The Good and The Bad; Models about Prostitution, October 20, 2010

By
Olga M. Lazin "book lover" (UCLA, Los Angeles, CA United States)

Book Review: Lydia's Open Door: Inside Mexico's

Most Modern Brothel (hardcopy)

The Good First:

There are eight chapters, an Introduction, and the Epilogue.

Prof. Patty Kelly lived closely and spent a lot of time with the sex workers,

and listened to the complaints of the prostitutes. She was advised by the

administration and protected by wearing a “white” doctor’s coat which led

her to be accepted as part of the administrative staff at the Galáctica, so

she would not be mistaken for a prostitute.

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The first chapter talks about the organization of the town.

“Modern Sex in a Modern City” deals with the commodification of

domestic service, of sex “ under advanced capitalism.” The author

highlights the stigmatization of workers that is spiritually damaging, “and

makes the work more difficult to bear.” This is what she is mostly worried

about and the “feminization of wage labor related to the “boom in low-

wage service-sector jobs”. Shantytowns, decreased state interest in social

welfare, exclusionary politics are all traits of how neoliberalism impacted

Tuxtla and Zona Galáctica. I think using the term ‘neoliberalism’ in this

context is faddish and ‘forced’, especially when Prof. Patty Kelly affirms

that “free trade and free trade markets do not make free people” (p.4).

There is no such thing as free trade, there is managed trade, just like

there is “managed”, or ‘transparent’ prostitution in Galáctica.

As a social scientist, the author, trying to put her arguments into a

context or theory, her otherwise excellent fieldwork get muddled into

ideology of free trade and neoliberalism which is irrelevant here. Trying to

blames the world’s oldest profession on free trade and ideology.

Interviewed women are complaining about the Central American

migrant-women who are coming in from the outside and compete

unfairly.

The second chapter highlights the wage gap, how Galáctica is just the

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low-wage industrial district of the poorest city in the state of Chiapas

(during the period of 2003 to 2008).

Prof. Patty Kelly excels in painting a realistic portrait of gender, sexuality

and sex work in modern Mexico.

The clarity of her perspective provides much needed political analysis of

the land dispute between the ejidatarios, and the new PAN-ista governor

of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, and the impact of this struggle upon sex

workers whom she befriended during her research and teaching. All the

complexities of Mexican politics are live and well in Zona Galáctica. The

ultra-conservative PAN and the Corrupt PRI are looked into very

masterfully. The portrait highlights the urban space of Tuxtla Gutierrez,

the capital of the state of Chiapas, where the only state-regulated brothel

flourishes in a very specific space and historicity. Here Kelly ‘s fieldwork

reveals women, and men’s sexual labor, and informs a discussion of the

cultural heightened consumerism in Zona Galáctica.

State surveillance of this well-defined and contained space actually

maintains the cultural stigma against prostitution, in Kelly’s opinion.

Tuxtla’s elites claim to having “modernized” the capital, is actually (The

Secrets We Keep, Ch. 7), a false presumption, as sex workers are actually

earning very little, “on a good day, up to ten times the minimum wage

(which is twenty-seven pesos, OR US$3.15)” and only have some freedom

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of expression in dressing as they wish (such as cross-dressing). However

neoliberalism will never fit prostitution. If Prof. Patty Kelly wants proof,

she could go to Cuba.

As per the neoliberal model that the author proclaims as the economic

engine that ‘runs’ the brothel, it just doesn't fit. If the authorities round

up the sex workers, and check prostitutes for HIV in this “space apart”,

this does not necessarily constitute a neoliberal trait. Urban elites

confining themselves to 'fortified enclaves' in Mexico City is definitely a

sign of globalization, Patty remarks, but not neoliberalism.

Amsterdam started regulating open prostitution checking since

1413. Typical is the following decree from the city of Amsterdam in 1413:

"Because whores are necessary in big cities and especially in cities of

commerce such as ours - indeed it is far better to have these women than

not to have them - and also because the holy church tolerates whores on

good grounds, for these reasons the court and sheriff of Amsterdam shall

not entirely forbid the keeping of brothels."

She seems to be befuddled by the neoliberal regulations, but she favors

government testing prostitutes for STD. She thinks this over regulations

evolve toward regimentation and consumerism.

As Patty remarks, I agree with the need of sex workers to be better

organized in unions, and human rights of all type of workers should be

protected.

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 In spite of this claim that the neoliberal quagmire brought about

regulated prostitution in Galactica, Chiapas, the book is an elaborate

ethnography, with a vivid description of the characters, the political and

economic analysis.

Cuba has long grappled with regulating prostitution. So does

Hollywood nowadays, and criminalized it nowadays.

The only objection that I have is that Patty did not put the "Galactica

phenomenon" into historical context. Or international context for that

matter. It reads more like a novel, than scholarly work. In spite of these,

Patty's contribution to the history of prostitution in Mexico is a great

humanitarian effort, and highly masterful one.

With all the ironies and regrets, the author remarks, that women

have to be protected medically from disease, and on the other side from

oppression from pimps.

The title was misleading to me at first, as I was looking for Lydia

Cacho’s book on child prostitution: I thought it was about Lydia Cacho’s

efforts to open doors for battered Mexican Women. It turned out to be an

impressive work.

Nevertheless, Prof. Patty Kelly’s book is a great and totally rewarding.