Ethnography in an urban sex-scape: Encounters in a coffee shop with legs in Santiago de Chile

Ethnography in an urban sex-scape: Encounters in a coffee shop with legs in Santiago de Chile.

Courts of Justice

Daily route taken by a lawyer to meet with his waitress girlfriend for a lunch-break relax.

Introduction.

The development of the sex industry has different expressions according to time and place. Brennan on her book ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ (2004) depicts the transformations suffered by a Caribbean village –Sosua, Dominican Republic– as it became in contact with the global economy. In particular, she examines the way the growth of the tourist industry in the village was shaped by the commodification of sex that lead to the conformation of Sosua as a sexscape.

Santiago the capital of Chile, has experienced its own process of sex commodification which became expressed, among other in a peculiar type of ‘sexy cafes’.

The aim of the present paper is to build an interpretation of the Chilean case discussing the ‘performance of love’ as a business strategy presented by Brennan in the Sosua’s case. For Brennan, the performance of love is used as an advancement strategy by the Sosua’s sex workers that could allow them find their way out of poverty through the establishment of a relationship with their ‘wealthy’ European client.

Supported on internet articles that narrate the experience of foreigners writers in the coffee shops, the paper will look at the performance of love as being crucial for a particular type of sex industry in downtown Santiago.

Coffee shop with legs in downtown Santiago Generally, the coffee with legs (cafe con piernas, literal translation from the spanish) are small coffee shops where young waitresses in sexy outfits serve hot drinks behind a bar while standing over a platform so that the sight level of the consumers –mostly men standing in the bar– allows a better perspective of the attendants bodies.

The coffees with legs although might appear a controversial activity for the capital’s urban landscape, have been incorporated naturally to the everyday life of the downtown workers. Indeed they operate just like any other retail activity with office opening hours.

Moreover, the 200 coffees (Gutierrez 2008) that have popped up the last decades operate legally with a coffee shop license therefore cannot sell alcohol and distinguish from other sorts of risqué business like cabarets and night clubs.

Despite the existence of several sexualised businesses around the world that share similar characteristics –like the betel nuts beauty kiosks in Taiwan (Chuen-Juei 2000), or Hooters in United States– apparently these particular Chilean coffees are a unique case worldwide were the flirting constitutes the guiding motif of this profitable business (Gallardo, 1998).

The above might be explained by interrogating the cultural processes that the Chilean society has experienced in the last decades on its transit to democracy and under the prevalence of a growing market economy.

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Interior of a modern type of coffee shop with legs visited by white-collar patrons at their lunch break.

Source: Raul Bravo/AFP/Getty Images

From Cafe Caribe to Baron Rojo.

Apart from the more apparent social changes that the Chilean society experienced after the dictatorship in the 1990s, there were others that took more time to become expressed. These have to do with the gradual liberalisation that emerged after almost two decades of controlled freedom of expression. Some authors like Hopenhayn have called this period ‘el destape chileno’ (the Chilean uncovering) in direct allusion to the Spanish uncovering that occurred during the political period that followed the fall of Franco’s regime (Hopenhayn, 2007).

El destape coupled with a sustained increase in the income per capita (more than duplicated between 1990 - 95) triggered the appearance of a new type of consumer. The advances in hedonism contributed to the metamorphosis of the urban lifestyle giving more space to new sources of entertainment and enjoyment.

In fact, the coffee business reacted to the new demands as well. Until then the coffees with legs were a couple of traditional institutions –that started in the 60s– where nice women with short skirts served good quality coffee. These shops like the Cafe Caribe have their facades wide open to the most busiest streets of downtown. On the contrary, in 1995 the new version of coffees with legs that begun with the Baron Rojo (Red Baron) turned their facades opaque to make their waitresses in bikini less visible from the outside. Even, before this new business model succeeded and spread the Baron Rojo had to implement ‘emergency’ measures to make the business noticeable and experimented with the happy minute. This illegal practice consisted of shutting the doors for a minute in which the waitresses served coffee in topless to prize and in some way capture a the clientele that visited during lunch break (Bonnefoy 2010). This operation framed the prompt appearance of several new shops into the business.

