Chris Ryan and C. Michael Hall portray ―Mongers‖ and sex workers as ―liminal‖ creatures. 194 This means – despite the persecution being heavier on the women -- that they share an identity of illegality and transgression.
The act of sex tourism can therefore be explained as an interaction between two sets of liminal people – but with a difference. The one, the tourist, is enacting a socially sanctioned and economically empowered marginality, while the second, the prostitute, is stigmatized as a whore, a woman of the night, a scarlet woman. 195
Sex work, whether legal or not, is socially looked down upon in Western societies and prostitution has an old historically negative connotation. María cannot admit openly what her real profession is. She has to listen to her priest‘s sermons that condemn ―loose‖ women and who preach that prostitution is the worst calamity the country suffers from. Her two children curse other children with the worst offense that can be uttered in Spanish: “Hijodeputa” (Sonofabitch). If one of the former Costa Rican lovers, and fathers of her children, find out she is working at Del Buey, they can take her to court and take away her custody over them.
Both the prostitute and her client are forced to live hidden sexual lives outside the law.
American mongers admit feeling discrimination, misunderstanding and the need to hide their sexual preferences. Jsmythe23, for example, responds to the Detroit Post without having read the article on prostitution, assuming it will be prejudiced. He believes the Detroit paper, ABC, has the right to write on Costa Rican prostitution. Nevertheless, he is sure the article will be ―cheap and salacious.‖
Jsmythe23 anticipates that the journalist will ignore to write that prostitution is legal in Costa Rica and that no minors can go inside in any of the hotels. ―ID‘s are required at the door‖- he states. He also thinks that the paper will neglect the fact that many young women in Costa Rica pay their university studies thanks to prostitution. They would not acknowledge, ―The sex industry is not managed by pimps as it is the case in the States.‖ America is so ―puritanical,‖ he adds, that the Mafia is the one who rules prostitution and it is the one that forces sex workers into consuming drugs. ―This is not the case in this Central American country, but the paper will not admit it.‖- He writes. ―They also will not write that prostitution is a common practice in the civilized world. Their goal will be to shock the audience and to show mongers as perverts and criminals.‖ He finally asks them: ―What is that you want?. For Costa-Rica to apply the same ineffective and harmful laws that the U.S. has regarding prostitution so that women can get forced out of the safety of secure nightclubs and hotels and work on the street getting beat-up, exploited by pimps, harassed by police etc?” 196
Since mongers feel themselves misunderstood and persecuted, they tend to establish their own dialects, geographical spaces, sexual behavior and meeting places. They share the fears of other persecuted groups. They must be wary of strangers who might turn them in, of hidden cameras in the nightclubs 194 Chris Ryan and C. Michael Hall, Sex Tourism. Marginal People and Liminalities. Routledge, London and New York, 2001, p.1.
195 Chris Ryan and C. Michael Hall, Sex Tourism. Marginal People and Liminalities. Routledge, London and New York, 2001, p.1.
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and hotels, and of their own non-monger friends. They believe the journalists are to ―out‖ them, only to increase their newspaper‘s ratings. Given this situation, Jsmythe23 proposes the following rules of conduct:
1) Be careful who you meet down there. NEVER reveal your true identity.
2) Be careful who PM's you on this board. If it is a newbie, somebody you have never met personally, do NOT
reveal your true identity.
3) If a user here gets pushy and attempts to find out who you are, report them to the Admins.
4) Always exit any house of prostitution with a wary eye. If you see a camera crew....RUN. Do not look back.
They can't ID you from behind.
5) Never...EVER go with an underage prostitute. Make her show ID. If she can't....leave her alone. Always
assume that maybe SHE has a hidden camera. Be careful even just TALKING to a minor in public.
6) Be careful who you talk to about this hobby of ours. If you don't know them and trust them...decir nada!
7) Never post anything in this board or any other message board that could help somebody easily ID you.
I hate to be this paranoid....but you HAVE to be. Trust me on this, mi amigos. This is not going away.
Remember the old line from Candid Camera? One day, when you least expect it...SMILE...you're on Candid
Camera." In an instant, your life can be exposed, and if you are in a sensitive situation....ruined.197
It is no secret that groups that are discriminated against tend to alleviate their burden by many different means. The tourist sex industry is filled with adrenaline hikes such as gambling, drugs and sex.
Mongers admit that Costa Rica has become a sort of ―crack cocaine‖ that is hard to control. Don Gordo, for example, has made 59 trips to Costa Rica during the last decade; others have come more than 20 times. As Prolijo indicates bellow this means spending money, time and energy on women, alcohol and gambling. Once the high is felt, it is hard to stop.
