“GOD SAVE US from the likes of Mr. Lewis,” says Mr Shepherd. (Daily Nation, Tuesday, January 13, 2015, Page 10.)
LIKE BANKING, prostitution is one of the world’s oldest professions. The words used in the trade today date back to the 12th, 14th, 15th centuries and indeed to the 19th century; words such as strumpet, whore, harlot, hooker, tramp and prostitute.
But the profession is mentioned as far back as Genesis in the Good Book, Genesis 34:31 – over 4 000 years ago. There and in most versions of The Bible, the word harlot is used.
We see it also in Leviticus 19:29. “Do not prostitute thy daughter to cause her to be a whore, lest the land falls to whoredom, and the land becomes full of wickedness.” Oh, oh!
Deuteronomy tells us that a harlot shall not enter into the congregation, 23:18. In Luke 15:30, the older son accuses the younger one of “living with harlots”.
So the problem goes back to antiquity and mostly occurs with women selling sex for money or some consideration. This is nothing new in Barbados, and an effort to put structure to it should not be condemned out of hand.
After all, we have put structure to many other unsociable things.
For example, we say that we are a Christian society following the dictates of Jesus and Saint Paul, His main advocate. We have something called fornication (people in Barbados use another onomatopoeic word), yet our laws, the highest principles of our land, endorse communal living without marriage.
Persons to whom this is applicable partake of the Holy Supper weekly. So we pick and choose which promiscuous behaviour we give structure to and which one our gurus condemn.
While our earlier commentator has said that the practice of prostitution should not be exclusively recognised in Bush Hill, he may also be suggesting that we could follow what happens in most Latin American countries and Europe, where there are open establishments where prostitution takes place.
For example, go to Brazil and prostitution is offered right in your hotel room on the television.
At one time, say 70 years ago, Barbados was a stomping ground for American and English sailors who frequented the fleshpots that openly proliferated all along Nelson Street, Fairchild Street, Bay Street from the Swing Bridge up to the old hospital on both sides of the road; also on Suttle Street and its environs.
Women, mostly of the underprivileged class, glamorised prostitution. Today we have run most of the prostitutes underground except for a few places like Bush Hill and Nelson Street. In the cases of these places, we turn a blind eye.
However, police would be raiding them night and day if someone were to open an establishment on Roebuck Street or on 1st Avenue Belleville that was obviously a whorehouse, whether the harlots come from abroad or are local.
So prostitution is now driven underground. The present hard times, among other things, have swollen the ranks of practitioners in Barbados. Harlots are encouraged by the fact that because the practitioners act in relative anonymity, they lead an ostensibly decent life.
Should we or should we not give prostitution structure? Given that in the commentator’s opinion it is prevalent in Barbados, our Ministry of Finance could find it a lucrative target for taxation that surely is not collected from Bush Hill.
But Wild Coot, should we not be advised in Barbados by Leviticus?
We already know that we ignore Leviticus 20:13 and many other parts of Leviticus, but is the prevalence of prostitution the reason for the present nature of our barren land and for the paltry predicted economic growth?
If so, would it not be better to be rid of the prostitutes rather than to give them solace as you seem to be suggesting?
However, giving structure to prostitution may be as elusive a target as the Government’s self-imposed target of $65 million maximum for supplementaries.
Additionally, we have more pressing matters now with which to deal, such as structure for the Central Bank having over $600 million in red paper at low interest rates.
But you do not know why a person becomes a harlot? It could be greed or it could be need.
“Hey Wild Coot, soliciting is illegal in Barbados.”
“Yes, I know. So is buggery. Yet there is much agitation.”
