Shrugging off resentment from local prostitutes, Zimbabwean commercial sex workers continue to offer a release for hot-blooded men in Botswana looking for quick action for pay. But what makes men pay for commercial sex? -ÔÇô Writes KALI MULUZI
‘Wives during the day, prostitutes at night’. This one-liner is a subject of much mirth among hot-blooded males in Gaborone who habitually pay for sex. Along with the ‘maids by day, hookers by night’ joke, it is a form of idle amusement, of acceptance even that the Zimbabwean-prostitutes factor simply will not go away.
Whether you happen to be in Francistown, Palapye, Selibe Phikwe or Gaborone, the bevy of women who bare their flesh in the hours after twilight has become an accepted fixture of Botswana’s night life. In the capital, the Zimbabwean prostitutes conduct their business 24 hours a day from rented houses which they have turned into brothels.
To flesh out this story, this writer, after much inquiry, located one such brothel in Gaborone West Phase 1. The trouble with a daylight visit to a brothel is that unless you are there as a client, the prostitutes will consider you a sheer waste of their time. So to get them talking, you pay the going rate for a short time or proverbial ‘quickie’. In this case it’s P50, and the interview unfolds.
The tall, middle-aged woman, likely in her early 40s, is standing in front of the derelict house which does duty as a brothel for her and a clutch of fellow Zimbabwean sex workers. She says her name is Precious, but flatly refuses to divulge her age. Her mates eye me speculatively.
“How old I am doesn’t matter,” she spits out. “If a man is interested, he simply pays, no strings attached; after all, he is not going to marry me.”
Precious is already married woman, I learn. She says the situation back home forced her down this route. Leaving behind a husband who works as a clerk in the government and four children, she has crossed the border to sell sex for cash. Hers is a familiar story ÔÇô her husband and children have no clue what her sojourns across the border really are about.
“My husband and children think I am here to sell goods like crafts and clothes which I order in Zimbabwe but in small quantities just to mislead them and I bring money home to supplement my husband’s salary,” she recounts without remorse. “At times, I tell them that I am coming to collect debts from people who owe me money here in Botswana.”
Precious’ story is one that is often told. She comes to Botswana as a visitor, returning to Zimbabwe when her visiting days are spent. “Month ends are best for coming here,” she says. “That’s when one can make a killing ÔÇô anything from P200 to P600 on a busy night.”
A ‘quickie’, Precious reveals, will cost her clients P50, the rate multiplying many- fold for the whole night. “When I’m out there, the client has to pay me the money before we go because I don’t want to do the job for nothing,” she says.
Typical of the women in her trade, she does not care who she sleeps with as long as they pay up.
Her clients range from businessmen on trips, truck drivers and most of the men leaving bars after a drink. Her regular haunts are the bars at the G/West mall nearby, or occasionally, Middle Star along Nyerere Drive.
I ask her about the famed turf wars that occur with Batswana prostitutes, who regularly complain that the Zimbabwean women undercharge for their services. “They don’t resent us because we undercharge ÔÇô we don’t,” she says. “The local women hate us because we make more money than they do. All they do is get beer from men and then they are happy.”
But doesn’t she hold any moral scruples about selling her body for money? To her mind, she is no different from any other woman; therefore morality be damned. “What I am doing is what every woman is doing, if you have your wife or girlfriend and you provide for her, you are indirectly paying for sex,” she intones matter-of-factly.
What about the danger of HIV/AIDS? Precious admits that she is fully alive to the risk, but her husband and children need the money back home, even if they are unaware of how she actually makes her money while she’s here. “But I would never do it without a condom, no matter how much money you offer me,” she says. “I’m more useful to my family alive.”
A man walks up to the small house-cum-brothel. Signalling that the interview is effectively over, Precious accosts him and after some hushed exchange, they disappear into one of the rooms in the house. Apparently, this is a regular client. As I wait for Precious to re-emerge, I try chit chatting with two of her mates, but meet a studied, stony silence. It is clear that unless I part with another P50, the silent treatment will continue.
Shortly, Precious and her client re-emerge from the tryst. The man goes off, leaving me wondering about the subject of why men pay for sex in the first place.
A few years ago, the British Guardian newspaper interviewed 700 men for a major international research project seeking to uncover the reality about men who buy sex. The project spanned six countries, with most of those interviewed surprisingly keen to discuss their experiences. The men didn’t fall into obvious stereotypes. They were aged between 18 and 70 years old; they were white, black, Asian, eastern European; most were employed and many were educated beyond school level. In the main they were presentable, polite, with average-to-good social skills. Many were husbands and boyfriends; just over half were either married or in a relationship with a woman.
“I don’t get anything out of sex with prostitutes except for a bad feeling,” revealed one man, an apparently average, thirty-something, middle-class man. “I am hoping that talking about it might help me work out why I do it.”
According to the research, the numbers of men who pay for sex had doubled in a decade, the rise being attributed to “a greater acceptability of commercial sexual contact” yet many interviewees revealed their intense guilt and shame about paying for sex. “I’m not satisfied in my mind” was how one described his feelings after paying for sex. Another told of how he felt “disappointed ÔÇô what a waste of money”, “lonely still” and “guilty about my relationship with my wife”. In fact, many of the men were a mass of contradictions. Despite finding their experiences “unfulfilling, empty, terrible”, they continued to visit prostitutes.
One of the interviewees left the researchers concerned. Good looking and bright, he was asked how often he thought the women he paid enjoyed the sex. “I don’t want them to get any pleasure,” he said. “I pay for it and it is her job to give me pleasure. If she enjoys it I would feel cheated.”
He was asked if he felt prostitutes were different to other women. “The fact that they’re prepared to do that job where others won’t means┬áthere’s some capability inside them that permits them to do it and not be disgusted,” he said. He seemed full of a festering, potentially explosive┬ámisogyny.
One of the most interesting findings was that many believed men would “need” to rape if they could not pay for sex on demand. One man told the researchers, “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead.” Another put it like this: “A desperate man who wants sex so bad, he needs sex to be relieved. He might rape.”
Many men seemed to want a real relationship with a woman and were disappointed when this didn’t develop: “It’s just a sex act, no emotion. Be prepared to accept this or don’t go at all. It’s not a wife or girlfriend.” Others were clear that they paid for sex in order to be able to totally control the encounter, including one, who said, “Look, men pay for women because he can have whatever and whoever he wants. Lots of men go to prostitutes so they can do things to them that real women would not put up with.”
