Author: Robert Joseph Stevenson

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13:

This case study explores the operation of a brothel community in Frontier City, Mexico during a period of economic prosperity (1969-1972). Participant observation provides a typology of the major forms of prostitution practiced and the characteristics of the clientele (American, Mexican-American, Mexican) are discussed. The literature on prostitution is fairly extensive and this monograph is intended to add to those portions of it that favor a sociological interpretation of an ancient social institution. The research for this study was conducted more than two decades1 ago and is now being released for publication since it is highly unlikely that I (or anyone else) would now be able to recognize any of the hundreds of prostitutes and their clients that I interacted with during 1969-1972/Summer: 1974--much less for me to be able to release discrediting information that may cause them harm of any kind. As a further precaution I assigned fictitious names to all of my informants (including Evangelina) in the process of transcribing my field notes. This was necessary because La Zona also serves as a center for night life and underworld recreation. illicit deals, contraband was touted, and sometimes agents of social control (police, assorted officials) and otherwise respectable citizens of both Mexico and the U.S. were observed in situations which would tarnish their reputations and conventional identities, and certain military personnel - just by being on-site, or by living in Mexico - were breaking military regulations. As a double safeguard I then took the fictitious names and, for the most part, eliminated them entirely by specifying the context of the interaction. For those irritated by the phrases according to informants and an informant said, I apologize. While this may seem a bit paranoid - and it is somewhat awkward - it must be noted that the Mexican government did not authorize my research and the keen reader of footnotes will discover that the risks of being identified as one freely talking to the American asking questions are not imaginary. The danger lies in being misidentified as a tool of the police, or the underworld, since both have contacts on the scene. when dealing with U.S./Mexico border crossing inspectors and the on-site Mexican police who engage in routine searches for weapons and suspicious materials.The initial field research was conducted when I was in my early to mid-twenties--without benefit of any form of sponsorship, research grants, or official recognition--and was an important part of my forming a professional identity as a sociologist. While the research served as an ethnographic rite of passage for me, premature release of the study could have generated controversy and proved damaging for those who had become part of my extended family (many of whom were still active on La Zona or currently in the American military). Moreover, the political and media climates of the times favored the superficial exposure of cosmetic issues internal to Mexico, i.e., drug busts, street shoot-outs, and corruption which, while real enough, often understate--and possibly deflect--the importance of overriding U.S. interests. certain kinds of deviance research and the cutbacks in funding at many universities in the eighties saw labyrinthine administrative requirements in the area of human subjects research grow in direct proportion to the dwindling amounts of funds available. At best, the study of social deviance was losing some of the luster it had acquired in the late sixties and, at worst, there were growing suspicions--according to detractors--that deviance research, itself, was a questionable activity since such study was perceived as either being irrelevant to imagined larger issues--which were increasingly seen as exclusively the result of political contests of one kind or another - or that such study, of necessity, would serve to reinforce a particular status quo. tendentiousness which is antithetical to the conduct of any actual research: either one's subjects must be shown to experience the requisite amounts of victimization, false consciousness, or oppression so as to make the research liberating (and, hence, unnecessary, since this conclusion is known before the data are gathered), or the inside story of the life-world of one's subjects is assumed to be so fragile that it must not be made public lest they become further discredited than they already are. In any event, I did not want to muddle my fledgling academic career in controversy2, so I used my materials from La Zona in classroom lectures over the years and pursued other areas of research until my field notes acquired a wholesome shade of yellow--and were thus harmless. What results is a study of those structural features of La Zona that make the social meaning of the practice of prostitution--as experienced by clients and the women themselves--clearest in the eyes of an outside observer. A few caveats, however, are in order. that, in fact, a period of prosperity characterized the years 1969-1972. This was only apparent when I returned in the summer of 1974. It is important to mention, however, that during 1969-1972 the Mexican peso traded at roughly seven to the U.S. dollar; the Vietnam War was being waged; there was no gasoline shortage; the local bull ring was typically packed to capacity on the weekends; during rush hours one could walk across the International Bridge faster (in either direction) than traffic could proceed, and it would be a decade before AIDS would receive substantial public attention. Second, I was very close in age to most of my informants and also unmarried. This facilitated a range of social contacts that would have been quite difficult to both experience and achieve had a larger number of years--and social statuses - separated me from those with whom I regularly socialized and recreated. For example: hitching a ride to and from Mexico - and La Zona - allowed me to capture the impressions of the journey common to both prostitutes and clients who were age-peers. on both sides of the border limit such activities to the young. I experienced friends, colleagues or objectionable folks and settings, depending on the circumstances, which became a subject matter only in the process of writing. Thus, many taken-for-granted gestures, impressions and ways of behaving, e.g., being almost totally innocent of risks, were not initially seen as problematic. At another level, prostitution embodies the essence of sexism - without which the institution could not survive, much less flourish. Yet, in everyday interaction, both on and off-site, the prostitutes refer to themselves as the girls - in part, due to cultural conventions; in part, because some are not yet adults; in part, because the word prostitute is an outsider's term and is never used as a form of self-referral. This, at times, produces politically incorrect prose. While I defer to, and appreciate, norms governing non-sexist language wherever possible, I should note (to linguists and others) that this polite convention strains credulity in a setting, which is characterized by racist and sexist contours. or to break the monotony of the region, fashion a language shared by their social peers--whatever the larger society may dictate. For example, no prostitute on La Zona conceives of herself euphemistically as a sex worker - no matter how much those in certain academic circles may wish this to be so - and virtually all prostitutes refer to a large percentage of men as boys. Moreover, affectionate monikers which are conventionally applied only to significant others, i.e., my love; my hero; dear; honey; my only one; are part of the general vocabulary of intimacy that surrounds settings where prostitution is practiced. Such verbiage is decidedly left at the door when the work-role ends. Intimate language is truly shared only among a small circle of confidants - or may be mentioned (along with Mexican curse words and certain forms of slang) in a joking manner