Sir Winston Churchill once asked a “socialite” if she would sleep with him for £5 million. She agreed she would. He then asked her if she would sleep with him for £5. Her exasperated reply was: “Mr Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?” Churchill responded: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are merely haggling about the price.”
This came back to mind as I read a piece in the Saturday Sun of January 3, 2015 headlined: Body To Work For Sex Industry in which a Mr Charles Lewis explained his vision to bring “structure” to this lucrative business.
Barbadians were burying their heads in the sand thinking that the sex industry did not exist. Mr Lewis is reported to have said, “The sex industry has evolved from . . . Bush Hill and Nelson Street.”
It is a very sophisticated industry now worth $50 million annually” run by “educated people” who can provide women “from the white and Asian communities” for willing, and presumably, high-paying customers.
Mr Lewis is making at least two errors. While the average unsophisticated Barbadian may not know the lurid details, various items in newspapers past have already alerted us to secretive and seedy goings-on at a number of fabulous private locations on the island.
We know the “industry” exists. Our heads are not in the sand.
The other error is more grave. It is the same kind of error that Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford made – the error of thinking that a label of sophistication changes the smell of rot. Stealing is stealing, whether it is a petty thief snatching a chain, or a “sophisticated” crook running a high-profile Ponzi scheme.
Prostitution is exactly that, whether it happens in Nelson Street or in a lavish mansion on the West Coast. People trafficking is a crime, whether it involves some unfortunate black woman from Haiti or an educated white woman with an English accent. And a pimp is a pimp is a pimp.
God save us from the likes of Mr Lewis.