, matriarchs continue to sell lodging services to independent prostitutes. All they ask in return is that the girls pay their rent on time, that they do their business at the house (so the matriarch can get her cut of the action) and that they contribute to the welfare of the home through various chores. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.

Gay Prostitutes and Horny Sailors

2008-01-31T14:20:00.001+02:00

Cape Town is probably the gay-friendliest city in Africa. Everyone loves pink in the Mother City. At the seamen's nightclubs, a few gay guys sometimes make themselves available for manly romance. These gays act quite differently than the female prostitutes at the club. They don't actively solicit clients. They tend to hang back and let the sailors come to them of their own accord. That way they know the guy is really interested. (Also, they do have legitimate jobs to attend to as well.)

Usually, if a sailor comes around, the two of them will just cosy up together and enjoy companionship at the club. They'll drink, talk, and lightly touch. But they won't advertise their affection through dancing or tongue-jabbing sessions. If they want more physical intimacy, they discreetly depart the club and go to the guy's place.

(There are also other gays who work at the seamen's clubs, but they're not available for sex. They just do their jobs and go home to their boyfriends. But none of them are flamboyantly gay, like the famous "moffie" figure in Cape Town. They don't dress up in wild costumes or perform in an exaggerated manner. This is because these aren't "gay clubs." They're basically straight clubs where the occasional sailor can switch-hit for the evening.)

This discretion suggests a couple of things: One, that while homosexual hook-ups are tolerated by the sailors ashore, they're not celebrated in the sailors' masculinist culture. So the guys don't make a big show of going off with another guy.

Also, many sailors who go with a gay fellow do not see themselves as gay, but rather straight men who enjoy dabbling in transgressional delights. In reality, many such men are probably socially constrained to act straight in their Asian communities where homosexuality may not be tolerated. So at home, around their wives and children, they would never dream of acting on their homosexual impulses. But in Cape Town, why not? They can cautiously explore their homosexual desires, spending time with a male prostitute without abandoning their sense of heterosexual identity.

On the ships—while at sea—homosexual relations are largely context-specific and highly inequitable. It's best described as "situational homosexuality" in which younger crewmen play the part of the "wife" for an older seaman. These relationships are often more about power and status than homosexual desire. Many of the older men are fully heterosexual in other environments, but since they still seek sexual satisfaction and they have structural authority, they are able to younger crewmen (some still teenagers) into playing a "female" role in their engagements. The senior partner gets sexual pleasure from the "passive" junior while the junior gets money, goods, and the possibility of promotion from the senior. This suggests that, like prostitution, the exchange of goods is central to these relationships. They're transactional relationships.

So while heterosexuality remains the norm for these highly masculinist crews, homosexual behavior is tolerated because it can be contained—like the situational homosexuality at sea—or dismissed, like the transgressional homosexual explorations ashore in foreign ports. But for the truly gay seamen, for whom homosexuality constitutes their personal identities, the chance to interact with gay Capetonians is pure pleasure.

Why Don't Prostitutes Abort Their Fetuses?

2008-01-21T14:27:00.001+02:00

Since the mid-1990s, abortion has been legal in South Africa. But you wouldn't know it if you went to the dockside nightclubs where local prostitutes solicit foreign sailors. At any one time, there's always a handful of pregnant ladies hustling the seamen.

Pregnancy, childbirth, and children represent major burdens for most Cape Town dockside pros. Pregnancy changes the women's body shape (less sexually appealing), creates new physical discomforts (morning sickness, swollen breasts), and encourages women to stop drinking, smoking, or using drugs (though they often keeping doing these things). Childbirth takes the women out of action for a span of weeks or months, making it difficult to earn money. And the resulting children are their legal and moral responsibilities, demanding money and time to keep them alive and healthy.

All of these things disrupt good business at the clubs, so why don't more prostitutes have abortions? Why do they still have these babies?

First, for moral and religious reasons. Many of these women grow up in Christian and Muslim families where they're taught that abortion is a sin. Though the women are willing to "sin" by selling sex, they're not necessarily willing to "sin" by aborting their fetuses.

Second, for short-term financial reasons. Since many of the women do not know who the father is, they try to place paternity on multiple clients so as to get access to multiple revenue streams. They hope that a number of guys will accept paternity and send money. It's a short-term ploy though, because the guys never give money for very long. But it can be long enough that the women think it will reap them benefits. If they do know who the father is—and he shows some interest—then she'll keep the baby on the assumption that it will inspire him to provide money. This rarely works out as hoped.

Third, for social reasons. Motherhood in the Cape Flats townships is common for teenagers and twenty-somethings, so having a baby entails few social penalties. Some folks may shake their heads, but the number of young unwed mothers in South Africa is so great that it's virtually normal for these women. Thus there's little shame in it.

Fourth, for family reasons. Most of these women do not have to actually raise the children themselves because they can dump them off on relatives, especially their own mothers. The tradition of grandmothers raising grandchildren is very strong in South Africa, because the mothers are often the breadwinners and need to work. So a young prostitute won't flinch about having a kid because she can often just hand it over to someone else.

Fifth, for spiritual reasons. Most prostitutes justify their business by saying that they're doing it for their kids. They understand that they've broken a major social taboo by selling sex, but they try to gain redemption by claiming that they're doing it for their children. That is, they claim that the obligations of motherhood are so important to them that they justify sex work. They pit one social value (motherhood) against another (don't sell sex) and believe that they're socially redeemable so long as they're doing it for their kids' upkeep.

Sixth, for temporal and economic reasons. Getting an abortion takes time. And money. Since the women work all night and sleep all day, going to the clinic during that daytime takes them out of their routine. But free abortions are only given after a number of consultations with the doctor. They must do some tests, talk with them, come again for the results, and then come again for the procedure. The fact that they have to make multiple visits during early daytime hours can be enough to make a pro hesitate until its too late. Of course, they could get it done quickly at a private clinic for about R1400 ($200), but the women often think of other ways they'd like to spend that kind of money (like drugs). Even though a child will cost much more in the long-run, the R1400 fee is often enough to make them hesitate till its too late.

So a myriad of factors influence why dockside prostitutes don't always have abortions. (Some do, of course, but plenty don't.) But what about the reason that they actually "want" the babies just because they want them? Sadly, this is almost never the case. Not while they're prostitutes, at least. (And it goes without saying that none of these children are actually "planned.")