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Stand-up bar of a traditional type coffee shop with legs.

Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/quarrion/3770563933/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Transparent facade of a traditional type of coffee shop with legs facing a public street.

Source: http://www.hurnaus.com/show_content.php?sid=20

Commodification of sex and love.

A small espresso in one of the coffee bars will cost near $2 (twice the average price in a normal restaurant). However, it is clear that its not only coffee what is being sold.

Although explicitly and legally the shops do not sell a sexual experience, male customers are attracted by the offer of semi-naked women. It is also a fact that the levels of exhibition and erotism varies from the more conservative Cafe Caribe type to the more liberal Baron Rojo type. However, all of them share the pattern of having women bodies as an essential part of their business rationale, thus constitutes a subtle form of payed sex.

There are greater or lesser levels of involvement between customers and attendants, but certainly it is through exaggerated tips how the patrons can increase their chances to access the waitresses bodies. On the other hand, it is even hard to distinguish which is 4

the main motif of consumption; the cup of coffee or the ‘service’. Anyway, the practice of having a coffee with colleagues reveal a certain level of naturalisation of this behaviour in which the consumption of sex –although not necessarily explicit– becomes a public activity. Indeed, businessman customers seem not afraid of being spotted by others while visiting this sort of establishments (Sanghani 2010).

Alike the Sosua case, in the coffees with legs is not only sex what becomes commodified but also love. Clearly the most hard-core version of coffee shops use male fantasies to sell coffee. But not only that, given that the waitresses salary can be hugely multiplied with tips, their strategy is to seduce their customers to make them their regulars. The ones that are more lack of affection will come back to visit their girlfriend by convenience. Moreover, for the more stressed workers the waitresses act as their psychologist listening to their problems while let themselves be caressed (Bonnefoy 2010).

Cafe con piernas; affection and conversation The coffees with legs are mostly independent businesses ran by small entrepreneurs.

Given that they can only open daily, the most extreme ones make efforts to darken the shops to create an ambient that allows for flirting. Some also add sexy loud music that facilitates small performances that help to warm up the environment resembling more a club rather than a cafe. Most of them have mirrored walls that multiply the women silhouettes. The coffee itself also adds to create a pleasurable environment with its smell and caffeine producing a clever combination between two potentially addictive elements.

Less pleasurable are the high loads of cigarette smoke that ends up forming a sordid environment. “...there's a 20-something schoolgirl in knee socks and tartan knickers, bringing coffee and sparkling water to a group of businessmen. It's 4 o' clock on a Friday and these guys have clearly come straight from the office.” (Rao 2011)

Mirrored walls and dimmed lights at the interior of a modern coffee shop with legs.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/luisbarriga/5755637312/sizes/l/in/photostream/

For the shop owner the success of the business relies on the high amount of customers that the business allow to rotate during the day. Given that there are no tables the shop

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can easily be accommodated in a small area reducing the rent costs. The staff get around the minimum wage ($400 monthly).

For the waitresses the attractiveness of the job is the high salary they get adding the tips considering that they do not require high qualifications. Also it is much less demanding and risky than other sexual based jobs, although still this can be seen by some as a sort of sexual exploitation. Their final salary will depend on their ability to seduce their customers in order to get a higher tip, thus their outfit and body constitute critical items of their performance. Part of it are the two kisses they normally use to greet their customers to begin building a relationship. (Rao 2011) Additionally the job allows some of them to freely obtain even higher profits by offering explicit sex services but without intermediaries or pimps.

For the clients, the shopping experience consists of having a relaxing break while roleplaying as a seducer macho and letting themselves be loved. Besides in some degree the not explicit sex consumption softens the behaviour and even if it leads to an explicit sexual encounter it is legitimised by the flirting of the preamble (Sexy Santiago: Coffee with legs 2006).

Picking on the success of the business, there was once an attempt to set up a female version of the coffee with legs however it didn’t prosper for obvious reasons; the business just like other sexual businesses is essentially sexist and additionally machista within the Chilean context.

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The economy of desire.

