Abruptly, the word, “prostitute” – not greatly used in public political speech because of that iron truism, “Those who live in glass houses ...” – is extremely popular. Suddenly it’s a favorite among Republicans. They seem consumed with sex, especially Rick Santorum and the weirdly loathsome Rush Limbaugh.
In the past week, “prostitute” was discussed in every form of media, and social and private conversation. Sex for sale is its most strict definition. It also means people who sell themselves for any kind of advantage, an implication the GOP should keep in mind. In Laurens County, South Carolina, conservatives passed a resolution requiring anyone running for office as a Republican to sign a pledge promising not to have had extra-marital sex in the past and to avoid pornography at all costs. Someone asked, “Who’ll be able to honestly sign up?”
When my wife and I landed in Mexico in 1963, we were surprised to learn that even the smallest pueblo had several burdeles – brothels. In those days, the daughters of even the poorest families “went out“ with boys heavily chaperoned. They wore long dresses, had hair on their legs (to show they weren’t Indios) and were closely watched by family members and neighbors. It didn’t always work. But it did boost the brothel trade.
Besides selling short stories – a slow process due to Mexico’s dilitory postal system – I was learning how a Nikon camera worked under the tutelage of a friend known as Lake Chapala’s master photographer. Brothels here had a reputation that surprised me: their mural art. The walls of almost every cathouse were said to be decorated with naif art, painted by local untutored artists.
My photo mentor took me to see an example one morning – no patrons, a teenager sweeping up the the night’s debris, a man refilling iced beer coolers, checking the liquor supply. The walls of the brothel were painted an unfortunate dark green. Yet the black and red elementary figures were easy to make out. Simple, even childish, they possessed a striking straightforwardness. An echo of prehistoric drawings. The painting reflected rural Mexico: men on horses lassoing livestock, and the obligatory raw display of erotic encounters.
“Every whorehouse here has a history. Problems with the church, townspeople, the police. Stories of the biggest, bloodiest fights, of murders. Of women who went on to become well-known courtesans. Some who went to Guadalajara and became well-known entertainers. Others who came to sad ends.”
The girls were getting up, looking non-glamorously like just another group of young pueblo women, except some boldly bathed at the outside lavadora. The madam was decorating a foot-tall statue of a female saint with fresh flowers and greenery. I shook her hand, and asked who the santita was.“Oh, that’s our saint, Señor, La Magdalena.” She spoke of Mary Magdalene, known to the world as the prostitute who confessed and asked Jesus’ forgiveness – and got it – becoming one of Christ’s most faithful, and committed followers. Religious tradition says she was the first witness of his resurrection, and she appears in several Biblical writings.
In the “Gospel of Mary,” an apocryphal second, or fifth century (depending on the source) papyrus codex, discovered in 1896, her sinfulness is trimmed away.
Mexican prostitutes wouldn’t even listen to “lies” about a reformed Mary Magdalena. They swore that “los ricos, los alteneros” – who already had everything – wanted to “kidnap” La Magdalena and “corrupt” her into one of their own. It was an insult to a poor and brave – and, yes, sinful – woman who for centuries had represented Christian redemption to the world, to such women.
Equipped with lights, which we taped to walls, the back of chairs, on floors and balconies, my photographic mentor and I visited brothels in the Lake Chapala vicinity. But the hopes for the book, photos and stories began to languish, then died of inattention as we both turned to more quickly rewarding work.
In much of Mexico at that time six years of schooling were considered a “good” education. Less for female children – three years usually. Families were large – as many as 13 or more children were not uncommon. The birth of a female child often was considered a religious punishment, or the work of a sorcerer. A male child meant another, much needed, worker. The first two female children meant help with housework, cooking, washing, caring for younger children as the family grew. But a third or fourth female child often represented a burdensome expense.
In the 1960s, I had an acquaintance who bought a young girl from her father in Nayarit. The girl’s father beat her, and the family was hard-scrabble poor, food and health care scarce, clothing ragged. The girl was frightened about her future but eager to get away from home.
A good many unwanted females often went into prostitution, sometimes after disastrous arranged marriages. When my friend and I began our research, and such women saw two gringo males coming into a cantina/brothel, some sighed, “Ay Maria madre mia, are these gringos lost, or do they have strange morning appetites?” Often, we’d bring some fresh sweet rolls to ease things along. For our desires did seem strange: to photograph cantina walls, sometimes their rooms if they were in any way uncommon. Most had photographs of film stars, famous mariachi singers torn from newspapers or magazines tacked on the walls of their rooms. Some spoke of schemes for their lives beyond the sex trade.
San Juan Cosala had a well-known brothel, Kiko’s, right on the highway, with a diagonal street behind it for furtive parking. Thirteen rooms, thirteen baths, a large parquet dance floor, a well-stocked jukebox and becoming “hostesses.” In its heyday it drew clients from outlying pueblos and Guadalajara. It held “special occasions” closed to the public, for groups of politicians.
Jocotepec had eight brothels. The most frequented was the Rio Colorado. If wives came looking for husbands, they were told he wasn’t there. If mothers came, their sons were found and handed over to mama.
During a government-made economic crash, when my wife and I owned this newspaper, the owner of Kiko’s wanted to place an ad announcing his place of business was now offering “family entertainment.” There were other customers waiting. I called him into the back office. What logic convinced him of this extraordinary idea? “Hombre, Kiko’s has been famous for years as a brothel.”
“Pos, we have only a few gringo clients,” he said. “None of their women know anything about the place. The girls will work the kitchen, serve food and drinks.”
“But, all the gringos know about it. People driving by with visitors always point it out. We’ll be glad to take your pesos, but it’ll be a waste of your money.”
Our potential customer, who wanted to buy a large ad, frowned unhappily.
“Mira, would you take your wife, your daughters, you grandmother to a whorehouse?” There was silence. “And if we run your ad, and some family goes and afterwards someone tells them they took their kids to a brothel, they’re going be mad as hell at us. They won’t read the paper after that.”
After several devaluations, the arrival of the pill, and local government measures to make rural pueblos seem more like urban communities, the burdeles began to be moved out of the center of town. Then they were replaced by a pricey government approved species of “motels.”