Shifting
A change is gonna come. Actually, it already is. The house of ill repute down the street changed names. Instead of a flashy sign in red and black feature images of sultry females dancing around a stripper's pole there's only words. A generic type touristy name along with the legend "Bar and Cabinas" in black and white. Hiding in plain site since everyone here knows what the high walled compound really holds.
Three months ago they built a two story building right behind the bar, rather fancy with white stucco and another pool, and I wondered what was going on. Who would want to be sandwiched in between a whorehouse and an oil change place even if the house was beautiful and huge. I guess they've hit on a new way to make money, either with the girlfriend all night experience, or by making the guys too drunk to walk spend the night.
Gonna make it awkward for me now. Instead of giving out the directions to my house for the many Tico repait guys and construction workers by saying "Turn at the whorehouse sign. Turn right at the second whorehouse sign. Go past the whorehouse and hang a left and we're the sixth house on the left" I'll have to come up with real directions.
Last year a guy I met at the furniture store asked me where I lived. After a few minutes trying to explain the twists, turns, unnamed streets and triangular road formations I resorted to the old "Take a right at the whorehouse sign" The man huffily replied that was information his wife would not what him to have! I shrugged and said "Still best way to give directions"
I don't get him being offended. I didn't say the word "Whorehouse" and I called it by it's proper name. I didn't tell him to partake. I wasn't giving a recommendation. Sex workers are a reality here. It's perfectly legal and regulated by the government. Even if I like it or not these places seem to fill a need. And let's not kid ourselves, ladies of the night exist everywhere, even small towns in Virginia. I knew in my years living in the Piedmont where the sex workers hung out.
Maybe I just need to come up with a better name for it, like "Gratification House" or "Tension Relief Workers"?
Only way to get directions to the house to pop up on AirBNB and Google Maps. They don't acknowledge our road, or the finca name, or anything else about including the 7th Day Adventist temple, the veterinarian, or the hairdressers, but they have that place listed to navigate by. How am I going to navigate now?
I've always had mixed feelings about living near it. On one hand if someone really wants to work as a prostitute who am I to say that they cannot? I'd rather see them unionized, tested for STDs and other ailments and under some sort of government protection than out there with a pimp extorting their earnings.
But I worry that the girls in there are not there by choice. That they are sex trafficked, and there are ladies there against their will. The word is that most of the prostitutes in this country are from desperately poor circumstances in places like Nicaragua and El Salvador. This is how they support their families. How much consent is involved I have no way of knowing.
This place always makes me avidly curious. We've only seen the girls a handful of times, and the gate is usually closed and locked until well after we're in the house for the night.
I know one thing, after a shaky couple of years trying to figure out how to navigate in a strange place I'm going to have to do some serious recalculating. Navigate differently. In all aspects of my life. The changes at the house around the corner could be representative of so many things happening in my life right now.
Three months ago they built a two story building right behind the bar, rather fancy with white stucco and another pool, and I wondered what was going on. Who would want to be sandwiched in between a whorehouse and an oil change place even if the house was beautiful and huge. I guess they've hit on a new way to make money, either with the girlfriend all night experience, or by making the guys too drunk to walk spend the night.
Gonna make it awkward for me now. Instead of giving out the directions to my house for the many Tico repait guys and construction workers by saying "Turn at the whorehouse sign. Turn right at the second whorehouse sign. Go past the whorehouse and hang a left and we're the sixth house on the left" I'll have to come up with real directions.
Last year a guy I met at the furniture store asked me where I lived. After a few minutes trying to explain the twists, turns, unnamed streets and triangular road formations I resorted to the old "Take a right at the whorehouse sign" The man huffily replied that was information his wife would not what him to have! I shrugged and said "Still best way to give directions"
I don't get him being offended. I didn't say the word "Whorehouse" and I called it by it's proper name. I didn't tell him to partake. I wasn't giving a recommendation. Sex workers are a reality here. It's perfectly legal and regulated by the government. Even if I like it or not these places seem to fill a need. And let's not kid ourselves, ladies of the night exist everywhere, even small towns in Virginia. I knew in my years living in the Piedmont where the sex workers hung out.
Maybe I just need to come up with a better name for it, like "Gratification House" or "Tension Relief Workers"?
Only way to get directions to the house to pop up on AirBNB and Google Maps. They don't acknowledge our road, or the finca name, or anything else about including the 7th Day Adventist temple, the veterinarian, or the hairdressers, but they have that place listed to navigate by. How am I going to navigate now?
I've always had mixed feelings about living near it. On one hand if someone really wants to work as a prostitute who am I to say that they cannot? I'd rather see them unionized, tested for STDs and other ailments and under some sort of government protection than out there with a pimp extorting their earnings.
But I worry that the girls in there are not there by choice. That they are sex trafficked, and there are ladies there against their will. The word is that most of the prostitutes in this country are from desperately poor circumstances in places like Nicaragua and El Salvador. This is how they support their families. How much consent is involved I have no way of knowing.
This place always makes me avidly curious. We've only seen the girls a handful of times, and the gate is usually closed and locked until well after we're in the house for the night.
I know one thing, after a shaky couple of years trying to figure out how to navigate in a strange place I'm going to have to do some serious recalculating. Navigate differently. In all aspects of my life. The changes at the house around the corner could be representative of so many things happening in my life right now.
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