“Two minutes ago, I was in front of the Palacio de la Moneda (Presidential Palace)... Now I'm in a dark room surrounded by women in glow-in-the-dark thongs and the smoke's so heavy I can hardly breathe” (Rao 2011).

In 1995 with the launching of the first coffee with legs the city’s urban landscape started an abrupt process of transformation. The rich network of pedestrian circuits that penetrate the blocks of the orthogonal grid quickly became deteriorated (Greene and Soler, 2004). The process was as well facilitated by the introduction of chain commerce that sent some of the small independent shops of the arcades out of business. Several small units become available and thus contributed to the appearance of the coffees.

Clearly these changes had an impact on the every day life of downtown Santiago. In fact, an association can be made with the trigger of similar niche businesses. The capital’s centre has a vast offer of motels that are known to be conveniently rented by the hour by couples to have occasional or commercial sex away from their formal relationships. Even, this business has flourished into the real state market where small furnished studios are offered on the internet for the same purposes.

Interior of a gallery in downtown Santiago with smalls shops on the left and a opaque facade of a coffee on the right.

Source: http://skyscraper.talkwhat.com/view/MnIqYeaTkMnIsGlzRysGl.html

It is not the red light district of Amsterdam, however the legal umbrella that allows the functioning of lucrative coffees with legs as coffee shops contributed to the consolidation of this business. In addition, the association with the derived sexual commerce had shaped the conformation of Santiago’s downtown as a fluctuating sexscape.

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Location of tagged coffee shops with legs spread in the network of public streets and semi-public galleries of downtown Santiago Source: Author based on google maps and Rosas 1985.

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Sexscape.

“They're as ubiquitous in Santiago as Starbucks is in San Francisco.” (Flinn 2006) Although some of the coffees with legs face directly into public space, there is a clear trend to cluster in the semi-public arcades. The small size of the offered units allows for this. Just like sex-shops or lap dance clubs, it is not possible to see who is inside and what is happening in the establishments. The opacity of the windows appear like blind walls giving way to the conformation of tunnels that on the contrary were formerly vivid and elegant galleries. Apparently the coffees that have already gained a reputation among their clients do not need to sought for primary locations and publicity along streets. The coffees with legs have become a typology of the interior arcades. The galleries of downtown Santiago have become known as places where to buy sex. Unlike Sosua, in Santiago the waitresses dependencies and the customers workplace overlap and thus are directly interconnected.

The historic centre of Santiago has an estimated floating population over 1 million people. Undoubtedly, it concentrates a high density of potential customers, however this by itself cannot necessarily explain the success of the coffee with legs business. The existence of the near two hundreds establishments must be supported by a high demand.

It is also surprising from this urban phenomenon the way this type of liberal commerce take place simultaneously with the more traditional functions of public institutions and buildings with heritage value. In some degree the ‘invisibility’ of the arcades network that sets them away from the public circuit contributes to the parallelism of functions.

Indeed the creation of the sexscape is facilitated by the relationship between the social demand for the service and its presence in the collective memory with the built form that supports it.

Chilean cultural phenomenon.

With the organisation of cheap beauty contests such as La Reina del Cafe con Piernas (The Queen of the Coffee with legs) the Chilean media has contributed to the gradual acceptance of this phenomenon. The business model has been replicated with success in several medium size cities in Chile with a predominant male workforce and it has almost become a ‘national institution’. In fact centric neighbourhoods that cluster around spare parts for motorised vehicles –often a male oriented business– have accommodated the expansion of the business (Bonnefoy 2010). Even so it still appears as a sign of deterioration since more affluent business areas of the capital have rejected their installation arguing its close relation with prostitution, although the potential customers profile does not vary too much compared to downtown Santiago.

The social class transversality proves the encroachment of the phenomenon. Likewise the varied offer, the profile of the customers of the Santiago’s sexscape covers the whole range of social classification from the upper class lawyers to lower class janitors.

As reported in newspapers in the beginning the modern version of the coffees with legs offended some Chileans sensibility (Gallardo 1998), some were shut down but the difficulty to prove they were functioning as cabarets help them to unfold as an issue of cultural significance of the downtown working environment.