It's definitely an addiction. Whether it is like drug abuse depends on the individual. Like drug abuse, the
"chica fix" can detract from our drive to deal with "relationship" issues in a more complete and long-term way. It can act as a means to or at least a substitute for many of the things one normally gets from more traditional relationships, beginning with sex but also including, companionship, ego gratification or whatever. If going to CR for short term "fixes" take away from ones effort or drive to seek out more fulfilling relationships (or ones with long term potential), it could be a sign of "drug" abuse. .198
Sex seems to be the major high for mongers:
We go to CR because we love to phuck, to fulfill our lust and fantasies- it's a quick-fix, an escape from our reality, the bitchy-cold wife/GF or loneliness and everything else at home, the rush of leading a double life, with women that are so hot and sweet. And we can phuck all we want without all the complications and crap we'd normally have to put up with. What guy in here hasn't fantasized about phucking hot young women since puberty, and after many rejections, failed relationships, marriages, whatever, found CR and finally able to "catch-up" and make it come true. 199
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Women and sex are not the only monger‘s ―highs.‖ Hotel Del Buey and the rest of the nightclubs also include casinos where many of the customers gamble all night. After all, both sex and games offer random and unexpected rewards. You can choose the most beautiful girl in the hotel and this is no guarantee that the sex will be great. The loving woman in the lobby can become detached and cold in the bedroom. Some fake their orgasms and others have real orgasms. Sometimes it is the women who want more sex and do not charge extra for it. Both casinos and the bedrooms provide similar random pleasures and risks: It is quite easy to become addicted to both.
That last paragraph reminds me of one morning about a year ago at about 7 am in San Jose I was walking from the Morazan to the Colonial to have breakfast. I saw a guy who looked obviously like a gringo and looked to be in bad shape, like something bad had happened to him. My first intuition was that he was suffering from a hangover. I asked him if he was OK - he said no and that he was "out of control." I said,
"you mean out of control about sex." (I was thinking about myself and the only thing I could imagining myself being out of control about in CR)
He laughed bitterly and said, "hell no, I wish it was sex - I am out of control with my gambling. Now I have to go home to my wife." I felt very badly for the guy and offered to buy him breakfast and talk to him but he said he had to go home. 200
Sex worker themselves are addicted. They also expect to win the Big Prize either in gambling or in sex.
Rosaura admits, ―Most of my money is wasted in gambling‖. Lourdes, another sex worker, spends 50,000 colones a night in poker. José, a security guard at the Casino Del Buey believes sex workers gamble half of their earnings.
If is not in gambling, the women are hooked to cocaine, alcohol or shopping.
Some sex workers owe street vendors and/or salesmen more than a month‘s income. This is mostly due to the fact that they have to constantly reinvent themselves through new clothing, jewelry and perfumes.
Mongers and prostitutes admit -as María tells us- ―There is something out of control in our lives.‖
Being ―hooked‖ makes them feel powerless. Lupe, a sex worker, feels she cannot control her unsafe sexual behavior because ―I cannot stop my gambling habits.‖ Miriam feels helpless with regard to alcohol; ―I cannot stop drinking after my 10th drink. I don´t remember what I do when I am drunk.‖
Alcohol consumption is a major problem for sex workers. Almost two thirds of the 2000 survey drank alcohol, 30% did it more than once a week and 10% drank everyday. Of the sample, 38% has done other drugs and 13% consumed mainly marihuana and cocaine. (Tables 8-9) Among drug users, cocaine seemed to hold a larger attraction than marijuana. (Table 10) Those who have consumed the drug and those who consume it were almost the same. In the case of marijuana, those who have consumed it (26%) were larger as a group than those who were consuming it (18%).
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cocaine to lessen alcohol intoxication so they could be able to sell more drinks to themselves and their clients.
Of the sex workers who consumed drugs, 54% did so every day. Sex workers were also mixing more alcohol and sex (49%) than drugs and sex (10%). The data indicated that alcohol is the drug most used to have sex.
From the information we gathered in our ethnographic observations, in-depth interviews and focus groups, we sense that the problem of alcohol consumption is increasing and more serious than the 2000
survey revealed. Those sex workers who work in nightclubs make their salaries more from the sale of alcohol than sex.
These women have two sources of income: nude dancing and a percentage of the sales from alcohol to clients. Puro Placer Night-Club, for example, has an admittance fee of approximately $12. The client only gets one drink and is expected to consume much more. The sex workers get 20% per drink served both to her and her client. Champagne is the drink most ordered by the sex workers and each drink is approximately $7. A private dance to the customer is $10 and this goes mostly to the sex worker. If the client wants a private booth to get nude dancing and some petting, masturbation or oral sex he must order a bottle of champagne, which costs $200. In the Elite Night Club the minimum consumption fee is $15. The champagne bottle needed to get a private booth is $270.
