Re: Whats wrong with Sosua?
Nope, you are wrong in this case. We all have choices. Sometimes the choices are tough. Sometimes we choose the easiest route. I don't judge. But you have not given any evidence to suggest they do not have a choice. Trust me, they do, and it is an active choice. Just ask all those that are in similar situations, and there are LOTS in similar situations, that choose not to be a prostitute. It is clearly a choice.
The most I'll grant you is that to some, it appears to be the best choice amongst choices.
The fact that the alternatives are unpleasant or even miserable doesn't change the fact that it is a choice. Many are in it because of the high pay - earning in an hour, what a low-paying job would pay after working a solid week of tiring labor, or earning more than a month's pay in a couple days. Nobody is in it because the alternative is death (survival, as you suggested).
We must have different definitions of what it means to have a choice. To say they have no choices is crap. Ask the local church, that constantly offers options and assistance. They do have choices.
No, my friend, it is a choice. You may say that if the alternative is so unpleasant or insufficient, that it really isn't an option. Tell that to the majority that choose that other option. Tell that to the ones that are too young, too old, too sick, too ugly, too fat, or for whatever reason, don't even have the option of being a prostitute.
I think you have a very clouded and biased perception. You talk like you are very distant from it all, picking up hear-say from a group of disgusted people sitting around making distant observations (95% of the hotels don't allow prostitutes, everyone knows everyone, you can tell just looking at them, You can tell by the age difference of their companions, they have no choice, etc.) These are unfair and incorrect characterizations. There is a slight bit of truth in your statements and the rest is pure bias.
I've seen plenty of young tourist women at the disco (I assume they are tourists because they are sunburnt, wear the tell-tale all-inclusive bracelets, and speak with eachother in some language other than Spanish), dressed just as provacative, if not worse than the local girls. Does that mean they are prostitutes? I think not. Explain how they "look" different from those that you can just "tell" by looking at them.
I find your comments rascist and condescending, even though I know you mean no offense. Rascist, because you say you can tell just by looking at them, yet a tourist dressed similarly would not be characterized as a hooker. Condescending because you group them together and talk about their plight, having pity on them for having no other choice in life.
There are way too many unique and differing situations, that we cannot paint with such broad strokes - even the word prostitute is an offensive and incorrect word to describe what you are "classifying" as the prostitutes of Sosua when you talk about the hotel clerks that "know 95% of them." I assume you are talking about the many young male and female Dominicans that frequent the discos, beaches, restaurants, or work at the same, in hopes of hooking up with someone of means, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for life. Their situations vary as much as yours and mine do. And an awful lot of them can read, write, and do arithmetic just fine. I doubt any wake up one day and say, "I think I'll go be a prostitute. I have no choice." But I bet more than a few have daydreamed about hooking up with a person of means, no different from many young women in other countries that want to marry a Doctor, Lawyer, or pro-athlete, and will go out of their way to see that they meet them.
You say "we are in no position to criticize the women who engage in prostitution". And why is that? Because "they" don't have a choice? BS. We are in no position to criticise because there is nothing to criticize, any more than there is reason to criticize someone who elects to clean houses, be a policeman, or be a priest. People make choices and live with those choices.
Jim Hinsch
JimHinsch@CSI.COM