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By all means the proliferation of this phenomenon also speaks about the present inequalities of the Chilean society. These are not just about gender but also consider hierarchies of class. In the same manner that the Sosua’s sex workers belong to the poorest segment of the population, the Chilean case often present young low-skilled women and poor single mothers that find in this occupation the only way to access a relatively safe job. Lately, as it can be inferred the business also reached the job markets of poor foreign migrants women (Sexy Santiago: Coffee with legs 2006).

While from the gender perspective there is a clear social supremacy of male over females. Picking on the success of the business, there was once an attempt to set up a female version of the coffee with legs, however it didn’t prosper for obvious reasons; the business just like other sexual businesses is essentially sexist and additionally machista within the Chilean context.

Finally, there exist also an impact by the ongoing process of globalisation (global tourism and communications) since the phenomenon is widely recognised as part of the Santiago’s attractions for tourists. The Lonely Planet 2012 Best Cities To Travel list recommends visiting a coffee with legs as the first thing to do in Santiago and has an eloquent cover picture that illustrates the article (Leung 2011).

CNN website marketing Santiago as tourist attraction in 2012.

Source: http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/lonely-planet-best-cities-travel-2012-716747

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Performance of Love.

‘The matron residing behind the bar, the coffee seeming just a sort of alibi for an erotic lunch-break role play. Everyone has their personal waitress who knows how the coffee is preferred, and who shares the private and professional ups and downs of the guests’ (Rubinowitz n.d.)

Sexual desire and a hot drink are not the solely motivations for regular customers to visit a coffee with legs. Similarly to the Sosua’s case the business implies the performance of love as a business strategy. Although the eventual desire of the client is part of every sex trade, the performance of love through flirting forms an essential part of the main business rationale where additional to the coffee there is seduction and attention. The same logic applies for the waitresses own business on their pursue to obtain higher tips.

In fact, alike the Sosua’s sex workers the waitresses strategically try to build ties with their customers that not only can result on their regular visits but also puts the waitresses on a better position to negotiate a potential sexual relationship or victimise themselves about their ‘disadvantaged’ situation. In this context, beyond the pretension of desire some waitresses pretend to be in love what directly relates to the mitigation of their financial concerns.

The establishment of a relationship. Part psychologist, part lover.

Brennan presents the distinction that Sosuans make between establishing a relationship by means of romance and emotion from the one built strategically for financial needs.

The later being the one that allow the sex workers to obtain a visa and therefore improve their socio-economical situation (Brennan, 2004).

The same reasoning applies for the waitresses behaviour. In fact, as it was expressed before the coffee with legs experience involves more than just the visual appreciation of the women bodies. It includes the construction of a relationship in which the waitresses through the performance of love intent to seduce customers that can become their financial aid.

It is almost impossible to determine how authentic are the interpersonal connections between customers and waitresses. At least from the ‘sex workers’ perspective it seems being part of their business strategy. Some waitresses might not only be playing the role of pure listeners but also as they become closer to their regulars they can start sharing their own problems including the difficulties of finding an alternative job and their struggle to meet their familiar obligations as single mothers. In this context for male customers on the other hand this situation enables them to play the traditional masculine roles of protector and provider as they are more susceptible to leave a higher tip as they romanticises about their girlfriend waitress unfortunate situation.

“The cafes are basically a safe, cheap venue for men to indulge their fantasy of protecting weak women in a place of desire.”(Ossa 2003) The seduction is not an exclusive part of the waitresses job. Apart from the protector role-play described above, men are driven to role-play as the ‘big-men’ reversing the seduction. In some situations if the intention of the client is to have sex with his desired 11

waitress the amount of the tip is not enough. There is no intermediary between the customer and the sex worker what enables the woman to select the client and make the negotiation by themselves. A high tip will be a signal of the intention of the client to go further, however the acceptance by the waitress might take several visits and even the offer of gifts.

“It all depends on the woman — she selects the client and decides how far she wants to go with him.

Sex is paid with gifts, money, dinners, jewellery, or whatever. I have seen sex paid with stoves and heaters.” (Bonnefoy 2010) Just like the Sosuan’s sex workers fantasise about the possibility of meeting the European man of their dreams that will allow them better living conditions (Brennan, 2004), it could be suggested given the level of personal involvement and choice that the waitresses that are pushed into the commercialised sex also have the fantasy of finding a good man that will take care of them.