Navigating Risk

2007-12-09T20:39:00.002+02:00

Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry

During my research into dockside prostitution in Cape Town and Durban, I found that sex workers who catered to foreign sailors faced a reduced risk of violence compared to their streetwalker, truck-stop, and brothel colleagues. After conducting comparative research on the different prostitution sectors in South Africa, I published an academic article on why dockside prostitutes are relatively safer than their peers. In it, I discuss the different sex sectors and then make policy recommendations that would enhance the safety of sex workers throughout the industry.

This is the abstract to the article:

The diversity of South Africa's prostitution industry exposes sex workers to varying levels of violence. The street, truck stop, hotel, agency, brothel, and dockside trades are characterized by different structural features that determine the prevalence of client, police, and third-party abuse against prostitutes. Comparing the structural elements of each sector allows not only gauging the likelihood of violence within a given niche but also devising more precise policy instruments to reduce violence at an industry-wide level.

This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:

- the social and legal status of the client
- the location of negotiation
- the location of the sexual act
- the level of discretion in the solicitation process
- and the role of third-party involvement

Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument.

Click on the PDF icon to download article:

Trotter, Henry, "Navigating Risk: Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution Industry" Sexuality Research & Social Policy: Journal of NSRC Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec 2007): 106-119.

The Barmaid's Tale

2007-11-23T13:35:00.001+02:00

At dockside nightclubs in Cape Town and Durban, barmaids fetch drinks for foreign seamen and local prostitutes. But many are also available for romantic trysts. So what are they really?: waitresses or prostitutes?

Most dockside barmaids focus on serving drinks. That's their "real" job. They get a salary for it. Plus tips.

But they can earn better tips if they actually sit with the guys, chat with them, entertain them. So a couple of clubs allow the barmaids to do double-duty: serve drinks and hang out with the sailors. She keeps the boss happy by making sure the seamen keep buying liquor. And she makes herself happy knowing that she'll get a greater tip at the end of the evening for her personal attentions.

So, if a girl want lots of money, what are the pros and cons of being a barmaid?

Pros:
* they enjoy great mobility in the club, allowing them to meet lots of guys
* they avoid hostility from the prostitutes because they're just doing their job
* they deflect the stigma of being prostitutes because they have legitimate employment
* they can pass themselves off as "normal" women to men who don't want sex with a prostitute, but a "straight" lady
* and if they're shy, they can still meet lots of men because their job makes them move around the club a lot.

Cons:
* they can't abandon their bar work to go off with a client; they have to finish their shift (or pay a R200 exit fee)
* they can't wear alluring outfits, just the boring bar uniform
* they're not always sought after for sex because the sailors think they're just barmaids, not prostitutes
* they're not supposed to drink on duty, nor dance (unless the club is empty)

But Durban and Cape Town are different. An example: In Durban, a shy pro stopped soliciting so that she could become a barmaid. She didn't like dressing up every night or having to approach men. So she donned the barmaid’s uniform: jeans, takkies, t-shirt with club logo, and a skipper’s cap. This lowered her ability to attract attention, but it allowed her to constantly meet guys. With a server’s tray in hand, she could move about, getting lots of valuable face-time with the men. And the prostitutes wouldn't bother getting jealous because it was simply her job. Though she’d usually be busy serving liquor orders, she could hint to customers that she was free afterwards.

This is a fairly typical scenario in Durban. Many women move from prostitute to barmaid. They appreciate the steady, if small, income they can earn. And they like the fact that they can still get guys every once in awhile.

But in Cape Town, the women tend to go from barmaid to prostitute. They come to the clubs as young girls, become barmaids, then realize that they prefer the freedom that the pros have. They want to work their own hours. They want the cash bonanza that comes with a sexual contract. Being a barmaid ties them down too much. So, after some months as barmaids, they switch to being full-time pros.

Price Gouging Prostitutes

2007-11-01T16:01:00.001+02:00

At the dockside nightclubs in Cape Town and Durban, prostitutes compete with each other for foreign seafaring clients. The ladies may be colleagues, but they're also rivals. Seeking to secure their own livelihoods, they deploy sneaky strategies to outwit their competitors. One particularly dangerous ploy is to undercut the competition by reducing the price for sex.

In Cape Town, many sailors are repeat-visitors. As fishing trawlermen, they come back to Cape Town every few months. Many establish relationships with the women. If a seaman returns to port, he expects his woman to be available for him. And she expects him to seek her out too. They enjoy a temporary bond that the other girls are supposed to respect.

But if a woman doesn't have a boyfriend arriving soon, she may find it difficult to make money. The other sailors may already be attached to other women. So what's she to do? She can't just steal him away. She'll earn a sound beating from the angry rival and her associates. Everyone agrees that overt theft of a client is a no-no.

The most devious way to poach another lady's client is to offer him a cheaper rate for sex. If he normally pays R600 ($90) for an engagement, she may charge him half that. If he's game, she'll make arrangements to meet outside the club without anyone finding out. Then, she hopes, he'll brush off his other woman for her.

Recently, a woman poached another lady's regular Chilean client by charging him only R200 ($30). They secretly met and had their fun. When he sailed away a few days later, no one knew that they had been together. But when he came back, he met up with his other regular woman at the club and offered to pay her just R200 for a session. She looked at him like he was crazy.

She tells him, "We always go for R600. What makes you think you can have me for so cheap now?!" Then he told her he only paid R200 for the other lady. So, he doesn't want to be ripped off.

The pro was livid. She grabbed his R200, stuffed it in her bra, and marched up to the poacher and hit her in the face until her nose started bleeding. Then she waved a dismissive hand toward the seaman, saying, "You can have her! I don't want a cock that's been dipped in that 200 rand pussy!"

Price gouging is common in any business. It grants consumers products that they desire for a cheaper price. And it rewards producers with new clientele, even if the initial profit margin is thin. But at the dockside clubs, price gougers can face the violent wrath of rivals who see them undercutting their ability to make business.

In fact, most women recognize that price gouging is a self-defeating strategy. Over time, guys may demand the cut-rate deals all the time. Ultimately, it drives down the value of the women's services, making it harder to make a living through sex work.

