I lived in Puerto Rico 1983-86 and worked as a Senior Planner for the
Planning Board of the Office of the Governor of P.R. My original
assignment was to work as a project leader restructuring and
examining the input-output system used for planning and forecasting
estimates.
After some time I was asked to design and carry out an "inductive"
(adductive) study of the linkages, leakages and dimensions of aspects
of the underground economy of P.R. (Drugs, Prostitution, Bolitos
(numbers rackets) with reference to the probable effects on leakages
from final demand (and the interactive effects through cells of the
input-output matrices). Because P.R. is relatively small in area and
because the induced investment/profit imperative mechanisms of
capitalism lead to spatial agglomerations of investment, jobs,
incomes and also those involved in underground activities, and
because the hypothetico-deductivist scenarios for estimating
dimensions, linkages, leakages of underground activities yielded
nothing but indeterminate scenarios (scenarios built upon/derived
from other scenarios...), it was thought that some filed study
(bottom-up) was needed. At the time almost 2/3 of the population of
P.R. was on pagos transferencias (some form of transfer payments),
there were emerging incidences of AIDS in San Juan and other factors
lead to this work being commissioned.
I was tasked with working with D.E.A., PR Police (Control de Vicio),
FBI, Treasury, IRS and anyone else from which I could obtain
informant reports, locations/agglomerations of underground activities.
Before I accepted the assignment, I demanded and got assurance that I
could work in the field without any police or police informants
working with me and that I would not under any circumstances identify
or assist in the identification/apprehension of any sources. I worked
almost exclusively in Spanish language and was turned loose.
Through some political contacts (I was a supporter of the
Independentistas and curiously the government knew it) I
progressively made more and more contacts with prostitutes (in
brothels like the Black Angus--not Stewart Anderson's--in San Juan,
and others in Ponce, Mayaguez, Arecibo, Aguadilla etc as well as with
street prostitutes etc.) I took special care to make sure I was not
followed or observed by any police informants.
I was interested in such factors as national origin, length of time
in P.R., plans to leave P.R., average income, rental and other
expenses, living arrangements, percentage of income sent to relatives
outside P.R., arrangements with pimps, buying habits, drug habits,
reasons for entering prostitution, any plans to leave it, other
illegal activities involved with etc.
I offered to pay for time spent and on off time so that the people
would not suffer loss of income; interestingly very few wanted money
for interview time and more and more would come after fellow sex
workers would tell them that I could be trusted, wasn't interested in
laying any kind of morality trip on anyone; for many they expressed
that it was a kind of catharsis talking about their lives, dreams,
conditions of work etc. Some with whom I talked were indeed schooled
and some were students at U.P.R. or Interamerican. I also talked with
male prostitutes some of whom were 14 and 15 years old.
The vast majority of sex workers with whom I dealt were poor
Dominicanas, Haitians, Columbianas, Cubans (only about 20% of the
prostututes in P.R. were Puerto Rican). And yes I found many who
wanted it legalized but when I asked if prostitution were legalized,
and if social attitudes changed such that prostitution were seen as
just another kind of work, would they have any objection to their
sons or daughters going into the business, not one said they would
have no objection--every single one with children or plans to have
children said they were working so that their children would not have
to do what they were doing. I did ask if the work was seen to be
degrading because of social attitudes and if producing sex services
could be seen as no different than producing any other kind of
service if only society's--and the individual prostitute's--attitudes
toward sex and morality would change and in virtually every case, or
almost every case the response was "you just don't know what it is
like to have some stranger huffing and puffing over you, playing
domination games, asking if you have a young daugter under 14 and
offering an extra bonus to fuck her, doing you with no regard or care
as to how you feel about the act itself." (Some of the types of
comments I used to get). I would hear stories about being set up for
gang rape, about being beat out of the meagre money and about John's
who would offer extra NOT to use a condom.
And this debate is not new to me. I have known about COYOTE and other
such groups for a long time; I read some of their stuff. So I would
ask: If prostitution were legalized, made safe, pimps abolished or
whatever would you work in the profession as long as possible or
would you still be looking for ways to get out of the work?. I found
very few who suggested they would stay in. Many talked about getting
over on tricks, doing their own kinds of domination games, seeing
tricks as pathetic losers and explicitly told me that getting over on
tricks or having some marginal control over tricks game them some
feeling of empowerment and revenge.
One sex worker, I'll never forget her as she had been a student at
UPR said to me: "For the Johns, and most men, a woman is a life
support system for a cunt and for those who want to see me and
conveniently use me that way, they damn sure will pay." I asked her
"then, does prostitution not then help to reinforce and perpetuate
the objectification and use-as-convenient view of women?" She answered
"yes it does, but I am concerned with me not women in general; women
in general and no women in particular--particularly the John's wife
or girlfriend--gives a fuck about me." That conversation among the
many stuck in my mind.
I have fellow teachers who refuse to join the union and as tenured
profs, they all say how wonderful they have it, how much power they
really have and they even purport to speak for the custodians,
secretaries, groundskeepers how good they have it too. They are the
one's who kiss the asses of the administrators, they cut the inside
deals, they have indeed unique conditions of work and freedoms that
the part-time teachers do not have or that the grounds keepers could
never hope to have. But just as these privileged few don't speak for
me (also one of the "privileged few" in relative terms) and certainly
do not speak for the part-time teachers or the grounds keepers, so no
hooker from Canberra can speak for all "sex workers"--like a teenage
Blackfeet girl in Great Falls or a sex slave in Patpong--just because
she is doing tricks and is a self-proclaimed "activist" for sex
workers.
I don't speak for all or any sex workers. I only report what many who
have touched me and will remain with me throughout my life have
shared with me as they trusted me with intimate things when it was
dangerous to trust anyone especially a male on the basis of which I
have formed my attitudes for which I apologize to no one.
Jim Craven
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