Advancement strategy?

“She's 21, has worked here a few months, and loves her job. The money and the hours are decent. And the men—she's surprised that I ask—don't give her any trouble. She's a student at a local college, studying physical education. She wants to become a personal trainer.” (Rao 2011) “‘This is the best job you can have these days,” said Paola Contreras, a 22-year-old waitress.”(Gallardo 1998) Despite the present inequalities of gender and class the coffee with legs business represent a real job opportunity. Although some of the barmaids –afraid of stigmatisation– tell their families that they work as a waitress in a restaurant even this being not abruptly different from the most conservative version of coffees with legs.

Unlike the predominancy of adults workers in the Sosua’s sex trade, the ambivalence nature of working as a waitress in a coffee with legs potentially attract girls under 18 years old, being this still legal if they are authorised by their carers and are over 15 years old.

Brennan argues that women in Sosua are drawn into the sex trade for various reasons and have diverse experiences, ant that depending on the woman’s capacity for choice and control, some experiences can be beneficial and some tragic. (Brennan, 2004) Similarly, in the Chilean case the chances for women to get ahead economically or their levels of vulnerability will depend on their circumstances, i.e. a single mother waitress might be under more pressure to enter the sex trade than a women that conveniently work to pay for her studies.

The job offers for waitresses published online indicate unusual levels of flexibility for the Chilean labor market, with the possibility of working 6 hours a day or only 12

weekends. This plus the reliance on the tip-wage scheme in a way allows the waitresses to have better control of their working conditions. However, this capacity of choice is also a double-edged sword, since it is likely to become the way in which waitresses are drawn into commercial sex tempted by the easy money they can get.

‘Losers’ “Some men feel old, ugly, uninteresting or shy, and these cafes give them a chance to be with young attractive women. In this gray and conservative society, these cafes are an explicit summoning to an encounter between the sexes, where both sides know exactly what to expect from the other.”(Bonnefoy 2010) “...the machista impulses Chilean men can unleash at the cafes have to be stifled for most of the week.

For these poor guys, ...cafes are “a little valve” to decompress during the workday.”(Ossa 2000) It is unclear how much of the ‘loser’ –men unable to make it in their own environment– (Hamilton 1997 quoted by Brennan 2004) or the machista, motivate men to consume subtle sex while drinking coffee in a coffee with legs of downtown Santiago. According to the testimony given to Global Post their ‘loser’ profile certainly is one of the reasons, however the success of the business (more than 200 hundreds in the historic centre) challenges this stereotype.

Bernstein confirms this thought about commercial sex in the description of her visit to an erotic theatre in San Francisco, on her field notes she describe the patrons who ‘by mere appearances, ... certainly belie the stereotype that the sex industry is geared towards older men who cannot find partners.’ (Bernstein, 2001) The incorporation of the phenomenon into the working culture of the capital’s downtown give it a special cultural significance. Indeed, going to a coffee shop during lunch-break has turned into a routine. Accordingly, it could be predicted that the offer of coffees with legs largely surpass the offer of standard coffee shops.

The relationship of domination (Bernstein, 2001), might also explain the motivation for the coffee with legs’ clientele. An artist commissioned to represent the vices and virtues of the Chilean culture describes the guy that enters a coffee with legs as the transformation he experiences from an employer submitted by his boss to a gallant hunter.

Characterisation of a coffee shop encounter.

Source: http://www.portaldearte.cl/agenda/mixta/2006/colectivo_siete.html 13

Final remarks The consequences that unfolded 17 years ago after the launching of Baron Rojo and its happy minute –the wild marketing strategy– will continue having an impact on and transforming the Chilean culture. Clearly, between the traditional coffee with legs and the modern version there is huge contrast. In-between this two typologies there are as well different variations and is hard to make the distinction, but all of them incorporate women bodies and the performance of love as their business strategy. Accordingly, what initially begun as an economic driven issue turned into a cultural one, as a matter of fact the coffee with legs are a Chilean cultural phenomenon. Although, they begun in what might be considered the most democratic neighbourhood of the country, today these coffees have spread to many other urban areas shaping their urban landscape.