Tricks of the Trade

2007-10-26T13:03:00.001+02:00

Dockside prostitutes in Cape Town and Durban use a variety of tactics to part foreign sailors from their money. The most legitimate way is to provide companionship and sexual services to the seamen, then get paid for it. But sometimes they get a bit sneaky. Sometimes they don't want to bother with the sex, so they find other ways to get the money.

Hustling: The women provide companionship to seamen at the dockside clubs. If the interaction does not lead to a sexual contract, the women content themselves with hustling drinks, cigarettes, food, taxi fare, and tips from the guys. For women past their prime, this is their primary work activity. Guys rarely take them for sex, so they hustle tips through conversation and dancing with the guys.

Robbery: Sometimes the ladies steal from the sailors at the nightclubs. They may reach into their pockets while hugging them. Or, while the guy is using the toilet, they may simply put on his jacket and walk out of the club with his money. But if they're caught, they'll be banned for a time, a difficult penance for most. So they prefer to entice the money out of the guys through hustling.

But in years past, according to many older pros and club owners, they used to concoct elaborate scams with the help of the cab drivers. Here's what would happen:

A cab driver would pick up a sailor in the harbor and take him to meet a girl. The girl would join the sailor in the taxi and suggest going to a house in a nearby suburb. They'd go. Along the way, another cab driver crony would attack them when they were stopped at a "STOP" sign, wearing a balaclava and waving a gun. The driver would hold his hands up in fear. The girl would scream with feigned fright. And the clueless sailor would hand over his wallet in terror. Then the cabbie and girl would drop the sailor back at the ship, expressing their sorrow at his misfortune. Once they'd left, though, they'd meet up with their crony who just robbed the sailor and split the money.

Drugging: In most nightclub contexts, men are usually the ones guilty of slipping something into a female's drink to reduce her capacity for resistance. But at the dockside nightclubs, it's the female prostitutes who do all the drugging. Sometimes they try to drug each other so that they can steal each other's clients. But they prefer use it on a seaman so that they can get a hold of his money without him struggling or remembering.

The other night I interviewed a 29 year-old coloured Muslim prostitute who's been in the game for 11 years. She says that when she first started, the older women taught her how to drug the seamen so that she could steal their money and not have sex with them. They told her:

"Put 3 drops of Visine eye drops into the guy's drink (neat whiskey and hard liquors work best). Let him drink it. Then take him to the hotel. Have him pay you your fee when you enter the room. Then lay him on the bed while you start stripping down. Before you're even done, the sailor should be out cold from the knock-out drops. Rifle through his pockets for the rest of his money, then leave. When you see him the next evening at the club, smile as if you both had the best sex ever! He won't remember a thing!"

Such tricks are inevitable in a context where people want money or sex and where the other party is vulnerable (due to drunkenness, foreign ignorance of the surroundings, or isolation). And while this would raise all kinds of alarms in almost any other setting, it's just another normal piece of the dockside jigsaw puzzle.

Double-Dipping

2007-10-13T12:16:00.001+02:00

A 33 year-old coloured prostitute stomps down the stairs of a dockside nightclub in Cape Town. She's drunk and flustered. She starts complaining to anyone who'll listen, then slurs herself to a halt and departs without a word. She grabs a cab and heads home.

Just a few minutes earlier, she and another prostitute had been fighting upstairs. They were shoving and slapping each other in inebriated anger. The other pro attacked her because she didn’t like the fact that she was hustling the sailors upstairs. Normally this wouldn't be a problem: all the girls go to the nightclubs to solicit the seamen.

But this one already receives a monthly stipend from a Spanish sailor. Her bills are already paid. She doesn't need to come to the clubs to make a living. She just comes out to hustle whenever she wants some extra cash.

(Hustling is different than soliciting. Hustling comprises efforts to get money, or "tips", from the seamen at the clubs. Soliciting is enticing sailors for post-club sexual contracts.)

The other pro resents this lady for double-dipping: getting money from two sources. She yells at her, "You already got money. You don't need to come here! But the rest of us come here to work. This isn't just a nice time for us like it is for you. Now you're coming in here and interfering with our business. Get out of here! These are our men! You've already got yours!"

Ironically, all the other ladies would love to be in this woman's position, receiving monthly support from a client. And they would also do the same thing as her: still go to the clubs to earn yet more money. They all dream of double-dipping!

But due to the frustration and drunkenness of one of the girls, she got bullied out of the club. Her success with a couple of Taiwanese guys made the drunk pro jealous. So she went aggro and got in her face. It was enough to spoil her mood and send her stomping home.

Managing Vice

2007-10-01T11:38:00.001+02:00

Prostitutes solicit at dockside nightclubs in Cape Town and Durban to make money for themselves. They care very little about the financial health of the club owners. The see the clubs as a business pick-up joint. And if they had it their way, they'd whisk away the guys as soon as possible and take them out for business.

The owners need women at their clubs, otherwise the sailors won't come. But they also need them to inspire the seamen to spend money on alcohol before going off for sex. Otherwise the club won't survive.

So there is a delicate balance of interests between the club owners & prostitutes. The owners put up the money for the joint, pay the levies, employ the staff, and so on. And their outlay provides a space for the women to solicit in relative safety and comfort. To cover these expenses and make a profit, they need the sailors to buy lots of alcohol. That's how they make their money. (The women pay very little money themselves, letting the seamen buy them drinks, cigarettes and food.)

The sugar girls know that their presence is all-important to the profitability of the club. Without them, sailors wouldn't bother to come. And the club owner wouldn't have a business. Thus they feel entitled to the bulk of the seamen's cash. While they like drinking and dancing with the guys at the clubs, they don't want them to blow all of their money there. They want them to save it for sex afterwards. So they try to leave with the guys as soon as possible, depriving the club of alcohol sales, but protecting their own earnings.

To arbitrate these competing needs and desires, the club owners have instituted a simple rule: if a prostitute leaves the club before 2 A.M., she must pay a fine of 100 rands ($14). This is called a "bar fee." It ensures 2 things. That bored women remain at the club (even if it is dead) so that the club retains a vibey atmosphere if any sailors might pop in. And—for women who leave with clients before 2 A.M.—the fee represents the money that the sailor would have spent on alcohol had the prostitute not taken him early for sex.

