"Imperial sex" (military sex tourism)

[Minstrel Boy]

Imperial sex

BY JEAN-GUY ALLARD—Special for Granma International

AT the end of June 5,000 female and male prostitutes invaded the Chilean city of Valparaiso to welcome 500 uniformed visitors from the United States, whose president is accusing Cuba of promoting sexual tourism.

While President Bush’s terrible blunder concerning the island was so grotesque that even his own media hastened to refute it – including The Miami Herald where travelers can always encounter a wide range of "exotic" ads explicit in their offers – the presence of the workers in the sex industry in the Chilean port city was only too real.

...

"We are working specifically with the most vulnerable risk groups," Health Minister Aníbal Vivaceta informed La Estrella of Valparaiso, without going any further into the scale of damage caused by imperial tourism.

The contingent of prostitutes who gathered there to offer their services included a significant number of Chileans, but also a large number of Argentines, Brazilians, Bolivians, Peruvians and even Colombians, attracted by the news agency coverage.
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/juev29/32sexo.html

[donsu]

1. think of the STDs they brought home

nt

[Snow]

7. Think of the STDs our troops deposited in Chile!

those things go both ways. Don't assume the sex workers to always be plague rats.

[goforit]

2. Oh yeah.......And bush never ordered the abuse in the Abu prison.

He probanly has every video in his "private library"

[Jack_DeLeon]

3. IMO there is nothing wrong with prostitution...

or sex tourism.

Prostitution should be legal.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Prostitution should be legal but you forgot ONE important fact

U.S. Military Involvement with Child Prostitution

ECPAT-USA’s military campaign aims to end the U.S. military’s role in sustaining the prostitution industry worldwide. ECPAT-USA is working in coalition with women’s organizations and churches on this issue.

Although ECPAT-USA generally focuses on child prostitution, the military campaign seeks to end the commercial sexual exploitation of both women and children around military bases because the same factors that victimize children also contribute to women’s involvement in the sex industry.

All forms of military prostitution--whether with women or children, with trafficked persons or voluntary migrants--are exploitative and endanger the health, safety and morale of all involved parties, including the military personnel who purchase sex.

http://www.ecpatusa.org/military_invol_cp.asp

Friday, 15 September, 2000, 18:26 GMT 19:26 UK
Asia's child sex victims ignored

Cambodia plans to ban child sex tourists

Children who have been sexually abused in Asian countries are badly neglected by grossly inadequate health and social services according to two United Nations reports. The research, unveiled in Bangkok found victims of abuse as young as four. The UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said Asian governments are failing the children caught up in the region's sex industry.



Child prostitutes make money for their families The report highlights the failure of social services in countries like Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam to provide adequate psychological support for child victims of rape and incest, or for those used as prostitutes or in pornography.
While the physical health of the child victims is sometimes dealt with, psychological assistance to help them overcome the trauma of sexual abuse and exploitation is virtually non-existent.



Nanda Krairiksh, from ESCAP human resources development section the unit which carried out some of the research, says it is essential the psychological problems are dealt with. The reports on the Greater Mekong subregion and South Asia found sexually exploited and abused children often suffer mental problems such as depression, suicidal tendencies and substance abuse.

Nanda Krairiksh, ESCAP human resources development
Poverty, lack of education, drug abuse and family problems were listed as contributing factors in the abuse and exploitation of children. In Cambodia 98% of girls in prostitution are the main providers for their families and in Vietnam 49% of girls in prostitution were victims of prior sexual abuse, the studies found.

Some 80% of sexually exploited children in Thailand were from dysfunctional families and 31% had been victims of sexual abuse.
Many Asian governments would rather ignore the issue than admit they had a problem with sexual abuse and exploitation of children, Nanda Krairiksh said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/926853.stm

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. My impression is that Bangkok's notorious sex industry

(with lots of child prostitution) really got a jumpstart during the Vietnam War, when Bangkok was one of the options for U.S. soldiers on R&R.

[JVS]

19. Read "Disposable People"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520224639/qid=1091287599/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-1192848-3403314?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

It has a chapter on the Thai sex industry. IIRC the massive growth of the sex industry was a result of huge numbers of young men leaving the countryside to work in the new industries of Thailand. They created a demand for prostitutes. Meanwhile the possibility of acquiring consumer goods undreamed of in the countryside (electrification, TV, appliances) led to a massive amount of spending among the peasantry and one of the ways they got the money to afford these new things was to sell their daughters to men who would have them "work at restaurants". Of course these men turned out to be pimps. As VD became a bigger concern among the customers more and more value was placed on younger (hopefully less diseased) prostitutes.

[Jack_DeLeon]

10. However...

I never said that I think modern day slavery should be legal, just that prostitution should be legal.

