'Hooker's Ball'
Mom – and anybody who shares Mom's delicate sensibilities (I'm thinking of you here, Carol) – please skip this post. Ditto for any of my younger cousins who might be surfing.
The bar at the York International Hotel in Dubai seems like any old-fashioned American bar. Boxing on TV. Heineken on tap. Terrible cover band.
Men and women mill about. You talk to your friends, sip your beer. You nod your head to the music. An arm snakes around your waist. Someone's leaning against your hip. A hand falls on your shoulder and tugs you around. What the hell is going on here? You're a white man at Dubai's skankiest meat market, and you've just been accosted by a prostitute.
This greasy little place happens to be the Mecca of Dubai prostitution. (This is an analogy I don't recommend using publicly here in this part of the world.) Quite literally, every woman in the place is a prostitute. The moment you step into the place, they swarm on you like sharks that smell blood in the water.
Like hungry sharks, they have no shame. No sense of decorum prevents them from running their fingers along your ear before you've so much as made eye contact. And those are the subtle ones – the aggressive ones simply clutch at you, clawlike. After a few of these wraiths had jumped at me from the shadows, I started reliving the mixed feelings of alarm and sympathy I used to feel when the chainsaw man and the hockey mask guy would jump out and shout 'boo' at Kansas City's silly little Halloween haunted houses every October when I was a kid.
The prostitutes at the York work in pairs. They cruise the floor holding hands and double-teaming their marks. These women are from all over the world – China, Africa, Russia – but they've absorbed the business savvy of the Middle East: two women can charge a guy more, or they can convince him to bring a friend (and his money) into the deal for a foursome. Only if these deals fall through will the women turn on their partners and make separate plays.
Believe me, I didn't know any of this shit before I came to the York. I was just following my friends, who brought me there thinking it would be funny to watch my unvarnished reaction to the shark attack. I just thought we were going for a beer. All this knowledge of the Dubai prostitute biz comes by way of a guy I met at the bar. He's been in Dubai for two years and once had a roommate who was obsessed with prostitutes and their world. He himself has happily dipped his toe in these waters, he told me – "to see what it would be like to be in control." He came away satisfied, feeling his money was well spent. I find that thought revolting.
The other amazing thing about the York is the degree to which racism is entrenched. White guys are shark food, literally forced to swat women away in droves. Indian guys are ignored. An Indian friend of mine was basically snubbed, though he's plenty good-looking, if I may say so. White guys get in free. Indian guys pay at the door. Can you imagine the uproar in America if only one race was charged a cover? At any place, let alone at what is essentially a whorehouse? Here, people don't even blink about such things.
Even the waitresses here start pinching you when they want your attention. It was a hellish place, though kind of fascinating in its own way. My friend Brian called it "the most dispiriting place in the world." That was the same night he got deported from the UAE, though that's a story for another time.
The bar at the York International Hotel in Dubai seems like any old-fashioned American bar. Boxing on TV. Heineken on tap. Terrible cover band.
Men and women mill about. You talk to your friends, sip your beer. You nod your head to the music. An arm snakes around your waist. Someone's leaning against your hip. A hand falls on your shoulder and tugs you around. What the hell is going on here? You're a white man at Dubai's skankiest meat market, and you've just been accosted by a prostitute.
This greasy little place happens to be the Mecca of Dubai prostitution. (This is an analogy I don't recommend using publicly here in this part of the world.) Quite literally, every woman in the place is a prostitute. The moment you step into the place, they swarm on you like sharks that smell blood in the water.
Like hungry sharks, they have no shame. No sense of decorum prevents them from running their fingers along your ear before you've so much as made eye contact. And those are the subtle ones – the aggressive ones simply clutch at you, clawlike. After a few of these wraiths had jumped at me from the shadows, I started reliving the mixed feelings of alarm and sympathy I used to feel when the chainsaw man and the hockey mask guy would jump out and shout 'boo' at Kansas City's silly little Halloween haunted houses every October when I was a kid.
The prostitutes at the York work in pairs. They cruise the floor holding hands and double-teaming their marks. These women are from all over the world – China, Africa, Russia – but they've absorbed the business savvy of the Middle East: two women can charge a guy more, or they can convince him to bring a friend (and his money) into the deal for a foursome. Only if these deals fall through will the women turn on their partners and make separate plays.
Believe me, I didn't know any of this shit before I came to the York. I was just following my friends, who brought me there thinking it would be funny to watch my unvarnished reaction to the shark attack. I just thought we were going for a beer. All this knowledge of the Dubai prostitute biz comes by way of a guy I met at the bar. He's been in Dubai for two years and once had a roommate who was obsessed with prostitutes and their world. He himself has happily dipped his toe in these waters, he told me – "to see what it would be like to be in control." He came away satisfied, feeling his money was well spent. I find that thought revolting.
The other amazing thing about the York is the degree to which racism is entrenched. White guys are shark food, literally forced to swat women away in droves. Indian guys are ignored. An Indian friend of mine was basically snubbed, though he's plenty good-looking, if I may say so. White guys get in free. Indian guys pay at the door. Can you imagine the uproar in America if only one race was charged a cover? At any place, let alone at what is essentially a whorehouse? Here, people don't even blink about such things.
Even the waitresses here start pinching you when they want your attention. It was a hellish place, though kind of fascinating in its own way. My friend Brian called it "the most dispiriting place in the world." That was the same night he got deported from the UAE, though that's a story for another time.
posted by Eric at 5:19 AM
2 Comments:
Eric,
Appalling but strangely fascinating. Wow. I find the barfly's idea that you're uniquely "in control" with a hooker particularly weird. You often hear feminists say that rape is more about power than it is about sex. Sounds like there is something to that, at least in this guy's case.
Kathleen
Yes, exactly.
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