In this way, the owner doesn't allow the women to abuse his hospitality by coming and going as they please. For the privilege of soliciting at the club, the ladies must hang around even if there is no action and they must pay a fee if they take a sailor too early. After 2 A.M. though, they're free.

The women grumble about the rule, but they understand it. Heck, they even enforce it: if a woman sneaks off before 2 A.M. without paying the fee, her rivals at the club will make sure the owner finds out and fines her!

The Importance of an Exit Strategy

2007-09-21T16:58:00.001+02:00

Last night one of the dockside prostitutes shares with me her big news. She says that this weekend will be her last few days soliciting at the seamen's nightclubs in Cape Town. After 10 years as a dockside pro, she's giving up the game to become a nurse. She's 31.

When she tells me this, I'm surprised and a bit skeptical. After all, many prostitutes have told me about their wonderful optimistic plans, most of which never come true. The stories are usually just fantasies about a life they'd like to live, but never do. Never will.

But this story sounds a bit more plausible. The woman says that she graduated from high school and that she has a nursing qualification. When she started working as a dockside prostitute at age 21, the money was quite good because the clubs were full of "rich" Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean sailors. She got hooked on the impressive cash flow. But today, the clubs are full of "poor" Chinese, Indonesian, Filipino, and Vietnamese seamen. The bottom has dropped out of dockside prostitution financially. She can't survive on such small money.

So she sent her CV around for a number of months and got a call to start working at a nearby hospital. She's very excited. And she's happy to leave prostitution in decent health and spirits.If this is true, this woman would be leaving the sex business under relatively ideal conditions.

For few others have such exit strategies. They continue on-and-on in the game, never developing the necessary skills to transition to legitimate employment. They end up working at the clubs until their 40s, usually losing their health and attractiveness along the way. Some even lose their minds and end up on the streets homeless.

But come Monday, I will see whether this woman's story pans out. For her sake, I hope it does. May she minister to the needs of sick patients just as she ministered to the needs of lonely sailors!

(Uh, OK, maybe she shouldn't treat the patients in exactly the same way she treated the seamen, but you get my point.)

Gentle vs. Grabby Sailors

2007-09-07T12:19:00.000+02:00

Foreign sailors who go to dockside nightclubs in Durban tend to treat the club prostitutes with greater respect than the sailors in Cape Town. None act violently toward the women, but the seafarers who berth in Cape Town tend to handle the ladies more possessively than their counterparts in Durban. They are "grabby" in comparison. Why?

I think four reasons explain this difference:

Numbers: 60-80 women regularly solicit from the sole remaining seamen's club in Durban. The ladies often equal or outnumber the 50-100 sailors who arrive at the club each evening. This makes for a relatively relaxed atmosphere for the men. They rarely have to compete against each other for a woman's attention. Partners are usually available.

But in Cape Town, only 40-60 women (in total) regularly solicit from 3 dockside clubs. Relative to the 60-130 men per evening, the ladies are in short supply. On some occasions, the imbalance is extreme. Add alcohol to the mix and some men get anxious they may not get a companion for the evening. This inspires them to act possessively with the women. They sometimes grab or grope the ladies on the dance floor or as they pass by. It signifies a desperate attempt to get the women's attention in what is clearly a solicitor's market.

Time: In Durban, the guys are literally "here today, gone tomorrow." Because they are on container ships that have rapid turn-around times in the harbor, the typical solicitation cycle with a sailor is one night. If a guy acts rude during the evening, the women can just ignore him and focus on other men. They need not cater to him any further.

But in Cape Town, the sailors typically work on deep-sea fishing trawlers that berth in Cape Town for spells of 5-30 days. These men come to the clubs every night they're in town. The women do not feel they can snub the rude men because, within a few days, they may become valuable clients. The women do not want to close the door on any guys because, given their long stays in port, they may become sources of money in the future.

Frequency: Most sailors in Durban visit the port a few times in their lives. Or perhaps just once. They rarely go there on a consistent basis.

But in Cape Town, the trawlermen return multiple times during their South Atlantic voyages. They typically visit Cape Town every 4 months during their two-year contract. (Then they go home, get another contract, and start the sequence again.) They may be regular callers for years. This encourages the women to see solicitation as a long-term strategic process. Thus, they put up with a man's touchiness because they don't want to lose access to him as a potential client. Any of the guys might become repeat-clients for many years, a prospect too good to ignore.

Class Status: Durban is Africa's premier container port. Most seafarers who work on container vessels are middle-class or middle-class aspirant. Thus they tend to be rule-followers who behave themselves overseas. They're rarely troublemakers with locals (unlike the old cargo ship salts of yore).

But in Cape Town, most of the sailors are East Asian trawlermen, drawn from the poorer sections of China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines (while the wealthier officers come from Japan, Taiwan & Korea). The women say that these guys party harder, have a tougher work life, and are less refined in their flirtations than the container ship seamen. They see the trawlermen as having "lower class" standards of interpersonal relations.

Thankfully, this touchiness is never violent, even if it is annoying. Cape Town's dockside prostitutes say that they do not face client violence like streetwalkers often do. But the women do wish that the trawlermen would act gentler with them like the container ship crews.

The Strip-Tease Strategy

2007-08-14T15:57:00.001+02:00

The other night at a dockside nightclub in Cape Town, a prostitute jumps on a table and performs a provocative strip tease for the club's enjoyment. Showing no inhibitions, she shimmies a denim mini down her legs, pulls her halter-top over her head, and unclasps her bra. With only leopard print heels and a flesh-toned g-string as adornment, she prances from table to table, pantomiming a stripper's routine.

All of the ladies around the club laugh. The men stare.

Such naked extravaganzas are rare at the dockside clubs. Though all of the club ladies are prostitutes, few are exhibitionists. In fact, most are quite conservative—wearing blue jeans, t-shirts, and takkies. Almost none wear the stereotypically sexy couture we associate with pros. And of the women at the club, only the strip-teaser arrives in a mini.

This lady—a veteran part-time prostitute who comes to the clubs for kicks and some extra bucks—clearly enjoys her performance. After showing off on the tables, she moves around the club, draping her naked bod over the backs of the sofas and chairs, daring the seamen to look and slip a R100 in the g. When I ask the other ladies who she is and why's she doing this, they just shrug: "oh, she's an old-timer who pops in sometimes. She does this every time she comes out."

