Taboo: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light Area (Review)

sattar2 #59 you write ``I concur with hamidm Sahib and would rather be with prostitutes, pimps, and drug pushers ``. It all depends on what activities you seek to engage in with them, sattar sahib.

:-).

Ali1: So we have another fake on chowk. The real ali1 is more toilet-oriented and much more smart than you. The 12-head disease seems to be catching on chowk.

As for your comments about me: I am not running for elections on chowk, and I am blessed with more than enough friends and loved ones in real life. So I dont need to worm my way into anyones favor on the internet.

Zafar #63 you are too kind. Cheers. And an advance Eid Mubarak to you and other chowkies.

scout #67 It requires courage and a sense of right and wrong to apologize. I suggest rather than ridiculing urstruly for the apology, given that it is his first time, you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume there is substance behind the apology and that he will be more careful in his choice of language in future.

Rsaxena #66 I realized that you were posting to the original one. But so what? My point is still valid - anything positive coming from a Pakistani (an apology from urstruly in this case) or about Pakistan causes you and your kind to develop stomach ulcers. As for these kicks on the behind that you would like to deliver to me, such ``hawai fire`` are easily delivered by any pipsqeak on chowk. Theh, however, are an indication of weakness, not strength. In real life you would probably think twice before issuing such threats to me (particularly if you are size and physical condition I have seen of most people from your part of India).

Tahmed is a buck toothed senile old man who secretly wishes he is not a Pakistani.

ahmadullah/ asthtagfillurah ..Ah forget it.These Arabic words are too hard

Don`t want to be obnoxious and take up too much bandwidth but here are some excerpts from Ruchira Gupta`s interview on the PBS show ``Adventure Divas - India``. To read the whole thing go to http://www.pbs.org/adventuredivas/india/divas/index.html

Would love to hear about other NGO in the subcontinent trying to do something about this. BTW other Desi Divas that they interviewed (also at that link) were Delhi`s own top cop Kiran Bedi (formally Kiran Peshawaria), Shubha Mugdal (ab ke sawan, ali more aNgana) and SEWA`s amazing Ela Bhatt !!





ruchira gupta

muckraker

She came to the brothels of Bombay to make a documentary about sex trafficking and never left. Realizing she couldn`t walk away from the atrocities she had witnessed, she started Apne Aap (On Our Own) to help women and children who have been sexually exploited regain their independence. Meanwhile, her Emmy award-winning film The Selling of Innocents continues to spread the word.

Ruchira: So this is our office, and the girls come in here and we register them. One of the biggest things that we`ve done, is we`ve launched a membership drive by trying to restore their sense of identity, and the way we`ve done that is by giving them these I.D. cards. Each girl gets a photograph on the card, and then they have their name, you give them an account number, we open a bank account for them because so far, nobody was going to open an account for them. They had no ID, they were not considered citizens of India, they were not given access to healthcare, but with this I.D. card, now they belong to an organization. They have a sense of who they are, and they can go anywhere, so this has been a very big help. One of our biggest success stories, with these I.D. cards, has been a fight that the girls had with the police. What happened was that the police went inside the brothels and tried to extort money from one of our girls. These girls flashed their I.D. cards, and said that, `Do you know that we belong to this organization and if you try to extort money from us, we`ll report to our organization?` And the cop went back. But he went to another girl who is not a member of our organization, beat her badly, her face turned blue, her jaw was broken, and he extorted about 1200 rupees from her. She brought the girl here, and made her a member. She took up her case with the police, and now the policeman has been transferred, so it was big victory for us.

Holly: Success, empowering.

Ruchira: Totally empowering, because these girls didn`t even know who they were. They didn`t have a sense of being citizens of this country — this is the first time that they belong to Bombay. And, you know, you can keep talking about rights in a vacuum, but until you have a sense of what rights mean, how you can exercise them, it doesn`t mean anything. And so this was our first day, to explain what rights mean, and how to have the right to fight the cops, because the cop or nobody has any right to extort money. So this was the first step; the second step is that we are cataloging all our members here.

Holly: Now, this is probably a stupid question, but prostitution is technically illegal here, it`s illegal right?

Ruchira: No, prostitution is legal in India; if I`m over 18, I can sell my body for sex and nobody can arrest me for it. But what is illegal is sex with a minor, also living off the earnings off somebody who is selling her body for sex. If I was a madam, it would be illegal, also if I was a pimp, it would be illegal. And the hard part, where the police actually harass the girls, is that soliciting in a public place is illegal, which means that, if you`re standing on the street and trying to get a client, you can be rounded up by the police, and that`s when the police keeps coming and picking up the girls, putting them into jail, extorting money, beating them up. And also, what they do is raid the brothels, they go inside the brothels and actually look for little girls, if they find the little girls, they go after the older women and try to extort money, saying that we`ll smash your brothels.

