Topic: Sexscape Sosua

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"Sexscape" is a term anthropologist Denise Brennan came up with to describe Sosua, this small town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, in her ethnogrophy of Dominican and Haitian sex workers in Sousua titled, "What's Love Got to Do With it?"  A few years ago I had passed through Boca Chica, another sex tourist town on the south coast of the DR, not far from Santo Domingo, and found it frighteningly appalling -- sort of everything seedy and dangerous that you could imagine.  So, when I read Brennan's book, I was surprised of the very different picture she painted of Sosua, and decided I would go there and take pictures and see what came of it.

I ended up kind of falling in love with the place.  I've been there twice in the past couple months and have finished the first photo series of a planned three.  Thanks for looking.

http://hookstrapped.viewbook.com/album/sosua#1

oh yeah, kinda NSFW

[Late Developer]

Great series of shots, Peter. They really took me back some years as my ex and I went to Dominican Republic in June/July 1997 and stayed at Cabarete - a few miles down the road from Sosua. The reason I recall the date so well is that we were there watching TV "live" when Mike Tyson spit out his gumshield and bit off half of Evander Holyfield's ear during a fight on June 28th.

At the time, Cabarete was hosting the world windsurfing championships and trying to get into the any of the small number of bars in Cabarete was really hard work. So, most nights, we would hail a cab and head off to Sosua.  It was also very busy but it was bigger and there was a better choice of places to eat and drink. In all honesty, I never noticed any such under-current. Mind you, I was one half of a couple and we only went into the "main" bars and restaurants abutting the sea-front - probably away from the sleazier bars.

I wonder how much of the sex trade in Sosua has built up as a result of Haitians seeking refuge following the massive earthquake in 2010? The Haitians I met whilst in DR were mainly farm labourers - often doing the back-breaking work cutting sugar cane by hand in the fields that supplied the local rum factories with molasses. They were lovely people and, on a few occasions when we ventured inland on organised excursions, we gave our lunch rations, sweets and snacks to these guys as they seldom had the money to eat anything between breakfast and evening meal 10+ hours of work later. They were paid pennies per day but looked upon DR as the promised land as Haiti was 100 times worse.

Sosua was the first place I ever tried scuba diving. A shallow beach allowed a walk-in to a sheltered spot away from the Atlantic surf.  As you know, this part of DR is on the Atlantic coast with only the south and west sides of the island of Hispanola facing into the Caribbean.

We've been talking about going to DR in the next few years - mainly as I'd like to re-visit Samana - a great place to go whale watching and see Pelicans dive bombing for fish against a background of tropical sand and palms. However, I'll definitely head for the bright lights of Sosua to see how much it's changed.

Thanks for posting your series. Really excellent and a great trip back in time.

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Thanks, Paul.

If you were to return to Sosua these days, it would be pretty hard to miss.  At least after about 4pm.  During the day it seems like a pretty ordinary sleepy little beach town.  And that's the thing, it is an ordinary sleepy little beach town in most ways.  Also, in talking to the girls, I'm struck by how ordinary they are, young single moms trying to support themselves and their kids, generally taken care of by relatives back home in Santo Domingo, traveling back and forth from home to Sosua for extended periods of time.  I guess that's a big part of what charmed me.  In a hypersexualized world, including as reflected in photography, particularly fashion photography, where depictions of sex are highly stylized and calculated and cold as dead flesh, the simple straightforward transactions of sex in Sosua are kind of refereshingly honest, warm, and paradoxically wholesome.

According to Denise Brennan, Sosua as a sexscape started in the 1990s.  There are many Haitian women (and men) in Sosua, which might be related to the earthquake, but my understanding is that region of the DR, the Cibao, has a long history of migration across the border.

[Sandeha Lynch]

Excellent piece of work - an effective blend of sharp shots and softies.

Hadn't seen Viewbook before, so thanks for that as well.

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A rather provocative and extremely well written commentary on the subject from Laurie Penny.

http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2012/12/strange-neo-victorian-desire-save-prostitutes-and-porn-actresses

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http://www.loeildelaphotographie.com/2013/10/19/the-eye-of-readers/23700/peter-schafer-this-is-not-a-picture-of-a-prostitute

It's nice to be in the company of other good work, some obviously film 

[calbisu]

I do not know how to write this and not being rude; yes, prostitutes are regular human beings, with dignity, was there any doubt about it? Prostitutes are forced to do what they do (reasons and circumstances are endless), to think otherwise is naïve, to say the least. I personally think that degradation is always present, some way or the other.

I lived for a while in Dominican Republic, but the place it does not matter much, prostitution is just prostitution, no matter what name you give it. Sex tourism now a days is everywhere, but of course is more popular in more needed places. People who trade sex with prostitutes use all kind of reasonings so they can convince themselves that what they are doing is not prostitution. Somebody once told me that the problem in ¨those¨ places is that there are no limits, so you are the one to establish the limits, which often does not happen, and of course if there are no limits there is no trespassing, so no harm done.
   

[hookstrapped]

I do not know how to write this and not being rude; yes, prostitutes are regular human beings, with dignity, was there any doubt about it? Prostitutes are forced to do what they do (reasons and circumstances are endless), to think otherwise is naïve, to say the least. I personally think that degradation is always present, some way or the other.

I lived for a while in Dominican Republic, but the place it does not matter much, prostitution is just prostitution, no matter what name you give it. Sex tourism now a days is everywhere, but of course is more popular in more needed places. People who trade sex with prostitutes use all kind of reasonings so they can convince themselves that what they are doing is not prostitution. Somebody once told me that the problem in ¨those¨ places is that there are no limits, so you are the one to establish the limits, which often does not happen, and of course if there are no limits there is no trespassing, so no harm done.
   

I didn't mean to suggest by the clearly counterfactual title that the women aren't prostitutes, but that they are very much more than prostitutes.  To your question, "yes, prostitutes are regular human beings, with dignity, was there any doubt about it?" I'd say that in popular culture, in most depictions of prostitutes and in most people's minds there is tremendous doubt about it. Whether they are viewed as sexual playthings or as victims (in both cases, degraded), the prevalent depictions lack depth and understanding of the complexities and contradictions of their lives and, therefore, strip away their dignity as human beings.

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Cross-post from the Main page, here's a link to a little feature and interview on the project

http://worldphoto.org/news-and-events/wpo-news/collection-photographer-interview-peter-brian-schafer/

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Another aspect of the story...

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2015/01/01/no-not-all-sex-workers-want-to-be-saved-ctd/

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The series is now on LensCulture, which provides a nice presentation -- with some background info and captions that appear when the cursor is on the pic then nicely disappear.

https://www.lensculture.com/peter-schafer?modal=true&modal_type=project&modal_project_id=84656