Your Pleasure is Our Business
In 2004, a 21-year old Ukrainian prostitute died of a combination of HIV, siphilis, hepatitis and pneumonia in Mostar. Olena Popik was the most famous victim of sex trafficking and her death created a considerable wave of panic among many of her happily married clients.
The waiting room at the local hospital was full of those who risked their health and reputation for pleasure they couldn’t find at home. In the meantime the story evaporated from our memory, only a rock band called Popik remains. Her two children might be still alive, somewhere, hiding their mother’s dark secret.
This woman, delivered to a pack of powerful wolves like a worthless piece of meat is one of the the many who went through the same humiliating and life-threatening experience. These helpless girls couldn’t defend themselves from predators who would dispose of them once they were too frail, damaged or unable to please.
Hence, until the Russian invasion, we often associated Ukrainians primarily with the oldest of trades. And it’s most definitely something with a long tradition in this city which used to be full of seedy brothels. Of course, in the meantime conveniently forgotten by our morality police that wanted to go back to clean slate.
The Habsburgs legalized prostitution which turned into a very profitable business due to the many soldiers stationed in the city at the time. In need of entertainment, they frequented places like the Gasthaus Kramer which was categorised as Badhaus Restaurant. It means patrons would have a drink or two before joining one of the ladies upstairs, who had saucy pseudonyms and quite probably exotic skills that might account for certain rather disturbing events that took place there and are in historical records.
There was an incident in 1898 related to the Gasthaus, when a local suitor of one of the girls was killed by a foreign officer who made advances at her as well. He drowned in the river and his funeral was the first with the local bishop in attendance.
This is only one of the many little stories related to the parallel world of brothels the memory of which remains in the names of hotels, bus stations and bars. A part of local history that stays under the radar because it’s not focused on politics but speaks of the daily life of a place where the new burgeoisie established itself with all the cosmopolitan perks that were required for a modern social life.
Artists like Touluse-Lautrec are known for their vivid depictions of the Parisian underworld and its decadence. Focused on cabarets and brothels, his brush gave them dignity and appeal far from the precarious reality of these women who possibly had more in common with the tragic Olena Popik than Yvette Guilbert, the star of Moulin Rouge that modeled for several portraits in his studio. This hotbed of the Belle Epoque attracted eccentric cabaret dancers, artists, writers and everyone in between. For those unfamiliar with 19th century Europe, it’s like Studio 54 just with top hats, can-can skirts and absinthe.
The beauty of art lies in its ability to redeem the worst of us by bringing that unspoilt core back to the surface, making it easier to face the fact some aren’t deserving of salvation. Many are victims of their circumstances that left them sinking in the mud of a society that was so cruel to women.
In Victorian England many of them resorted to crime and prostitution in order to survive. Constance Williams was one of those, arrested in 1909 for soliciting in Birmingham at 21 years old. There would always be a man willing to pay for some fun and pursuing romance won’t pay the bills. It’s hard to resist easy money even if it means losing your soul.
The difference is startling. Instead of a portrait that would make her look like a luscious beauty from Moulin Rouge, it’s a mugshot that’s more fitting for a death certificate. The former depicts a romantic illusion and the latter its desperate reality.
New generations of Ukrainian women are seeking refuge in Europe on the run from the perils at home. Some of them might indeed be in the trade but sex workers generally work in a safer environment in places like Amsterdam, where it’s legal and regulated to the level that it’s become one of the synonyms for the Dutch capital.
This is unfortunately more than can be said for sex workers in Belgrade, some of which rose to notoriety like the city’s first transvestite Merlinka whose charisma was worthy of a movie star. The Serbian film director Želimir Žilnik hired him for the famous 1995 movie Marble Ass. Unfortunately, Merlinka was attacked and killed in 2009. The body was already decomposed by the time it was found and to this day the perpetrator remains unknown. Even stray dogs get more mercy than this.
Olena and Merlinka are tragic heroines that were bestowed with pain most of us don’t have to deal with. But we can learn. Both of them have, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, pulled down the curtain on the fairytale and exposed it as a lie. That’s why no amount of ruby red slippers can save those living a life on the fringe of dignity from the cold claws of indifference. Which is what they are often exposed to and the fact that some day it might be you should be enough to open your eyes but it isn’t.
The Italian director Lina Wertmüller directed the 1973 movie Love and Anarchy in which Giancarlo Giannini plays a man hiding in a Roman brothel on a mission to kill the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. The women in there are far from the aesthetically sanitised, skinny ones we see in fashion and movies nowadays. There’s no body positivity messages either. If they aren’t slender, it’s not a political statement but the fact that women don’t have a uniform physique and can’t be bothered by it. It’s a story full of passion without being cheesy and belief in a higher purpose.
In our pursuit of shallow fulfillments there’s no time for commitment and compassion. How many more of these sad, silent sacrifices can we handle before we become a part of the problem? If it’s not going to be the hill we’re prepared to die on, it will end up covered in guilt. The fact that you can’t see the blood on your hands doesn’t mean they’re dry.
That’s why it’s important to remember Olena, left for dead like a cat on a busy highway. She deserved better but it wasn’t meant to be. I don’t believe in afterlife. Whatever follows after you kick the bucket must feel like heaven compared to the hell women like her go through to keep us happy. A moment of light for a lifetime of rain.
