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A lot of businesses closed in Sosua
It is like spraying te kitchen for roaches and then finding they have gone to the bathroom.
Lions, tigers and (crack whores with AIDS) bears... ho my!
sorry mods.. couldn't resist.
And why can't we look at them as fellow human beings who are scraping by as they can because they have no other skills. I personally do not approve of prostitution, but that doesn't mean I condemn the women. And I tend to agree that along with prostitution comes drugs, excessive alcohol, and crimes of violence. However, I have no expertise to make conclusions regarding what should be done about the problem to insure that Sosua can continue to be a profitable pueblo and those engaged in this business are able to make a different life for themselves. ~ Lindsey
At the end of day, isn't Sosua more wealthy than a comparably sized Dominican town? Didn't the town continue to develop during the 2009 financial crisis? What hotels have closed since 2009 (other than poorly managed ones)? Are there less restaurants? The place seems to chug along regardless of the interference and mismanagement by Government...the very people who are going to save it!
Of course prostitutes are just people in a bad situation, frequently with few options.
The argument some are making is that if you make prostitution illegal in the DR, or just drive it underground, the crime level will increase. The logic is that the women will become thieves and violent criminals after they are deprived of their profession. I think we will get to see the results of that experiment soon. Prohibition never works (with the possible exception of certain prohibitions in a place like Singapore.)
The problem is, most jobs need education and opportunity to get ahead. Sosua is not the problem here, it is the towns surrounding it. Tourist industry jobs are just not going to cut it.
The Dominican government's solution is to drive young women back into poverty....not to help prop them up. smh
I see many here talk about being able to afford a maid here unlike back home.....here is the root of the problem for young women.
The Dominican government's solution is to drive young women back into poverty....not to help prop them up. smh
I see many here talk about being able to afford a maid here unlike back home.....here is the root of the problem for young women.
Its more of a symptom. The maid job pays a pittance...
Maybe I am wrong...maybe you can raise a family on a maids wages.
I too fail to see how people not being able to afford a maid would alleviate the problem.
All I am saying is if a woman has a choice between making a pittance or making enough to support her family, her choice is understandable. Most jobs in the tourist industry or working for expats are just not going to cut it.
Never mind.
Mike, I would not know personally, but based on posts here over the past 11 years, it seems to me that prostitutes are already thieves who are sometimes violent (or who send their johns to be violent.) You are making the same argument as those in the gun law debate in the US. Ban guns and crime increases. Ban prostitutes and crime increases.
I think if information were available to prove either point conclusively, then this debate would not be taking place.
I am one who can say that I have an opinion, but not the information or knowledge base to make sweeping conclusions. ~ Lindsey
If you spend your vacation here to have a 'good time' with as many prostitutes as possible, excessive alcohol tends to be counter productive for most men. most vacationer (or even locals) i have met, rather go out and spend the 2k on a woman than on booz. My sample is not statistically relevant tough.
Crimes of violence typically comes with drugs (or to be even more specific, with drug cartels), not with prostitution. The only fights I have seen was between locals. Once again, my sample is not statistically relevant.
Drugs also (typically) don't follow prostitution. It's prostitution that follows drugs (when woman are addicted to drugs) - but that does not seem to be the reason in this country for prostitution, it's poverty, not addiction.
Making prostitution illegal would be a disaster.
There are so many examples out there that prohibition ALWAYS leads to an increase in crime and never manages to destroy the market (just google prohibition vs harm reduction)
well, if one is to trust statistics released by the PN and MP the most violent areas of DR are not immediately associated with prostitution to the same degree as sosua is: SD, DN, cibao, san cristobal. it's more about the density of the population, the poverty levels and wholesale drug trade, really.
i read few internet boards dedicated to mongering in DR and really, the focus is on punnany more than anything else. i mean, there are some folks - cough, cough - who'd be drowning hennessy while they bounce from booty to booty but that's pretty harmless.
of course, there are pimps, human trafficking and other hard core crimes associated with prostitution but they are universally present around the country.
Everybody needs to read Denise Brennan's book, "What's Love Got To Do With It?" I know Denise, and she was in the DR last summer with her family doing an update 10 years after the original book appeared.
P.S. She did not pocket one penny of the money she earned from that book; she has put it into a foundation to help women leave "the life" and begin new ones.
Denise Brennan's book is fantastic. Although published in 2004, it actually documents a period in Sos?a's history almost ten years earlier. She first arrived here in 1993 to start her work, and the main focus is on the Sos?a of 1993-1995.
As someone who personally witnessed the Sos?a of 1993-95 it was especially interesting to read her description of places that I had actually visited myself. Although she does not use the actual names of people, bars, restaurants or hotels, to anyone who was actually here during this period it would be very obvious. Just one example is the infamous "El Marinero" disco, which she appropriately renames "The Anchor". To anyone familiar with pre-1996 Sos?a, it was the epicenter of Sos?a's "nightlife".
In the final chapter of the book there is interesting commentary on post-September 11, 2001 Sos?a, the date that she very accurately describes as the beginning of "Sos?a's economic downrturn."
Here, in a paragraph excerpted from the closing of the book, Brennan describes, what to her, were the drastic deterioriating conditions of Sos?a just two years after the Sept, 2001 "economic downturn", while she was on a return visit in 2003.
