by: Hayeon Lee
The names in this article have been changed to protect the identities of the women interviewed
“I’m happy. Why not? I’m not going to be doing this forever,” says Sonya, who works at Rock Inn, a 50-year-old bar in Hamra, Beirut. Rock Inn is famous for its hostesses and prostitutes, and with its unique entrance and d’cor, the bar gives customers the illusion of entering a hidden stone dungeon. An elegant woman in spite of her short, slit skirt and black fishnets, Sonya says she is 25 years old and studied Civil Engineering in her native Moldova. Unsatisfied with her low salary back home, she first came to Lebanon for a six-month stint more than a year ago. She returned a few months ago, she says, because of ‘Papi’, the Russian word for ‘Dad’, referring to her employer and the owner of the bar, who she says is ‘nice.’ Still, she asserts, “Hopefully, I won’t have to come back for a third time.”
The well-known Lebanese night scene would not be complete without its fair-skinned foreign women, who dance and tend to the sexual needs of male clients. Dubbed ‘Lebanon’s worst kept secret,’ these women usually enter the country with “artist visas.” Their passports are taken away by General Security at the airport as soon as they land and then given to a sponsor, as is the case with housemaids.
According to an official at General Security who wished to remain anonymous, each super night club hires anywhere between 10 and 40 female workers, and there are around 60 to 70 super night clubs in the country, which comes to about 1,600 ‘artists,’ not counting all the illegal establishments and freelance sex workers. The women usually work every night from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. as exotic ‘dancers,’ and occasionally during the day as escorts.
Maameltein, a neighborhood in Jounieh, a couple of kilometers north of Beirut, is the oldest and most famous red light district in Lebanon. Its super night clubs – the word ‘super’ presumably meaning one can buy sex – of all shapes and sizes lure male tourists and residents alike. As a woman, it was difficult to gain entry at first. Classico rejected me because “the Lebanese do not like it when women come inside the clubs,” according to the parking lot valet. However, Excalibur, the biggest and most visible super night club in the area, was more accommodating. As I quickly passed the valet, he caught my male Lebanese friend, who had come with me, and asked him, “Who is she and is she Lebanese?” My friend answered that I am Korean and a reporter. The valet, still confused, talked to his counterpart at the cabaret entrance downstairs on his walkie-talkie, saying “Ah, ah. A Lebanese guy and a Korean girl are going downstairs, but she does not work in night clubs.”
The interior seemed straight out of a movie, with a huge stage and two poles, a sparkling sign that read Excalibur, and women of Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Uzbekistani, and Dominican origin just to name a few – strutting about, dancing on stage and eying their potential patrons in the audience. There is a show every night at 12 a.m., and in spite of the lack of customers even at 2 a.m. on a Friday night – probably due to the global financial crisis, since the clientele is for a large part foreign tourists – the atmosphere was exotic and dizzying. Most of the women were wearing tight clothing and were in their late teens or early 20s at least of the seven I was able to speak with.
Tanya, a Ukrainian woman who says she is 20, came here two months ago when someone approached her with a job offer to become a dancer in Lebanon. She studied oriental dancing and was without work, and after doing her own research on Lebanon, she decided to take the offer. “I saw that Lebanon was a beautiful country, with Harissa and Jeita Grotto. I wanted to see these places,” she says with some irony. She says she had no idea she would work at a cabaret at night and escort strange men during the day. In addition, her salary is meager compared to the amount of time she works: She makes $900 per month, but this must also pay for a mandatory blood test every 3 months – about $300 according to Tanya – as well as her round-trip plane ticket, which costs about $400, and she must also pay for her cafeteria fees. She said she can only stay three months at a time.
While all but one woman at Excalibur denied that they ever go out the next day to have sex with men, the bartender hinted that if we buy a bottle of champagne for $77 as cover charge, we could take one of the women out the following day, once we had negotiated a price with her. So when a bottle pops loudly in the backdrop of the muted lighting for everyone in the club to hear, the workers and clients all know what it means. In this country, it is a well-known fact that clients cannot buy sex in licensed institutions on the same night because prostitution is ostensibly ‘illegal.’ There are undercover patrols from immigration or the police once or twice a week, the women said. Often these patrols allow themselves to be bribed by cabaret owners with money or sex, according to the anonymous General Security official. For this reason, the women are only sent out during the day.
The General Security official, in no vague terms, confirmed the common practice of accepting sex in exchange for silence. “Maybe it’s common. Maybe it’s happening a lot. If you want something, you’ll ask, and you can get what you want, right?” As a way of excuse, he added, “It happens in all countries. It’s not only here. Maybe here, it’s overdone,” pointing to the weak government and consequent lawlessness in Lebanon.
Even if the client decides not to pop a bottle of champagne, he can be in the company of a woman of his choosing at a rate of $33 for half an hour or $77 for an hour and a half, kissing and touching included. Touching during a lap-dance might have been banned in the Sin City of the US, Las Vegas, but there are no regulations or rules regarding the physical integrity of these foreign ‘artists’ here in Lebanon; one can touch, caress, fondle and kiss as much as one wishes, so long as the bartender gets paid.
In contrast, the Hamra scene appeared much more watered down. According to a bar owner, whose establishment has been in business for 50 years in the neighborhood, many women deemed ‘expired’ come to work in the Hamra clubs, where men can pay 50,000 LL to 55,000 LL ($33 to $37) for sex with older women. For sex with younger, more attractive women, freelance pimps whisper tips into the ears of rich-looking foreigners as to where they can be found. The bartender said that while in the 80s and 90s, East Europeans used to predominate, in recent years the trend has been toward Moroccan women. Super night clubs like Valentina, Teachers or Rock Inn, have young women in their 20s, and buying champagne has the same significance as in Maameltein.
In Rock Inn there was a cozy, almost Christmas-like atmosphere, with a small bar and sofas in the inner part of the cabaret surrounding a single pole. There was the usual dim but colorful lighting, but with less of the glamorous, extravagant air of Excalibur. The bar owner was an overly friendly man with a sleazy smile, who leaned too close when speaking.
One thing that was immediately clear was that a woman’s ability to converse and understand her male customers was as important, if not more, than her appearance and availability. Like the women at Excalibur, those at Rock Inn had soft way about them and were clearly good listeners.
In any case, the old men at Rock Inn were touching the women they sat with, but also engaged deeply in what appeared to be emotional conversation with the women they paid for.
Sonya, the 25-year-old former civil engineer-turned hostess, confirmed that men always want to ‘talk, talk, talk,’ and complain about their problems. With only their old age and dollars to spare, men come to these establishments for sexual and emotional services.
Nonetheless, as Sonya puts it, “men think in one way only.” This was confirmed at one of the bars, while talking to an old man who said he owned a supermarket in Hamra. The man said he was a regular, and came to the bar in order to relax and see beautiful young women after a tiresome day of work. He said he buys champagne from time to time in order to take a girl out the next day. When asked who his favorite girl in the bar was, he looked this reporter in the eye and said, “You are.” And with that, it was time to leave.
Trafficking of sex workers under the guise of a legal ‘artist visa,’ aided by the corruption of government officials, remains a serious problem. However, it was impossible to see all of them as victims. Sonya’s assertion that “You know you are beautiful, because you know yourself. You know your inside. That’s what makes you beautiful,” or the irritated reply of the women at Valentina – “We’re here to work! Not to be happy!” – gave counter examples of the demoralized, passive and victimized prostitute. As Sharifa, a high-priced prostitute in Nawal El Saadawi’s novel, Woman at Point Zero, puts it, “A man does not know a woman’s value. She is the one who determines her value.”