And these girls, they don`t have a sense of what is right, and what is constitutionally their entitlement, so they can`t challenge the police. They don`t know that it`s not allowed to extort money from them; they don`t know that they cannot come inside the brothel anytime and smash the furniture or their walls. They have no idea, so Apne Aap is also trying to tell all the women about what their rights are, how to fight the police, how to tackle the disease of HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis, and all these kinds of things. Sometimes it`s just a matter of information, and the second is of course organization, because you have to mobilize. You have to work together, because if they are isolated, the police can be more brutal. So that`s our membership drive.

Ali2,

Are you by any chance related to Ali1? If so, is he eating his sabzi?

Btw, Tahmed had ``wormed his way`` into all of our hearts long ago. But I agree, lets move on!

Scout, rdesi,

Thanks! Learning from the best!

Does the sex work industry exist in Pakistan? If so, can someone supply the basics?

(leaving the mothers of various male chowkies out of this? Good Godess, guys, those mama drama insults are in poor taste and will come right back at you)

re: Zafar

{{with said transaction not receiving the sanction of social legitimacy}}

who is to define social legitimacy?...and how are we to define it?...and for which society?...

re: this debate

ultimately, what consenting adults choose to do, if it does not directly influence others, is not something that anyone has a right to judge...but it takes a highly mature, educated (not in religion and dogma!), and developed society for something like this to work...dutch society is one example where it does...

One clarifn... Samina DID talk about incomes, regulation and protection for sex-workers in her first post.... not that it changes the gist of my earlier post, but putting this before someone pounces on me in ``defence of the poor girl``.

Frankly this surrogate-defence/chivalry b.s. is dated.... does anyone here NOT believe that the likes of Samina, scout, anNy and company are not capable of defending themselves as eloquently as any male who gallantly volunteers for the job can? ``For God`s sake let the woman talk`` is probably the best thing one of my forefathers ever told his sons.

Sheesh...now this makes me sound like a closet-feminist.

You can`t win on chowk :(((

Sound

Reply Scout #67:

Scout:

Far be it for me to defend the ``mad mullah from Detroit`` coz he`s quite capable of doing it himself. But passions tend to blur the truth.... and I`m going to say this much.... (tahmedsaab also plis to listen):

SaminaShah in her first post CLEARLY suggested an ``ideal society`` where prostitution be a simple fallout of a supply-meets-demand scenario. SHE DID NOT TALK ABOUT PROSTITUTES BEING TREATED HUMANELY AT ALL. Go back and read it again if you want to.

Urstruly`s way of provoking her was in my personal opinion rather crude (hence MY first post to him), but in keeping with Samina`s definition ...after all, if it`s simple supply and demand, then it`s just another profession...what`s the false pride for? And BTW tahmedsaab, I don`t think anyone should feel insulted at being called a ``bhangee`` (sweeper).... if you believe that then sorry you are as casteist as those Hindoos we love to bash, and all this liberal talk goes for a toss.

Of course all great stories have a happy ending, which in this case is: Urstruly has been true to his self-declared moral values and apologised for his thoughtless remark; Samina has accepted the apology (conditionally :))after having clarified what she meant by an ideal society; tahmed has proved himself the gentleman jouster of chowk yet again; then why do you scout....have to go and make a silly statement like:

``how convenient, you have a way of insulting and apologizing at the drop of a hat. how fakely gallant....

i won`t commend you for apologizing to saminashah....

you should go drown in a cup of water.``

Either you have not taken the pains to follow the debate or this is the standard teenage-girl-fighting ploy of ``OK, you say you`re sorry...but I`m STILL not talking to you``. Either way, it`s depressing.

Regrds,

Sound

Amy Fischer

Heidi Fleish

Christine Keeler

Monica Lewensky

Donna Rice

Jessica Han

Nur Jehan & many other women in India

Were not the coerced & opressed women to resort to the oldest profession out of hunger ,&destitution!

Urstruly #55,

how convenient, you have a way of insulting and apologizing at the drop of a hat. how fakely gallant.

i won`t commend you for apologizing to saminashah.

i commend HER for handling your unwarranted insults in a sophisticated, educated manner like the strong woman that she is.

you should go drown in a cup of water.

re: tahmed

{{urstruly #55 You did the right thing with your apology. This has frustrated Rsaxena #57,}}

frustrated? me? and fyi, i was commenting on his original post, not the apology, which wasn`t even posted when i wrote #57...so it appears you are indeed senile, and in need of a double-dose of chill pills, with a kick from behind to help you swallow them.

What`s wrong with two(or more) adults engaging in an activity involving no coercion, no infringement of the rights of others and fully realizing the consequences of their actions(s) in which both get what they want? Afterall doesn`t society allow people to get married and have kids when its apparent to all and sundry(except the participants) that the adults are not qualified for either?

later

-sac

urstruly #55 You did the right thing with your apology. This has frustrated Rsaxena #57, which of itself is certification that you have taken the right step. Of course I am just a senile baywaqoof gadha so what do I know.