But the stripper not only dances for personal satisfaction. She uses her strip-tease as a unique and potent solicitation strategy. By exhibiting her curvy sexuality to all of the men at once, she excites their interest, hints at future pleasures, and ignites a sense of urgency amongst them. Since they've all seen her at the same time, they must act fast if they are to beat their rivals to her. She places the burden of the chase on them.

When she finally (reluctantly) puts her clothes back on, she has her pick of guys. She chooses a young Indonesian crewman who looks very pleased with his luck. He can't stop smiling as they sway together on the dance floor.

She, meanwhile, is already dreaming of the next table-top routine she'll perform when she comes to the clubs again.

Who's Your Daddy?

2007-08-10T14:55:00.001+02:00

The primary purpose of Cape Town's dockside nightclubs is to part sailors from their money. And everyone in this racket has an angle. The club owners sell alcohol at exorbitant prices. The cabbies charge outrageous fees for short hauls. And the prostitutes develop ingenious solicitation strategies to access the seamen's cash.

One particularly devious technique is when women tell multiple seafarers that they're pregnant with their baby. Sometimes they're not pregnant at all—phantom pregnancy—but just want to create a jolting emotional connection to inspire the mark to hand over wads of bills. But other times, cell division is indeed taking place.

So why tell lots of guys they're the papa?

First, the women often do not know who the father is. So by directing responsibility at multiple clients, they hope to secure at least one believer. It's a practical measure to deal with their uncertainty. Since seafarers can easily dismiss prostitutes' paternity claims, the women hedge their bets by telling many guys at once. Perhaps one will take the bait. Perhaps even the real father!

Second, though sailors usually doubt they're the father of a prostitute's baby due to her professional promiscuity, he can't be sure. There's always doubt, a fact which she exploits. Moreover, she manipulates his ego with such a claim, because it proves that he is virile and masculine. A man. If he craves such ego gratification, he may accept paternity. But if the baby represents more of a burden than a joy, he'll probably deny it. (And if he hears she was with someone else around the time of conception, he'll be difficult to persuade.)

Third, even if one or two of the sailors accept that they're the father, their care for the child will be minimal. Very few foreign seamen truly take responsibility for the children they have with South African prostitutes. The children grow up without fathers, essentially. Their financial support rarely lasts more than a few years, if that. Once he's back in his home country, he goes back to his own family and forgets about his Cape Town kid. But by getting multiple guys to pay toward the child in the early years, the woman can at least get some money to cope. For a brief moment.

What should be a wonderful moment—pregnancy—is rarely greeted with joy amongst dockside prostitutes. It's really a burden. But it does open up new solicitation opportunities which the women use to maximum advantage.

Sailors, Prostitutes & Karaoke Culture

2007-08-01T10:40:00.001+02:00

Cape Town dockside social life is dominated by east Asian sailors who love singing karaoke. Two dockside nightclubs installed karaoke facilities expressly for the Asian trawlermen who love belting out the ballads. Indeed, every time I go to the clubs, I'm waylaid by syrupy sweet Chinese love songs, bubble-gummy Filipino pop, Islamicized Indonesian melodies, soft Taiwanese rock, and lilting Korean classics. And they're all sung through the raspy vocals of drunken sailors.

But the performances are not bad. When Asians sing karaoke, they mean it. Unlike middle-class Westerners who perform with irony and self-mockery, the Asian sailors do their best to imitate the original version of the song. They honor it with fidelity. So too do the working-class coloured prostitutes.

(When I first sang karaoke at the clubs, I performed in a comic-ironic manner. But nobody thought I was funny. They just looked at me like I sucked, pitying me...and themselves. But when I started actually trying to sing the songs properly, everyone applauded. Now I'm a regular on the mic. Watch out Bon Jovi, Lionel Richie & Duran Duran!)

For the sailors, karaoke is just an amusement to pass the time and inspire male bonding. But for the nightclub prostitutes, it offers yet another avenue for solicitation. Classic solicitation techniques revolve around sexy dancing, pleasant conversation, and gentle caressing, but the karaoke microphone allows women to grab all the seamen's attention at the same time. Her voice is able to soar above the crowd's. So it's not a surprise when one of the women lets loose on a familiar pop song.

More impressively, some of the women sing songs in the sailors' languages! Many have mastered one or two of the seamen's tongues, so they enjoy showing off their linguistic skills through music. This certainly gets the attention of the seafarers. Once a lady has demonstrated that she can entertain the sailors in their own language, it's not long before they wonder how else she might entertain them.

It is one of the most striking cultural aspects of the dockside nightlife: listening to working-class coloured prostitutes sing Asian love songs in flawless Mandarin, Tagalog, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese.

Knives, Knaves and Babes

2007-07-27T12:25:00.000+02:00

Recently in Cape Town, Chinese and Vietnamese sailors mauled each other in the streets. After a silly drunken dispute over one of the dockside nightclub prostitutes, dozens of them poured out of the clubs to engage in battle. With fists, foreheads, shins, and feet, they brawled. Bystanders say the groups were pretty evenly matched, but after the cops broke it up, a number had to be sent to the hospital.

The next night, the Chinese came prepared for combat. They armed themselves with knives, picks, blades, and other stabbing and cutting implements. One guy even brought nunchucks! But the bouncers at the three dockside clubs expected trouble, so they frisked the seamen and confiscated their weapons.

The night remained tense. The Chinese were restless, watching the streets for the Vietnamese to arrive. The prostitutes complained that the guys were too too preoccupied to just relax and have a good time (and pay them money). But to the relief of almost everybody, the Vietnamese never came.

For sailors in foreign ports, the knife remains the weapon of choice. It's useful as a tool on the ship, and a handy score-settler ashore. Just eight months ago, a Vietnamese crew surrounded and stabbed to death a Chinese sailor at one of the clubs. Though they don't carry them all the time, if seamen expect trouble, they try to hide knives on their persons somehow. Usually, they're easily detected by the bouncers who merely confiscate them, shake their heads, and send the guys inside.

