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Thanks. Given what you say about the periodic roundups, along with Wilson's having been told about the current prison-rehab program by both a cab driver and a govt. official, she could simply have had the bad luck to hit town in the wake of one. And maybe it wasn't such bad luck if it made her look beyond a cultural phenomenon as conspicuous as you indicate this one is. Do you know anything about the "animationists" she describes as the new breed of tourist-hotel "entertainment" workers? I'd never heard of them, and the term itself sounds like something spawned by an online translation generator. I couldn't tell from the article what sorts of entertainment these animationists actually provide--escort service? stand-up comedy? beach blanket bingo? Candice on 2/21/01 10:43 PM, Mark Weiss at [log in to unmask] wrote: > Yup, you're right--my emphasis last night was a bit off (so was I, and it's > a while since I read the article). Her account is more balanced than most, > and her obvious emotional struggle with her admiration for some of what she > found was actually quite moving. But it's really hard for anyone to miss > seeing the prostitutes entirely, not because there are so mant but because > they tend to hang out in the dark galleries at the beginning of Calle > O'Reilly, the main drag of Old Havana and its entertainment center. Altho > it's entirely possible that as a woman she wasn't as comfortable walking > dark streets at night as I was, despite Havana's amazing safety. And of > course she wasn't being propositioned. > > I should have mentioned that the casual relationships I describe occur as > easily between Cuban men and foreign women. And between Cubans and Cubans. > It's a pretty seductive place. > > At 09:01 PM 2/21/2001 -0500, Candice Ward wrote: >> Well, it's impossible to say how "hard" she looked, but as a journalist >> who'd gone there to research that particular phenomenon, I'd guess she >> looked as hard as she could and then fell back on the tried-and-true default >> measure of writing _that_ story instead. You're really commenting on what >> she found, though, as different from what you found, and even if your visits >> occurred at the exact same time, what a female professional journalist could >> find of or about prostitutes anywhere would likely differ to some extent >> from what a male tourist could find--or be found by--don't you think? >> >> I also thought the article more balanced than you did, apparently, and I >> know from my Cuban friends that Wilson got quite a lot of it right. If she >> interpreted things darkly on account of her own exile status, it was far >> from the darkest interpretation I've read by one or another member of the >> exile community. Those accounts should be read skeptically, I agree, just >> the counterpart idolatrous, cult-of-Cuba accounts should be, as they're >> equally propagandistic. But Wilson's article is more complex than such >> accounts, and I was particularly interested in her empathetic response to >> the ambivalence among the Cubans she talked to and was able to identify with >> in spite of being an exile herself, which is widely believed in the US to be >> virtually free of such ambivalence. (Yeah, right--as if life were ever that >> simple!) >> >> Candice >> >> >> on 2/21/01 3:38 PM, Mark Weiss at [log in to unmask] wrote: >> >>> I read the article when it came out. She didn't look very hard. As an exile >>> she struggles mightily with the overwhelming evidence that some aspects of >>> Cuban life have been enormously improved under Castro, which is not to say >>> that there isn't plenty wrong, and she tends to put the darkest possible >>> interpretation on what she sees. As one yound architect from an >>> impoverished background told me, attitudes towards the regime tend to be >>> related to whether one has been a winner or a loser as a reult. His wife's >>> family were wealthy landowners who lost a great deal. His mother was a >>> widowed washerwoman. They had met at a university he wouldn't have been >>> able to attend before the revolution, and he certainly wouldn't have been >>> allowed to date, let alone marry, her. >>> >>> There were in the early days of the Castro regime extreme and not very >>> friendly efforts to end prostitution in the manner you describe, which was >>> seen as a particularly degrading form of capitalism. Given Cuban mores, it >>> was also largely for the service of tourists. Until the end of the Soviet >>> connection and the deprivation that has followed there were only sporadic >>> attempts to control prostitution, which had largely disappeared as an >>> economoc strategy. Since 1992, however, there has been a resurgence of >>> prostitution, altho very little of it is on the industrial scale of the >>> Batista regime and its predecessors, and there are sporadic roundups, as in >>> the US. But on any night of any week one will trip over prostitutes on the >>> malecon, at the edge of the old city, and in certain of the bars. One can >>> also arrange for a woman to appear at one's place of residence (hotels are >>> more problematic: the lobbies are full of eyes. But there's no shortage of >>> places to close the deal). >>> >>> Far more common are the readily-available casual liaisons of indeterminate >>> length that she describes, involving gift-giving, restaurant meals and >>> dancing. The many women who engage in this have day jobs that have nothing >>> to do with the entertainment of foreigners, but those jobs supply few >>> luxuries under the present economic conditions. The relationships range >>> from the friendly to the profoundly passionate, rather like sexual liaisons >>> in Cuban society at large. To a degree, and rather haphasardly, the >>> government tries to discourage these liaisons for reasons of public health >>> and to discourage a possible drift towards prostitution, but there are also >>> political motives. >>> >>> The ceiba is considered by santeria practicioners the most powerful of > trees.