Moon Shadows

A few nights ago when I arrived home from yoga and dinner, I stood in the moonlight. I was reminded of the many nights I have spent beneath the stars. I admired the beauty of the sky, the stars, the stillness.  I contemplated pulling the mat out of my room to set up a bed outside. The sky was clear and I would have loved nothing more than to spend the night under the stars.

Earlier that day, I was introduced to some women (girls) who are involved in sex work. I spoke to them about their life histories, as well as their day-to-day activities. The first group I spoke to was very reserved, and we spoke mostly about their relationships with boyfriends and with their families. The second group however, shared when and why they started prostitution, and also discussed what a typical night on the job is like.

Under the sky, I was reminded of the negligible importance of my life, my smallness, compared to the rest of those on the earth. While I stood in the moonlight, amazed by the beauty of nature, these girls lived their lives in the shadows, their faces hidden in crowded pubs

After meeting the first group, I felt as if the girls saw me merely as an exploitative researcher – asking questions and wanting to know about particular parts of their lives. I figured it would be best to join them for a night on the town at one of their usual hangouts. When I met two of the women at the Buganda Pub, I was greeted with hugs and kisses. They quickly ushered me into the pub, paid my entrance fee, and introduced me to their friends and boyfriends.

Wednesday nights at the pub feature a show that is part comedy and part lip sync. Two MCs direct the show, filling the time in between performances with crude humor, most of which I could not understand as it was in Luo. Outwardly, the humor seemed to be full of jokes encouraging heavy drinking and sexually objectifying women. The two MCs regularly took shots, and encouraged others to do the same.

During the show, I sat with the women, sharing short conversations, and many laughs about the various performers. About halfway through the show, a blind woman appeared on stage. During the first song she sang, I was almost in tears, as countless members of the crowd came to the stage to give her money. However, during the second song, a drunken man went on stage and forced her to dance with him. Once he was removed from stage the MCs began sexually harassing her, groping her, and even dry humping her. The crowd roared with laughter, even though this woman was obviously uncomfortable. This continued throughout the song, and I was so disturbed I nearly left.

The following evening I decided to meet up with the second group at one of the bars in their neighborhood. The bar was the definition of a dive bar—surrounded by huts, fortified with sheets of metal and dried bamboo poles, and lined with rows and rows of inebriated men. Shortly after I arrived, the owner approached me and told me I was the first mzungu to ever step foot in the establishment.

As we entered, men started grabbing and pulling me in various directions. Immediately, my fear senses heightened, and I felt extremely unsafe. Once the girls and I found a place to sit, we settled in and I was able to let my guard down. A TV/DVD/speaker station was set up towards the front of the shack, blasting local music and repeating the same offensive videos. The music was too loud to carry on a conversation, so most of the night was spent observing—the men, the girls, and the sexually explicit videos.

Over the course of the two nights, I made many observations regarding the pub/prostitution culture. Having worked behind the bar before, sadly I am used to seeing the excessive drinking, rampant sexual harassment, and competing (and sometimes violent) masculinities. Here however, I was also struck by the male:female ratio—mostly men and the few women present were prostitutes. Basically, women were not at the bar for socializing and leisure, they were there to work, to be objectified, to be used.

I should mention this does not apply to all of the women. Two of the women I spoke to mentioned that they enjoy their jobs; yet, the same two women also expressed that they did not feel safe at work. Charity (my housemate) encouraged me to continue to think about the possibility that prostitution in Gulu may be empowering for these women. With what limited options these women have, sex work may be the lifestyle that allows them the most agency.

While we were at the pub, there were many times I caught myself looking over at these women, thinking about their options versus the options that my family, education, socio-economic status, and general upbringing has afforded me. What really separates me from these women, aside from happenstance? If these women had different options, would they still choose prostitution? Would they choose an unsafe work environment where they cannot negotiate the terms of their contract? Would they choose to take a night off of work knowing they would not eat the next day? Would they choose to get tested even if they can’t afford the treatment?

How do we reconcile a prostitute’s feeling of empowerment with the client’s perception that the prostitute is an objectified and sexualized body? Which identity is more imperative: the self-identification, how the client identifies the prostitute, or both? Or is it the transaction itself: how consent is or isn’t given and able to be withdrawn, how the contract is negotiated, or how the prostitute and client evaluate, process, and internalize being part of the act itself? Being someone who personally cannot separate sex from self and is unable to view sex as a commodity, this is not the first (nor last) time questions regarding sexual transactions have troubled me. I have similar reactions to violence as a form of intimacy. When is sex exploitative and when is it not?

Aside from all the questions in my own head, the women had several questions for me. Mainly, why do I want to know about their lives, why do I want to get to know them, why do I care? Before I leave, hopefully we will be able to meet together again. I would really love to talk to them about positive memories, about hopes and dreams, and hear about what they want their lives to be like. I want to tell them I appreciate them taking time to share their lives with me, let them know how beautiful I think they are, and tell them I look forward to seeing them when I return.

In the meantime … plenty food for thought.