One club owner says that the Taiwanese seamen used to always have weapons available, even after they were frisked. He long wondered how this was possible. As it turned out, the youngest crewman would sit outside the club with a heavy jacket draped in his arms. He seemed content to just enjoy the night air rather than the disco. But when a fight started inside and spilled into the streets, the Taiwanese collected weapons that were stashed in the jacket. Because the youngster never came into the club, he was never frisked.

A sly ploy. But the club owner put an end to it. He had the cops pick up the boy and threaten him with all kinds of unpleasantness if he didn't desist. He did. Still, the bouncers tell me that sailors sometimes plant weapons in drainage pipes near the clubs so they can grab them in an emergency.

Even a little edge can go a long way in a drunken brawl.

Pool-Hustling Prossies

2007-07-18T10:40:00.000+02:00

At dockside nightclubs in Cape Town and Durban, foreign sailors enjoy playing pool. During an evening at the clubs, they take a break from the singing, dancing, and drinking to knock some balls around.

The other night in Cape Town, two prostitutes carouse and cavort with three Chinese sailors in the club. Seeing that the seamen are getting drunk, the ladies challenge them to a game of pool. Losers pay 50 rands each.

The Chinese accept. They rack the balls, chalk their sticks, line up the cue, and start banking solids. They quickly fill the pockets around the table. The ladies, however, miss wide, making it all-too-easy for the sailors.

The Chinese win. "Fifty bucks," they say with satisfaction. The girls look at each other and reply "best 3 out of 5." The Chinese agree.

And just as before, the sailors continue to clean house. When they take their third straight game, they beam, "OK, now give us money."

But the girls just shrug, reaching for their beer bottles to leave. "We were just kidding. We don't have any money."

The Chinese knit their brows in confusion. Then they get pissed. "What?! Where's your money?! You made the bet! You must pay!"

The women mosey away, seemingly unconcerned. They enter the club lobby with the Chinese hot on their heels. The shortest, drunkest sailor gets into the girls' faces. He screams, "Fuck you! Give money! Fuck you! Give money!" He shoves one of them and tries to slap the other. The women shove right back.

The owner and bouncer intervene, separating the opposing parties. They calm down the angry sailors, gently ushering them back to the disco. Meanwhile, the girls hang back, looking slightly sheepish.

Within two minutes, the altercation is over and long-forgotten. The sailors attach themselves to new ladies. The pool-hustling prossies walk around the corner to buy loose cigarettes at the tuck-shop. The bouncer returns to his post at the door. And the owner and I continue chatting as if nothing happened (while he pockets his palm-sized can of pepper spray).

Such deceptions are common in the dockside prostitution racket. The ladies have little to lose, except the warm feelings of the sailors (who, in this case, are not taking them out for sex anyway). They know that, if the seamen get blustery about it, the bouncers will protect them. So they take a cheap gamble. Why not? If they win, they split 150 rands ($22). If they lose, they just walk away.

Worth the risk, they figure.

Where's the minis & high heels?

2007-07-10T14:39:00.001+02:00

Dockside prostitutes in Cape Town rarely wear "sexy" clothing. They almost never wear minis, high heels or bright make-up. Rather, they sport casual androgynous streetwear: jeans, t-shirts & takkies (tennis shoes). This stands in contrast to Durban's dockside sugar girls who emphasize their sexy couture.

So why this difference? Why are Cape Town ladies more conservative in their attire than their Durban counterparts? I think there are two primary reasons. Maybe three.

1 - In Cape Town, most dockside ladies travel from their homes in the townships to the downtown nightclubs by public transport—buses, taxis, trains. They leave at 6:30 in the evening and return on the first taxis back in the mornings at 5am. The last thing they want to do is call attention to their work by wearing sexy clothing as they travel to and from their communities. It would attract negative attention and potentially reveal their source of income. So they seek to blend in by wearing casual clothing.

But in Durban, the women hail from upcountry locales, so they don't live at home. They reside in the blighted city center, surrounded by transient strangers of the shadowland. There's no community surveillance to worry about. They can wear snazzy clothing without their families or communities getting wind of their activities. Sexiness is not a threat to their reputations at home.

2 - Cape Town can get bloody cold at night, especially in the winter. The wind & low temperatures make slinky clothing a bad idea. So the ladies protect themselves with jeans, polo necks, hoodies, and heavy jackets.

But in Durban, the sub-tropical heat allows women to wear "come hither" attire most months of the year. In summertime, they almost have to wear such thin outfits because of the humidity.

3 - Another possible explanation might be the "Americanization" of fashion amongst coloured township-dwellers in Cape Town. While all South Africans are influenced to some extent by American cultural fads—in music, film, fashion, etc.—Cape coloureds seem to draw the deepest inspiration from the States. Especially from black American cultural styles. (In fact, when Cape Flats kids are allowed to wear casual clothes to school on Fridays, they call it "American Day.")

African women from KwaZulu-Natal also draw from American aesthetic influences, but not with the same commitment as coloureds do. They draw from a variety of ethnic inspirations: indigenous, pan-African, European & American.

So in Cape Town, dockside pros use clothing to camouflage their work while Durban women use it to advertise theirs. CT ladies dress warm to avoid the cold; KZN women dress lightly to deal with the heat. And coloured women embrace a casual style that fits with their community's cultural inspirations while Durban women adapt their attire to suit the competitive solicitous environment of the clubs.

Male bonding with prostitutes

2007-07-04T13:39:00.001+02:00

At the Cape Town and Durban dockside nightclubs, prostitutes not only entertain sailors with flirtatious companionship (and sex afterwards), they also enable a fundamental social need of shipmates: male bonding.

Recently: Chinese crewmen celebrate their last night ashore. They've been in Cape Town a couple of weeks now, partying at the clubs every night. But tonight, they gear up for another voyage to the deep. Tomorrow, they'll sail to the South Atlantic fishing grounds for another 4 months of trawling.

The 16 of them are festive and friendly. Dozens of beer cans litter their table with more arriving all the time. The ladies fetch 6-packs for them, pocketing the change in the process. The girls don't interfere with the bonding, but spice it up a bit, boosting the guys' sense of pride, confidence, virility, and masculinity. The women play an important supporting role in this ritual.

Every few minutes, after some conversation and a speech, the Chinese stand up to toast each other. Then they sing karaoke, dance, and caress the ladies who've latched onto them. On other nights, these activities might be followed by a sexual rendezvous.

