Prostitution in Sikaman (Final Part)

Behind any successful prostitu­tion venture is a pimp. A pimp is the official public relations officer of a prostitute. He manages the prostitute, supplies clients, organises the trade to maximise profits from which he earns an in­come. Occasion- ally, he demands a sexual treat and he is not de­nied. That is his bush allowance.

Prostitutes hire pimps because the trade is a precarious one. You have men who want hot sex on credit basis. They complete the act, get satisfied, and pretend they have no cash on them, so payment be deferred.

But sex as a commodity cannot be compared with a ball of kenkey which can be credited on a car­ry-forward basis. So the prostitute informs her pimp to make the customer pay or face an Osama Bin Laden revolutionary action. The pimp, there- fore, has a dual role, one of which is that he is a debt collector.

The collection of debt from a client can sometimes require ma­cho, so the typical pimp is hard-shelled akupa who may not be too intelligent, but has muscle. He can deliver a punch and cause internal bleeding.

So he tells the defaulting client to pay up or save his shoes and shirt and collect them back if he comes to settle. No court case!

Sometimes, the customer can­not accept the terms which in­clude walking home barefoot and half-naked, so he must fight his way out, in the process he can lose an ear, his front teeth and end up in the home with a swollen nose. It’s all part of life.

In Sikaman, most prostitutes do without pimps. They consider pimps as parasites who batten on the income they derive from strenuous work. Fact is that some clients are not normal in terms of the size of their equipment. They can cause collateral damage to the reproductive organs of the human female.

Prostitutes who do without pimps are experts in street-fighting be­cause they face problems when it comes to handling cheating clients. A client requires three rounds and it is granted. Later he says he can only pay for one. Wallahi!

The typical street prostitute develops long finger-nail, in case it comes to teaching a client where power lies. She can scratch your face red and fix a finger-nail into your eye. When you get home, you’re likely to tell your wife that you’ve got Yes, Apollo in one eye!

Servicing a client can take differ­ent forms depending on the type of prostitute and caliber of the client. Some do not like fore-play. It wastes time and is bad for busi­ness. So they get you on and order start work. They have subtle ways out of making you climax quickly. You settle your fee and make way for someone else. No messing up. No messing up. No extra time. Cli­ents who delay in reaching orgasm are advised in their own interest to “come quickly” or get thrown off.

Clients who want romance pay more. Those who wear condoms pay relatively less than those who want to go ‘raw.’ It all depends on choice. There are some who are prepared to risk AIDS to get sexu­ally satisfied. And they’d tell you, “All die be die.”

The trade in sexual acrobatics and gymnastics is having its toll on Sikaman prostitutes. Prostitutes are getting skin cancer because they use dangerous chemicals agents to bleach the skin. Others get syphilis, gonorrhea and herpes simplex.

By far, the most devastating im­pact on the flesh trade is the Hu­man Immuno-Deficiency Virus (HIV) which causes AIDS. Go to Korle Bu and you’ll find them there. Some have had a stint in La Cote d’Ivo­ire and come back to Ghana to do some part time distribution of the virus.

Prostitution in Sikaman is be­coming a death trade because it is an enterprise that flourishes underground. If it can be legalised and brought to the surface where prostitutes can be educated on the health implications of their trade, it would do the country a lot of good.

This is being done in Namibia where 23 per cent of adults are HIV infected. They are about to get prostitution legalised to help combat the AIDS menace.

Prostitution is an evil trade. But anyone can imagine what will happen if there were no prosti­tutes. Rapists would abound and the incidence of sexual attacks and defilement will sky-rocket. Many men who would otherwise have been raping women are making do with prostitutes.

I guess to legalise prostitution would raise problems bordering in the moral psyche of the nation. But its practical significance can also not be discounted.

This article was first published on Saturday, February 10, 2001