This system is called ― fichaje,” (―chip,‖ in Spanish.) The waiters keep the number of ―chips‖ the sex worker is making throughout the evening and her salary is determined accordingly. Therefore, it is implicit that the client and the sex worker should drink as much as possible. The client also pays those drinks served to the women.
From our focus group we learned that a sex worker could order as many as 40 drinks per night. They indicated that the number of drinks needed to get intoxicated was 19. They admitted that after this number they lost control over their behavior and sexual practice. Some women in our focus group discussions admitted to having forgotten to use condoms when intoxicated and usually did not recall what they did with their clients. Others reported that clients became violent and more aggressive when they were aware that the sex worker was drunk.
An average client can spend almost $300 in one evening and sex workers can make from $500 to $1500 per month just on alcohol sales. If the client wants to have sex outside of the premises he must pay another $200 to the bar owners plus the same amount to the sex worker.
Some waiters help the sex workers by mixing soda with the champagne and reducing in this manner the amount of alcohol. Nevertheless, this is not possible when the client orders a bottle. Clients want the sex workers to drink since this allows them to have more control over them and for this reason they usually check the drinks to see if they have not been altered. When this occurs the attempts to reduce alcohol consumption by the waiters fail. One of the alternatives for the sex workers is to smoke cocaine, which reduces intoxication. We observed many sex workers using cocaine in the bathrooms or doing it prior to entering into the bars.
In 2000, 71% of sex workers responded having problems in using condoms when mixing alcohol and sex. This pattern can be due to the increasing participation of sex workers in the ―fichaje‖ system. As profits are shifting from prostitution to alcohol sales, sex workers are increasingly more vulnerable to 66
intoxication and unsafe sex. Despite the prevention efforts carried by the government and NGO‘s, alcohol intoxication is becoming a serious obstacle to safer sex.
From the in-depth interviews we learned that the problem for sex workers when intoxicated is aggravated by the client‘s refusal to use condoms. As they also get intoxicated, the demand to not use condoms increases.
Alcohol consumption seems to be the major factor of risk for unsafe sex both for the sex worker and her client. There is also a strong link with cocaine consumption. From our ethnographic observation we learned that sex workers use crack cocaine to lessen intoxication and to allow them to consume more drinks. This increasing need for cocaine forces them to spend more money on this drug and, accordingly, increase the need for more income from alcohol sales. This is a vicious cycle that leads them to make clients drink more and expose themselves to more pressures for having unsafe sex.
Another phenomenon that was concealed by the interviewees in the 2000 survey is that crack and cocaine use has increased considerably over the last few years. Sex workers in Costa Rica fill the discussion forums with commentaries about the high levels of crack consumption. Charles illustrates in a newsgroup a particular situation with a sex worker in Costa Rica who ran from the hotel room before the sexual act had concluded. To this Goetz responds
Barring any strange occurrence between the two of you during the exercise, if she abruptly stopped during the middle of the hump and got pissed either she was not planning on really doing the two hours, at least not actively or had something else going on. The fact that she seemed to have a personality change and forgot about the money leads me to believe she was on something. I have had a lot of experience with girls on coke and crack in my old strip club days and I promise you they can go night and day in a heartbeat without any obvious signs of use. They will go psychotically paranoid in a flash, have 180 degree mood swings and be completely irrational…201
Charles agrees with him and believes half of the women are on coke: ―I have noticed this, can recognize "jonesing" demeanors, and would not be surprised if about half of them are on coke. Very sad considering how destructive that stuff is.‖ 202
Monger culture is alcohol culture. Not only sex tourism is an escapade from daily work and obligations, which provides an excuse for people to drink more than usual, but the need for man to express feelings in Western culture is usually through intoxication. Since sharing feelings is what they do in Costa Rica, no wonder then they need so much alcohol.