IMO the crime in most of these cases isnt prostituion its the fact that people are being held against thier will.

[PassingFair]

14. If you allow traffic in human beings...

there will always be those held against their will. Is it really "just a transaction between two people" when one of them needs the money to feed her children? Prostitution is the basest form of work. When you sell your body, you bankrupt your heart and soul.

[Jack_DeLeon]

15. Prostitution != trafficing in human beings...

IMO trafficing in human beings is slavery.

Yes some slaves are used as prostitutes. However I dont think that makes prostitution wrong, what is wrong is the slavery aspect of it.

Prostitutes arent literally selling thier bodies, they are selling a service. Yes they are using thier bodies to perform that service, however how many jobs are there that you dont use part of your body to perform.

Its asinine that having sex and giving money are both legal, but giving money to have sex is illegal.

Some guy going out and paying someone for sex is illegal, yet if the same guy goes out and pays a girl to make a porno with him thats legal? So wtf, if you are rich enough to afford video equipment all of a sudden its legal to pay for sex?

Sex among consenting adults should not be illegal.

[Elginoid]

17. puh-leez...

"...Prostitution is the basest form of work. When you sell your body, you bankrupt your heart and soul."

um....yeah.....whatever...:eyes:

[bobthedrummer]

21. It is a worldwide crime, found wherever there is displacement and war.

It is organized crime, one of the many assets of our US intelligence community-elements of which "created" child operatives in MK ULTRA "research". This programming became even more perverse due to cult/occult influences.

The traffic in children is organized.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. Essentially, I agree.

With, naturally, the proviso against the exploitation of minors that happens everywhere, but notoriously figures prominently in the sex tourism of, for instance, Thailand. (Why, Neil Bush, what are you doing here?)

Properly regulated, many vices can be defanged to some degree when they are taken out of the underground economy. And also, via taxation, they can become a revenue stream for the public good. The problem is, there are powerful interests, with feet in both the under- and the overworld, that profit by perpetuating the criminalization of private vice.

The article's message merely highlights the hypocricy of Bush railing against Cuba's supposed "sex tourism," because Fidel happened to boast about the literacy of Cuban prostitutes.

[jdj]

11. I would love to see alot of things decriminalized just

BECAUSE it will eliminate the underground economy.

[reggaehead]

18. Amen

Al Sharpton could not have said it any better. And it torpedoes so many arguments. Tobacco does not cause cancer. Ingesting tobacco in any form leads to the possibility of contracting cancer. yadda etc. Why is it the right is so much in favor of worship. But so against freedom? Don't think I will ever understand that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Having worked with street kids in Portland, Oregon

I half agree that prostitution should be legal so that it can be regulated.

However, the young teens in prostitution are almost always survivors of sexual or other abuse at home, and being unable to work legally elsewhere, they are easy prey for the kinds of creeps who "like 'em young." In fact, the younger the kids are, the more money they can make. Eighteen is definitely "too old" to be a big money earner.

The kids themselves do not think of prostitution as a desirable way to make a living, just as a necessary evil that can, if they're really lucky, get them a hotel room for the night. They can make a lot of money, but most of it goes to their pimp, who beats them up if they don't make enough. Even if they don't have a pimp, they never know what kind of person their next john will be: physically disgusting (dirty), diseased, violent, or sadistic.

As an indication of what the kids really think of prostitution, I can only recall two young people who became a couple. The boy went out on the streets to prostitute himself so that the girl wouldn't have to. The other kids considered this an admirable act of true love.

Getting kids out of prostitution is difficult, not because they love that way of life so much--they don't--but because after years of being degraded and abused, both at home and on the streets, they believe that they're just a piece of meat and don't deserve better. If they're on the streets for a long time, drug addiction usually enters into the picture, because it's the only way they can stand it emotionally.

You could have a system of legalized prostitution for prostitutes over the age of 18 or 21, but sad to say, a lot of johns would still be cruising the streets looking for 12-year-olds.

[jdj]

13. I don't like the idea of "sex tourism"

because it is essentially outsourcing.

Desperate poor women in 3rd world countries doing what 1st world women won't, or doing it for a lot less money.

What kind of mental gymnastics to men have to do to totally disregard the reality of women in these situations? Or is there some kind of closet racism that makes it okay? Not directed at you, these are just questions that I think need to be asked and answered as we move toward decrim. of prostitution.

[seemslikeadream]

6. Will see beyond the masks I've worn

Too Damaged for Love?

J.

Maybe someday there will be somebody who
Will see beyond the masks I've worn
To the little girl who is not so strong
To the frightened child locked deep within
Who just needs true love to laugh again.

