Ships, shipping, seamen and sex work

The tradition of inviting prostitutes onto ships at anchor is old. Nowadays, many of these invitations apply to ships anchored some distance from actual ports. Migration regulations being what they are, many seamen cannot go ashore – visas might never be granted or be too much trouble to try to apply for. Therefore, it’s common for recreation to be brought on board. A few years back I visited the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Colombia, where I met people who try to make money when ships arrive and seamen want to party. Someone on the ship rings up a contact on shore who puts out the call to meet at a certain small boat that will sail out to the side of the freighter. A lot of these are young women, some are young men, some are older and a lot of them are poor. Climbing up the precarious rope ladder above the sea onto the deck is a necessary requirement.

Parties last days, fun is had by some, money is paid to some, and sometimes these groups overlap. A lot of it is about drink, drugs, food and music. Most people who board ships to share leave with sailors do not call themselves prostitutes or sex workers. They are party girls who like long hedonistic sieges and who accept gifts when it’s time to go home, and they are known the world over.

To meet seafarers who do have permission to disembark, sex workers and folks with no such identity make their way to port bars when ships come in, sometimes migrating from the interior.

11 thoughts on “Ships, shipping, seamen and sex work

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  4. Ted Cheng

    vice versa, i heard because drug and sex work are not legal at certain countries, so some people (or rich people) from the countries will ride or hire a boat to the open sea area to have drug or sex in order to avoid the legal inspection? But i am not sure, is it true?

    Reply
  5. Laura Agustin

    Gambling and banking are other activities that can take place on ships outside the boundary marking a country’s legal territory. Whatever happens out there comes under the jurisdiction of international law, I believe.

    But the ships I’m talking about anchor not that far away…

    Reply
  6. Mark

    There’s a good book about this phenomenon called “Sugar Girls & Seamen: A Journey into the World of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa” by Henry Trotter. It takes an ethnographic approach to researching sex work in this peculiar, “marginal” space, something I’m sure you’d appreciate. Congrats on your success!

    Reply

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