WORKING
GUY
The story of a Wailuku prostitute
By Barukh Shalev The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture. -Camille Paglia As the wind blows softly across Wailuku, Mona stands on the corner, raising her arms to better take in the cool breeze. A traffic light blinks, turning the hue on the pavement from hot red to smooth green. It is a pleasant, uncharacteristically cool night and the pavement is still wet from the rain an hour ago. An older model Toyota lolls down the block, slowing is it approaches us. A fat, plain face glares at us hungrily from the window, leering. Mona shifts her stance, instantaneously becoming provocative. Her attempt to blow a bubble from the gum she is chewing fails and she licks her lips instead. But fat face keeps moving. We are on Vineyard Street in Wailuku, the epicenter of that town’s streetwalking industry. Mona is a prostitute. Has been for over a decade, cutting her teeth in the industry on Oahu. But she was raised right here in Wailuku, a real local. The move to Oahu was just temporary and economic. “I was after that fast money,” she tells me. Mona winces when I say the word “prostitution.” She winces more when I say the word “hooker.” “But that’s what you are, correct?” I say. “You’re a prostitute, you turn tricks, all that good stuff.” She waves her hands and crinkles her nose. “I prefer working,” she says. “I am working. Those other names are jus’ so uglay!” Later, when we are sitting in my car, Moan makes a confession. “I’m not like, what you think I am.” What she means is that she is a man dressed like a woman. Mona is of mixed Hawaiian, Chinese and Filipino blood. She has dark skin, long black hair and a masculine, severe face. “Are you gay?” I ask. “Well,” she says. “I certainly never had any girlfriends, that’s for sure! I guess you could say that, well, yes, I am gay, true and true.” Mona says she became aware of this at the tender age of 13.
10
NOVEMBER 4, 2004
COVER STORY
“It was hard,” she says, explaining how her family was pretty accepting, but her father took it hard. “He had to get used to it, get used to me…” Mona’s voice trails off in thought. She claims her father eventually became accepting of her lifestyle, but that he passed away several years ago. She has a typically large family, six siblings, and a large ohana of aunties and uncles. Some of them know what she does, but others do not. “They don’t care, just as long as I am safe,” she says. To get ready for “work” she puts on what she calls “ordinary clothes.” For this evening, that means daisy dukes, stiletto heels and a see-thru mesh shirt with a black bra underneath. While still sitting in my car, the thought of getting arrested for soliciting a prostitute suddenly strikes me as hilarious. “Oh, don’t worry, honey,” she says. “Nobody ever gets arrested for prostitution.” She claims she has never, ever, been arrested, nor has any of her friends. Mona tells me she has a pretty steady clientele, all of whom are married men. They’re typically middle class “heterosexual” men from areas like Wailuku Heights and Kahului. She says they often remove their wedding rings just before the transaction begins. She considers it a nice touch. “They are curiousssssssss,” Mona says. She sees about five of these happy hubbies every night, and charges them between $50 and $70 for head. Sex work is dangerous. Because of the nature of the work, prostitutes have a higher risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. But Mona claims she is safe. “Alwaysssss,” she says. Some of her clientele resist using condoms, but she insists. “No condom, no play,” she chirps. It is also dangerous in other, more direct ways. Prostitutes are often targets of sociopaths, sadists, pugilists and psychotics. They are Out There, in the streets with the creeps at all hours of the night, rubbing
shoulders with thugs, drug dealers, runaways and other desperate humans. Prostitutes get paid for going with strangers to private places and doing intimate things. Inner city prostitutes have a pimp to “protect them,” but Mona says she does not. She is an independent agent and as such, must make instantaneous decisions as to whether or not a situation is “safe.” Miscalculations can prove fatal. “When I was on Oahu,” she tells me, “I was about 18 or 19, [and] there was this one guy who, like, forced himself on me. He picked me up and took me to the pier and raped me in the ass. What could I do, he was bigger than me. I just had to, sit there and take what he had to fuckin’ give!” “That’s heavy, man,” I blurt out. “Fuck yeah!” Mona yells, losing her exaggerated femininity. A few days later, while researching this story, I saw a prostitute get beaten savagely. A newer model sedan, driven by a large man, pulled up on a woman wearing a pink sports bra and spandex pants. The man deftly hopped out of the car, then in one motion grabbed hold of spandex lady, demanded that she “get on the ground,” then proceeded to punch her in the head, violently knocking her to the pavement. He grabbed her legs and awkwardly dragged her, caveman style, demanding that she now get “in the car.” By this time the woman was blasting an awful and frantic scream that could be heard for blocks. Almost on cue, two kids, teenagers really, come hurdling out of the darkness, whooping and hollering like an apache war raid. But they were too late. By the time they arrived, the man had gotten back in his slick car and beat it out of there, leaving the woman a bloody, spandex mess on the ground. Later the two kids proudly informed me that they were from the local crew, the Happy Valley boys, and were yelling for additional backup to help “take care” of the man. This is a very typical scene in the sex work industry. Yet Mona tells me that “the only way to stay alive” was to sell her body to willing married men. It’s what they call a social work explanation. Most intelligent people would argue