But tonight, they're more interested in raising their fellow-feeling before their journey. They've had 2 weeks to release whatever frustrations they had from the previous trip. Soon they'll be stuck together again in the dangerous, monotonous, stressful, and confining "total institution" of the sea-borne ship. So tonight, they need to reaffirm their commitment to each other as brethren of the sea. They'll sail better together for it.

Club pros have learned how to deal with male bonding imperatives. They don't interfere so much as accommodate their solicitous behavior to this unique context. Tonight with the Chinese, they do what they can to inspire male bonding, all the while encouraging them to part with their last rands before they leave.

This is one of the key differences between dockside prostitution and other sex sectors. There is no similar need for male bonding in the streetwalker, brothel, truck-stop, courtesan, or agency trades. The johns of those environments usually run solo.

Every nationality has its own style of male bonding at the clubs. Each incorporates the ladies in different ways. And the women quickly learn what behavior works with each ethnicity. They gauge their success in a number of ways: by how well they entertain the guys; how well they bring the guys closer together; and, of course, by how much money they can hustle out of the guys before they leave.

Child of Prostitution

2007-06-28T09:45:00.001+02:00

As I hold the tiny baby in my hands, I feel delighted & depressed. The cute little half-Asian girl came out 2 months prematurely and I'm worried she might have health problems.

Her mother—a dockside prostitute in Cape Town—worked the nightclubs until a few days before delivery. During her pregnancy, she never stopped drinking "baiju" (Chinese tequila) or smoking cigarettes. But I'm relieved to see the swaddled bundle appear normal. A beautiful half-Korean, half-coloured baby girl.

But what life awaits this child?

The mother has been a dockside prostitute for 9 years. She has another half-Korean child from another seaman, but he's long-gone. The father of this newborn will dock in Cape Town next month, seeing his baby for the first time. He says he's excited, and that he'll provide financially, but Mom merely shrugs. She knows such promises are inevitable, but they're not likely to stand the test of time & distance.

Like the father to her other child, this seaman will probably end up marrying a Korean woman in a few years time, starting a "legitimate" family in the East. His Cape-born love child will not form part of that family. She'll float on the edge of his imagination, remembered as a product of his wild youth. Meanwhile, his daughter will be absorbed into the mother's family, adding to the genetic potpourri of the coloured community.

In the maternity ward, we try not to worry about the future. We celebrate life and even speak of hope. Admittedly, such talk feels forced.

But Mom and Baby are surrounded by friends—fellow pros—who bear gifts (nappies, food & formula), fuss over the baby, and wish her the best. They've been here before; they understand her predicament. They also know that she didn't want the baby. But here it is anyway.

In the midst of the celebrations, our eyes pity the baby girl. She will have to learn so many things:

- to live without a father
- to curb her curiosity about about Mommy's late-night jaunts
- to lie to her friends and neighbors about Mommy's work
- to guard the secret of her "shameful" birth
- and perhaps to cope with the physical side-effects of a drunken pregnancy

As we take turns rocking the baby, we silently pray that she'll be able to live in the light, beyond the shadowlands.

No sleeping on the job, ladies

2007-06-19T12:50:00.001+02:00

In front of a Cape Town dockside nightclub, a prostitute stands alone at the entrance steps, bored. But it's freezing outside. So after we trade greetings, I ask, "Why aren't you upstairs in the club? No sailors tonight?"

She frowns, "The bouncer kicked me out an hour ago. I fell asleep in the booths because there were no guys inside. Now I have to sit out here until I can get a hundred rands to pay my way back in." Then she looks me in the eyes, slightly hopeful. "Can you borrow me a hundred bucks?"

The problem: she's transgressed an unwritten rule of club etiquette. Dockside prostitutes are free to solicit at the seamen's clubs so long as they get the guys to buy alcohol. AND—of course—so long as they stay awake! That's part of the bargain. But on nights when there aren't many guys to entertain, the ladies get restless. Some can't resist the temptation to nod off. It's a familiar sight.

As punishment, the bouncer will escort her outside. If she pays a R100 fine, she can go back in. If not, she must wait till the next night when she'll be able to solicit inside freely.

I offer an empathetic smile, but I don't bail her out. And she doesn't expect me to. In her 12 years of hooking, this has happened many times before.

After a few hours inside, I come down and find her busy massaging the feet of the hefty manageress. I laugh and ask: "Didn't get your hundred bucks to go back in?"

She winks and whispers, "I'm hoping this foot massage will do the trick."

The manageress—deeply relaxed by the pedi-pampering—pipes up: "Harder!"

But after another 15 minutes of bunion-rubbing, the manageress lets her slip back inside.

Gentoos—"Whores" of Distinction

2007-06-11T12:33:00.002+02:00

In South Africa, the Cape Afrikaans term gentoo is a harsh, disparaging term for a prostitute. It's like "whore" in English, but with more bite and venom.

At the dockside nightclubs of Cape Town, where the prostitutes entertain foreign sailors, the ladies call themselves "club girls". If they use the term gentoo, it is usually to attack the character of a rival.

But the other night, one of the ladies offered a novel interpretation of the word. While chatting up a Filipino seamen, she told him that he "should never confuse us gentoos with prostitutes who walk the streets and work in brothels." She said, "we're sea-ladies. We go with seamen. But the prostitutes, they go with locals."

Then she added, "the main difference is that we gentoos clean ourselves. We're clean."

The Filipino said he'd never heard the word "gentoo" before. "Where does it come from?" he asked.

She said, "You see, the Gentoo was a ship that came to Cape Town over a hundred years ago with a bunch of prostitutes. They ended up working the dockside with the sailors. So the locals took the word to mean 'ladies who go with seamen.' So you see, that's us. We sea-ladies are gentoos".

(This explanation actually approximates historical accounts).

As I listened to the conversation, it struck me that, perhaps it was just a matter of time before someone claimed the term "gentoo" with pride. After all, many black American youth call themselves "niggas"; some macho gay men call themselves "fags"; some co-eds of the Girls Gone Wild variety call themselves "sluts" or "bitches"; and a mixed-race ethnic group in Namibia even calls themselves "Bastards." Though all were initially terms of denigration, each group appropriated them—inverting their power—and now use them with pride.

