Friday, July 11, 2008 Seares: ‘Carton girls’ By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
WHAT'S the difference between prostitutes who do it in a hotel or motel and those who copulate in a dark alley, using only cardboard to protect their back on bare ground?
The first doesn't shock us. It's done in the privacy of a locked room, away from prying eyes. The second is scandalous and primitive.
People don't see much in an unlighted public place. Still, they're stunned that the sex act is done there, just across the street from the famous CICC.
But think of sitios in barangays where there are no hotels or motels and what passes for a substitute is a banana grove or the bushes.
It's not just absence of facilities. It's mostly economics.
Those who patronize "carton girls," named after the carton cardboard they use as bed spread minus the bed, are people who can't afford a motel or hotel room or even a run-down shack.
Pimps who stumbled on the idea saw a market need in that city. After all, not only the affluent have raging hormones to tame, not all prostitutes command a high price, and not every horny male can afford the usual amenities.
Market niche
It's a market niche being filled. Police will try to stop it because it scandalizes the public. But prostitution has always managed to survive repression.
We're ambivalent. In one breath, we condemn prostitution. In another, we allow it. Police arrest prostitutes while the health department looks after them so that disease won't interrupt their work.
High-priced prostitutes are no different from "carton girls." They all violate the law and abandon self-respect.
On "carton girls," degradation is just more vivid and horrid.