The discussion forums are filled with stories of drunken Americans at the bars. Gringotim, for example, describes the alcohol consumption of a 22 year old Canadian tourist at La Cantina, the bar at the hotel Irazú: ―This k*d, in an hour and 15 minutes, drank two Imperials, two shots of Tequila, two Ron Centenarios Y Cokes, and some Guaro. I'm thinking "this k*d is out of control!". Sure enough, he puts his hand to his mouth as if to burp, then proceeds to puke right on the bar! It was disgusting!203
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DEAR_JOHN reveals that a guy from Nevada was doing cocaine and talking about having sex with children.204 Tunaman reports on the ―generic drunk‖ American who makes a fool of himself and whom sex workers run away from. ―I have only witnessed the generic drunk gringo assholes. One time, this drunk sits next to me at the bar in the BM. He tries to talk with some chica s in his version of Spanish, which is just adding an "O" at the end of any English word. I can tell these girls don't even want to deal with his drunken ass for any amount of $$$. …Usually the drunks that expect Latina s to kiss his ass are a little weary of going someplace where the locals hang out.‖ 205
Prolijo shares a typical story:
I was with VB when the surfer dude was doing his thing. First he lifted his arms as if to stretch, but I think he
was just trying to show off his muscles. The bar was very crowded at the time. So next he proceeded to swing his
elbows around violently knocking people out of the way saying "time to make some room around here" as if he
thought it was the funniest thing anyone ever said or did. VB, who had been sitting with me at the bar, got
pushed aside. VB looked like he was ready to stand his ground and take a swing at the guy. But I suggested it
was time for us to circulate anyway. I'm glad I talked VB out of it. That guy may have been drunk but he was
sure damn BIG. 206
It is hard to tell at this point how much alcohol dependency there is among American tourists. But the anecdotal evidence suggests it is a major concern and a strong factor in predicting unsafe sex. Tourists say that there is little to do in San Jose but drink. The majority brings their own booze with them. Most, since they are on holidays, probably drink more often than in the States. The fact is that most people who work in the sex industry report that most Americans are drunk for the duration of their trips. The Blue Marylin, the small bar at Hotel Del Buey, makes a profit of more than $10,000 a month, according to the manager.
Alcohol intoxication is one of the major factors for unsafe sex among sex workers and it is likely to be also for their clients.
Another addiction among American tourists, it is to Viagra, CIALIS and Levitra. According to the Survey at costaricaticas.com, Viagra, called ―Vitamin V‖ is by far the most popular among sex tourists.207 These drugs allow middle-aged men to have full erections for longer periods of time.
Goetz, for instance, is totally convinced that Levitra is ―the hands down winner.‖ According to him, its effects can last for days. He uses it because it ―restores my abilities to my 18 year old level.‖ He knows that many mongers share this since ―Most of us have led similar lifestyles and after a certain level of age and abuse we need a little help. It has nothing to do with desire, more to do with prolonged alcohol consumption, high triglycerides, obesity, lack of exercise, Propecia, borderline diabetes, smoking, poor diet, and all the other pleasurable things that mongers do. If you are over 40 and do any of the above you will feel the need sooner than later.‖ 208
One thing is to get a ―little help from your friends‖ and another is to use these drugs as candy.
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mentioned a raging hard-on as a side effect. Phizer repositioned the drug as a sexual-enhancement pill and the rest is history.‖ The drug works, he says, but ―overdosing‖ (taking more than the daily prescribed amount) is a threat. A possible outcome is the ―gringo dropping dead at the El Duende because of overdosing.‖ He thinks this American sex tourist ―drank a whole bottle of Viagra in two days!‖ 209
Viagra is for people who have problems getting erections because of diabetes, old age or other illnesses. It is not a drug prescribed for having sex with several prostitutes in a single day or for having sex for five hours in a row. Nevertheless, this is the main reason the drug is taken and tourists increase the dosage to be able to experience sex again as in their younger days. A twenty-six year old monger, for example, admits ― In 48 hours I had around 12 pops with Cialis.‖ He writes that he came to Costa Rica only for a weekend and ―The day before the trip I went to the gym and got a really hard workout and got 3 d-bols from a friend just to increase my tetosteronne [sic] levels and sex drive.‖ Once in Costa Rica, ―I was like a maniac the first night, then leveled off.‖ He advices other mongers that when taking Cialis is better ―no masturbation 24 hours prior to the trip since it will keep you erect as long as you take it.‖ The only problem with the drug for him is that ―just eventually run outa juice. But, as long as you have juice on Cialis, you can really just keep going and going, like the energizer bunny, no shit, just remember to change condoms in between loads.‖ 210
Another young monger who is 30 years old, is intrigued about what to do: ―I will be in Costa Rica on Saturday night for one week. Today is Wednesday and I have roughly four days before the fun begins.
I need advice on masturbating prior to my trip. Should I withhold from masturbating for the next four days so that I am really horny and build up my reserves or should I continue masturbating twice a day so my body will be ready for the excitement when I am down there.‖ 211
It becomes evident that tourists do self-prescribe and that the high consumption of sex-enhancing drugs is mainly for keeping up with the active monger life in Costa Rica, something that looks dangerous to their health.
Gentlemen,
Just a heads up on Viagra use... I read on one or more posts about people popping Viagra more than once a day and wanted to give a warning about such use. I myself was popping one every 6-8 hours for a time span of 4 days and found out later how utterly stupid and dangerous that was and wanted to share some info.
Here's what I want to let everyone know... The erection effects of the pill lasts about 4 hours on average.
HOWEVER, you should NOT take more than 1 pill in a 24 hour period. Although the erection effects last