In the case of downtown the situation is specially critical, since the development of the business has accompanied the physical obsolescence of a formerly rich built stock. The problem relies on one hand on the profitability of this business that has displaced ‘softer’ but less profitable functions and the difficulty to identify between the coffees that are part of the cultural tradition and the ones that are covering an incipient sex trade.

The coffees with legs are not particularly a symbol of urban innovation, on the contrary they represent a sign of decay. There have been intents of regulating the industry – regularly many coffees are shut down– but there seem to be very little understanding of the phenomenon by the authorities. Clearly, the problem is not only about limiting their establishment but also acknowledging further layers of the phenomenon. Within these, the understanding of downtown Santiago as a sex-scape that is bringing together the demand for sexual consumption and the aim to get ahead of needy women. Anyhow, no matter which is the intervention it should be understood within the economic and cultural transformations that have taken place in the last decade.

Finally, it’s proper to ask which will be the impacts on this industry and the development of the city given the ongoing process of globalisation, which is already positioning Santiago globally as a touristic destination were the sexy coffees are part of its main attraction.

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References Boneffoy, P 2010, ‘Want legs with your coffee?’, Globalpost, 30 May. Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/chile/090407/want-legs-yourcoffee Bernstein, E. 2001. The meaning of the purchase: desire, demand and the commerce of sex, Ethnography, 2, 3, 389-420.

Brennan, D 2004, ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It? Transnational Desires and Sex Tourism the Dominican Republic’, Duke University Press, London.

Brennan, D 2004. Women Work, Men Sponge and Everyone Gossips: Macho Men and Stigmatized/ing Women in A Sex Tourist Town, Anthropological Quarterly, 77, 4.

705-33.

Chuen-Juei Ho 2000, ‘Self-empowerment and 'professionalism': conversations with Taiwanese sex workers’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 1:2, 283-299 Flinn, J 2006, ‘Out on a limb for coffee with legs’, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 February.

Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/ a/2006/02/12/TRGQ1H3M241.DTL&ao=all Gallardo, E 1998, Kentucky New Era, 19 October, 8a. Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://news.google.com/newspapers Greene, M and Soler, F 2004, ‘Santiago: de un proceso acelerado de crecimiento a uno de transformaciones’, in C. de Mattos, M. Ducci (eds), Santiago en la Globalizacion: ¿Una Nueva Ciudad?, Ediciones Sur & Libros Eure, Santiago Gutierrez, B 2008, ‘Un cafe con piernas, por favor’, Publico.es, 17 November. Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.publico.es/internacional/174674/un-cafe-conpiernas-por-favor Hopenheyn, M 2007, ‘El destape: parcialmente nublado’, Letras Libres, September, 14-16.

Leung, J 2011, ‘Best cities to travel to in 2012’, CNN Go, 3 November, Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/escape/lonely-planet-bestcities-travel-2012-716747 Ossa, F 2000, ‘Cafes ... with legs’, Salon, 5 May, Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http:// www.salon.com/2000/05/05/piernas/ Rao, T 2011, ‘Chile's Racy Coffee Shops: Making Hooters Look Tame’, The Atlantic, 3 January, Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ archive/2011/01/chiles-racy-coffee-shops-making-hooters-look-tame/68416/ Rosas, J 1985. ‘La partición de la manzana. Cómo se modernizó Santiago de Chile’. UR: urbanismo revista, núm. 3 Rubinowitz, T n.d., ‘Coffee with legs’, Damn Magazine, Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.hurnaus.com/show_content.php?sid=20 15

Sanghani, R 2010, Coffee with legs, Pimedia.org.uk, 21 December, Accessed 30 of April 2012 from http://www.pimedia.org.uk/travel/2010/12/21/coffee-with-legs.html Sexy Santiago: Coffee with legs, 2006, Mercopress, 23 July, Accessed 30 of April 2012 http://en.mercopress.com/2006/07/23/sexy-santiago-coffee-with-legs

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