Perhaps a Gentoo Pride campaign is in the offing. We'll see.

Should prostitutes form a union?

2007-06-04T15:03:00.002+02:00

We all know that prostitutes can face difficult circumstances—client abuse, pimp violence, police harassment, disease, robbery, pregnancy, alcoholism, drug abuse, etc. And no matter what we think about the morality of commodified sex, we understand that these women should not have to face such risks.

In the Weekend Argus article, "Forget the sex, a worker is just a worker" (2 June 2007), Michael Schmidt dicusses the possibility of unionizing sex workers. He cites the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) in Britain as a case-in-point. In Cape Town, he mentions the Sex Worker Education & Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) which spearheads the union initiative amongst streetwalkers and brothel workers.

Schmidt and SWEAT take inspiration from the powerful union and workerist movement in South Africa: they talk about sex workers being "workers" like in any other "industry." This language emanates from a factory floor model in which "workers" organize collectively, as a union, to press for greater rights, protections & benefits.

While this image—of collectively organized sex workers standing up for the rights, voicing their concerns, mobilizing, etc.—is powerful, and historically resonant, is it appropriate for prostitution in South Africa?

On first blush, it is quite attractive. But there are some practical difficulties:

FIRST, the sheer diversity of sex trade makes union-like cohesion problematic. The women who work in the various sectors—streets, brothels, dockside clubs, truck-stops, mineworker taverns, agencies, freelance—face quite different experiences. And their sources of trouble differ.

Unions typically have clear opponents, like "management." But who do prostitutes organize against?: clients? pimps? brothel owners? police officers? the government? society-at-large? All of these groups bear a certain responsibility for prostitutes' difficulties. Not just one of them.

The value of a union is that it can put pressure on a group that has the power to do something about their conditions. But who would the prostitutes represent their grievances to? In South Africa, activists would say "the government," as it is the source of onerous legislation criminalizing the sale of sex. They want this law repealed because it allows for unchecked abuses by clients, pimps, and police against the women. But even if repealed, society still sanctions the abuse of women (in general) and prostitutes in particular. Rights-bearing South African women still suffer under one of the highest rape rates in the world, so it is hard to see how prostitutes will achieve protection, health and welfare through a purely legal correction.

And if their demands were not met, what would they do? Strike? This in unlikely. Which makes it hard to see what value the union strategy has if cannot take advantage of its most strategic weapons: mass action, boycotts, strikes.

SECOND, most prostitutes do not look at sex work as a life-long career. Few embrace the "sex worker" moniker and even less want to be publicly known as such. The problem is that, even if women work as prostitutes for years, most refuse to claim it as an identity. Unlike working-class industrial laborers, who construct their lives around a plant or a job, prostitutes usually avoid such committed identifications due to shame, stigma & fear.

Because of this, sex worker unions assure their members of anonymity. But how powerful can a union be if its members refuse to identify themselves? The greatest power unions leverage is not numbers, but the ability to present an actual physical mass of members to the public when rights are threatened. Such displays—especially with media coverage—demand social acknowledgment and offer a road to change. But anonymous membership—though necessary in this case—radically weakens the utility of a "union." (In South Africa, how many sex workers would actually march with a banner for their rights?)

THIRD, does the transplanted union model adequately address prostitutes' particular circumstances by framing them as "workers"? On the one hand, yes, of course, they are workers. They work. But many of the problems they face result from their work being moralized, stigmatized, criminalized, dangerous & gendered. To take women from multiple sex sectors—who face unique challenges in each—and reduce them to an undifferentiated mass of "workers" may not do justice to their needs. And it is doubtful that their problems can be overcome by romantic rhetoric like: "Sex Workers of the World Unite!"

Essentially, I wonder about the feasibility of the union strategy. I understand its appeal, and I agree with union activists' concerns, especially the de/criminalization issue. But the diversity of concerns & experiences facing prostitutes in the numerous sex sectors militates against a one-size-fits-all response.

A better beginning might be to ask: how do sex workers in some sectors (courtesans, call girls, dockside women) achieve higher levels of safety & well-being than women in others? Might the strategies these women employ—or the structural conditions they enjoy—be exported to the more exposed sectors (streets, truck-stops)?

Rather than going outside prostitution to find models for strategic action, we could start by looking at successful strategies within different sectors. If we take the agency of prostitutes seriously—which most activists do—then we should start by understanding indigenous strategies, those developed by sex workers.

Beyond that, we need to initiate a real social dialogue about gender, prostitution, and sex that will get at the foundations of violence against women, social stigmatization, and institutional neglect (by government, health care providers & social services). This should not be left to a union vanguard, but should be engaged with by all citizens.

Term "Sugar Daddy" a misnomer

2007-06-01T15:02:00.000+02:00

The term "sugar daddy" has always struck me as slightly off. While it seems to resonate for the relationship it describes—an older man giving material benefits to a younger woman in exchange for sexual intimacy—something still doesn't fit.

I think it's because "sugar daddy" suggests that it is the daddy who gives the "sugar." By linking the words together, we end up seeing the daddy as the source of "sugar."

But it is exactly the opposite. In such a relationship, it is the younger female who gives the sugar, the honey, the sweetness: sex.

Capetonians used to understand this quite explicitly. Before they were kicked out of their homes by the apartheid government, Cape Town's mostly-coloured dockside communities (District Six & the Docklands) boasted numerous little brothels called "suikerhuisies"—literally sugar houses in Afrikaans. They provided sexual recreation to passing sailors. And, of course, no one had any doubt as to what a "sugar house" was and who was giving the "sugar."

The women who worked in the suikerhuisies were called "strooimeisies"—meaning bridesmaids in Afrikaans (literally "strewn girls"). It's a playful allusion, gentler than the terms prostitute, whore or gentoo.

It's not clear when Capetonians started using the term "sugar daddy." I imagine it came in through American movies or TV programs. Of course, it is now a global term sharing basically the same connotation.

Yet I think it confuses who gives what in such a relationship. In Western society, sugar, sweetness and honey have long been associated with sex; what the female gives. The older man gives bread or dough, which we associate with money.

But even if the term "sugar daddy" lacks precision, we're sure to continue using it: the more precise alternatives "dough daddy" and "bread daddy" just don't have the same appeal.