A time for me
Someday there'll be
A time when love
Will set me free.

Maybe someday the walls will fall
Internal ones build big and strong
Which protect me from the fear and pain
But block my path to love again.

A time for me
Someday there'll be
A time when love
Will set me free.

Maybe someday the scars will fade
They'll be soothed away by a patient soul
Who'll see beyond the broken girl
And help me let my dreams unfurl.

A time for me
Someday there'll be
A time when love
Will set me free...

http://www.irvingstudios.com/child_abuse_survivor_monument/806A3_rsbbcc.htm

[jdj]

12. if we're waxing poetic, this reminds me of "Take" by Ani Di Franco

"Don't ask me why I'm crying
I'm not gonna tell you what's wrong
I'm just gonna sit on your lap
for five dollars a song...

I was eleven years old
He was as old as my Dad
And he took something from me
That I didn' even know that I had

So don't tell me about decency
Don't tell me about pride
Just give me something for my trouble
'Cause this time it's not a free ride

I want you to pay me for my beauty
I think it's only right
Because I have been paying for it
All of my life

I just gonna TAKE the money I make
And I'm gonna go away..."

[Judi Lynn]

16. People often have very limited, deadly definitions of "love," don't they?

For a brain dead segment of society, "love" can be demanded, controlled, and it always seems to keep falling into such clumsy, mechanical, lifeless forms of rigid play-acting.

Don't know how people could get so blind, and so twisted. "Love" at that level is a torture chamber.

All the hard work in discovering love is done inwardly, subtly, when nothing less will do. Most people never make the effort.

I think people should start considering treating others with respect, and letting them go about their own lives without interference.

Giving them money while you demand they trash themselves, their honor, to call themselves less important than you is wrong. Makes you want to scream. Fools who try to pretend this is really what the other people "want" are so bent they will never be well again.

Reading that poem you shared, I was very aware of how these people would interpret it. The meaning would be lost altogether with them.

[seemslikeadream]

20. Thanks JudiLyn

for being here

[reggaehead]

22. I need advice

Can I salvage a friendship? And should I? This is a person that has lived in my home for several years. I knew he hated Clinton. But, neither of us knew I would hate Bush. And I do vehemently! I still trust him(not Bush,even with a box of breafast cereal). But i want him out of my house. He understands that. And probably considers it torture when he is here. How can I salvage a friendship with the hannity youth? Or should I even bother? I love this man like a brother. Have fed him when he was down. Basically I charge him nothing for rent in a desirable neighborhood in the south bay. Is this even possible? O should I just say go on your merry way you facist fuck?
Its kind of amazing. because when he moved into my home his dad had went bankrupt (hotel management biz). Meaning he was reconciling his losses. His family lost a beautiful home in Saratoga, CA. If you dont know where that is. Its about as ritzy as anywhere in CA. We had been friends for years. So I offered him a place (while his family settled their differences and took a condo at pebble beach). He has been here since ( like 6 years) but out differences never really turned up till the Bushiban took control of our country.
He has expressed his desire to leave. But I'm wondering if I should try to mantain our friendship? I'm not even sure its possible. Before the bushiban, I always voted for 3rd party candidates. So I guess our problems started in 2000. Thinking back tho, he was a bit perturbed in 2000 when he asked about Harry Brown's chances and I fessed up I was voting for Gore. I'm still registered libertarian. Vote mostly for independants, or candidates I know2. But this election for me is ABB! As it should be for EVERY VOTER IN THIS COUNTRY!!! AND, as the only WORD POWER left. Maybe the world should have a voice in our election process. WTF our decisions effect the world. To marginilize world opinion is to marginilize democracy ( did Al Sharpton say that? If not he should have). Democracy cannot exist with Bushocracy. One or the other has to go.
Therefore I will be saying goodbye and good life to a long time friend. Can it be any other way?

[DarbyUSMC]

23. It's 2004; STD's are running rampant. You've got a hand ---- use it.

Prostitution ---- IMO.

Why hook yourself up to someone who has been with literally thousands of others who have been with who knows how many. It's like blowing your nose on a used kleenex. What kind of "pleasure" is that? What is the matter with people who they have such low regard for their own bodies? Why are prostitutes glamorized more and more when the truth of the matter is that the majority of them do not look like Julia Roberts or any other actress that has ever portrayed one? They don't relax in bubble baths and come out looking clean and smelling wonderful. They aren't the thousand dollar a night call girls; most of them are drug addicts who'd do anything for their next fix. Nice. As much as washing hands is emphasized as a way to prevent the spread of disease, any type of intimate behavior should be given a lot of consideration before making a mistake that could have an effect on the rest of your life. "Attencion, attencion." think with the head connected to your body from your neck.