The public mind loves sex particularly of the commercial variety.. Dhaka is exploding with escapades of all kinds and that includes the middle class..it’s not just the rich who are well into it but rest are too .. It’s inevitable when it’s a sign of class, culture and clout…
As a journalist I have covered both sex and sex workers for long and as a public health communicator travelled to different parts of the world to work on projects and the attitude is no better.. It isn’t called the Oldest profession by accident..
I covered many topics for the BBC but of all the radio series I have done, instant fame came when I did a series on Bengali sexuality. One incident is memorable. I got into a taxi in Kolkata and asked the guy to take me to Shonagachi, the city’s top “red-light “district as they are called. The driver took me straight to a building inside the area with ACs poking out of windows. I asked, “why this building ? ” He said,” All Bangladeshis come to this building. They like AC sex.” We haillas love a bit of comfort don’t we ?. After all we are paying so why not do it while cool?.
Tanbazar and Tangail
In the mid 80s I was running Dhaka Courier when I/we got involved with the rights of the sex workers of Tanbazar . Rich people of the area wanted to evict them and grab the buildings. A girl became the leader of the movement and once she invited me to her room, such a functional room with just a bed and no other furniture. The other girls would give this girl money so that she didn’t have to do sex work and she was fighting their cause full time.
But as the rich and the powerful are both, someone knifed her to death. The movement more or less collapsed when it became obvious that members of both the Government and opposition parties were together in this to grab that property. Politics may divide us but money and greed unites.
Journalists meet all kinds of people including sex workers and as expected are the same normal people we meet on the street. In fact, the sleazy rich are the worst who are the clients, the keepers, the whore-mongers as an ancient abuse term.
Perhaps the finest human being I have met was a young girl who had left sex work but returned to it when here mother fell sick and there was none to look after. She split her income three ways; one for herself to survive, another portion for her mother and the third for a group that worked to rescue girls from such work. How many of us can claim such sacrifice and nobility.
Yet what we have been doing is demonize women and girls in the name of sex work at its extreme. These women are there because there is a demand. Very few go there by choice but the clients – poor , rich or middle , are there by choice. We have no problem with the consumers of sleaze, our problem begins with the victims. Bravo.