"I wandered in and out of closed hotels and took picutres of empty and crumbling swimming pools, fallen wires, and holes in the walls where air conditioners used to sit. Chickens clucked where tourists once had sunned themselves. The eerie emptiness of Sos?a was not concentrated to the center of the commercial district in El Batey. I walked to one of the residential areas of El Batey and soon stopped taking pictures, seeing the same thing block after block: apartment complexes, private homes, or small hotels that were left half built. How many pictures of half-finished structures could I possibly put in one book? Would not one photo tell the story sufficiently? What I could not capture in pictures, however, is how Sos?a's streets - both in El Batey and Los Charamicos - were noticeably less crowded day and night. Tourists had gone somewhere else, and with them Dominicans too had left Sos?a. I could see what everyone had told me, that tourism was "dead now." Sos?a with its abandoned or unfinished buildings was a ghost town. Even though I tell the anthropology students in my fieldwork seminar that their fieldwork will never be "done," as people's lives continue to undergo changes, I was unprepared for the extent and rapidity of the changes in Sos?a and Sos?ans' lives."
It is ironic how this particular thread is entitled: A lot of businesses closed in Sos?a. Actually, a lot of businesses already closed in Sos?a, a long time ago.
-----------------------
Brennan, Denise. 2004. What's Love Got to Do With It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic, ed. Pp. 207-08. Duram, N.C:. Duke University Press.
As someone who personally witnessed the Sos?a of 1993-95 it was especially interesting to read her description of places that I had actually visited myself. Although she does not use the actual names of people, bars, restaurants or hotels, to anyone who was actually here during this period it would be very obvious. Just one example is the infamous "El Marinero" disco, which she appropriately renames "The Anchor". To anyone familiar with pre-1996 Sos?a, it was the epicenter of Sos?a's "nightlife".
In the final chapter of the book there is interesting commentary on post-September 11, 2001 Sos?a, the date that she very accurately describes as the beginning of "Sos?a's economic downrturn."
Here, in a paragraph excerpted from the closing of the book, Brennan describes, what to her, were the drastic deterioriating conditions of Sos?a just two years after the Sept, 2001 "economic downturn", while she was on a return visit in 2003.
"I wandered in and out of closed hotels and took picutres of empty and crumbling swimming pools, fallen wires, and holes in the walls where air conditioners used to sit. Chickens clucked where tourists once had sunned themselves. The eerie emptiness of Sos?a was not concentrated to the center of the commercial district in El Batey. I walked to one of the residential areas of El Batey and soon stopped taking pictures, seeing the same thing block after block: apartment complexes, private homes, or small hotels that were left half built. How many pictures of half-finished structures could I possibly put in one book? Would not one photo tell the story sufficiently? What I could not capture in pictures, however, is how Sos?a's streets - both in El Batey and Los Charamicos - were noticeably less crowded day and night. Tourists had gone somewhere else, and with them Dominicans too had left Sos?a. I could see what everyone had told me, that tourism was "dead now." Sos?a with its abandoned or unfinished buildings was a ghost town. Even though I tell the anthropology students in my fieldwork seminar that their fieldwork will never be "done," as people's lives continue to undergo changes, I was unprepared for the extent and rapidity of the changes in Sos?a and Sos?ans' lives."
It is ironic how this particular thread is entitled: A lot of businesses closed in Sos?a. Actually, a lot of businesses already closed in Sos?a, a long time ago.
-----------------------
Brennan, Denise. 2004. What's Love Got to Do With It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism in the Dominican Republic, ed. Pp. 207-08. Duram, N.C:. Duke University Press.
Although businesses may be closing, I continue to see condos being built. I know that not all are sold, but during high season, there is not a one available. Are we transforming? I am routinely asked by renters to recommend the good restaurants in Sosua. I am able to come up with 3. No more. These are people who are able to spend big money for rental. They want one or two or three nights out of their condo, yet where am I to send them? As I drove today to deliver something to Haciendas El Choco, I noticed all the new housing complexes along the way up. The building would not continue if there were not people to occupy these homes. I know in my project, there are more people wanting winter rentals than units available.
So, the question remains, has Sosua not caught up with its transition to retirees in homes used perhaps seasonally? Or people with homes used for seasonal rentals?
Is the fault in the local businesses' slowness in responding to the new market?
I was sorry to hear that Casa 21 has been sold. That was one of the "go to" restaurants in Sosua for higher end tourists. It was always full to capacity. Other than that, there are only a limited number of restaurants in Sosua providing good meals consitently, not high end, but a bit above bar food with some atmosphere.
I don't have answers. Only questions.
Lindsey
So, the question remains, has Sosua not caught up with its transition to retirees in homes used perhaps seasonally? Or people with homes used for seasonal rentals?
Is the fault in the local businesses' slowness in responding to the new market?
I was sorry to hear that Casa 21 has been sold. That was one of the "go to" restaurants in Sosua for higher end tourists. It was always full to capacity. Other than that, there are only a limited number of restaurants in Sosua providing good meals consitently, not high end, but a bit above bar food with some atmosphere.
I don't have answers. Only questions.
Lindsey