Most people sneer at
prostitutes. Not me; they scare me. I think I was scarred as a ten year old.
(No, I didn’t live in a bro=thel.)The most popular brothel in Ibadan where I
grew up was called ‘Asas Hotel’. For some strange reason it was located at the
junction of my secondary school – a hub of at least eight schools actually.
One afternoon, a few
friends and I jumped the school gate to go play Nintendo games at a video club
across the road. As we passed by Asas, a middle-aged woman seated at the window
of the second floor whistled at us.
All five of us stopped
in our tracks, wondering what just happened. She whistled again. This time we
looked up and she flashed a toothy grin.
But that wasn’t the
only thing she flashed: in the blink of an eye, she raised the blouse she was
wearing and flashed us a pair of fleshy, orange-coloured breasts. Then she
beckoned for us to come through a side door. We glanced at each other and
silently agreed to.
A Daily Mail photo of a
brothel in Lagos.
We slid in and madam
bounced down the wooden stairs. I may have been the tallest but I was the
youngest so my other friends went to sit close to her. She asked if we had any
money and they surrendered the five N1- notes we had contributed to play Mortal
Kombat 2. She rolled the money in one hand and whipped out a milk industry with
the other.
As the bravest among us
– who turned out to be the most unfortunate – reached out for a squeeze, she
grabbed his hand, pulled him close and dealt the most savage slap I had ever
seen to the boy. She didn’t let go; she kept punching and slapping him, at the
same time cursing at all of us. ‘Una wan bang abi, na your mama ponpon you go
bang. Bastard children’.
The ruckus woke the
other residents of the brothel who soon joined in the beatdown. I ran out of
the building but couldn’t escape the barman who doubled as pimp. They
threatened to take us back to school and report to the principal.
A random brothel where
people pay as little as N300 for s3x.
As an adult though,
that fear has evolved into fascination. I am fascinated by hookers and
prostitution. Just this week, a friend of mine asked if I had ever paid for
s3x. Not in this lifetime.
But I want to; not for
a few rounds though, I want to have a conversation with a prostitute. I want to
find out how they got into the ‘business’.
Was it a vice? Was it
s3x slavery? The closest I got to finding out was asking a 15-year-old girl in
Fagba, Lagos how long she had been doing ‘olosho’ work. Her reply was as
caustic as it could get: Ogbeni s’o fe dobo ni abi ejo lo fe ro? Mi o raye oshi
jare! (Mr. Man do you want to have s3.x or you just want to talk? I don’t have
time for this rubbish).
However, Tinder has
helped in unravelling the mystery: I no longer have to shuffle around Allen
Avenue, knowing fully well that a random pricing of the ‘goods’ on display will
attract exotic curses- which for the sake of my infant son, I am not ready to
receive.
Tinder is an app for
casual dating. It is designed such that with minimum fuss, you can see a
profile you like and register – well, your like. If they like you back and
swipe as well, then bingo! You have a match.
In other climes where it works ideally, you meet up, chat, have s3x if the chemistry is right and that’s it.
A sample Tinder profile
advertising her offering.
Tinder is available in
190 countries across the world. Here in Nigeria, it’s been stripped down to its
core and used as an app for outright prostitution.
The ubiquity of the
Internet has made everything available on demand- every human need can be met
by clicking on a button. There’s an app for food, clothing and shelter. Why not
for s3x?
The Nigerian prostitution industry is experiencing a liberalisation in its operations: why stand on the dark roads and wave at cars when you can upload half-naked photos on an app? Why negotiate with unserious customers when you can put ‘hookup only 30k’ under your profile on Tinder?
We investigated the
rise of digital prostitution through the proliferation of Internet apps,
particularly Tinder.
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