The War Against Women : Prostitution in Vietnam
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KATHLEEN GOUGH The War Against Women Prostitution In Vietnam I AM opposed to prostitution suffer physically over a long period. sex include lust separated from because sexual relations are our most The “other reasons” for which woman tenderness, the wish to prove their intimate expression of the human usually have sex include money, job or potency, the desire to control and longings for love and ecstasy. If we career enhancement, a need for love conquer, and violent aggression. Of have sex for reasons other than desire and regard from the partner, security, course, not all these reasons are and at least some degree of tenderness, peace and quiet in the home, and equally harmful, but I think that none I think we harm ourselves spiritually, subjection to violence. The “other is desirable. quite apart from any damage we may reasons” for which men usually have In effect, and until recently in law, NUMBER TWENTY ONE, 1984 29 men have owned their wives privately, dominance. At the same time, through the villages; it was about an enjoying or at least to some extent prostitution provides a sexual outlet to eight man patrol, entered a hootch controlling their work, earnings, men who cannot afford or achieve a (peasant house). These people were reproductive power and sexuality. It wife, and allows them a sense of aware of American soldiers do to them was because most women were owned temporary possession and dominance. so naturally they tried to hide the privately, first by their fathers and then Under capitalism, the worst abuses young girls. We found one hiding in a by their husbands, that adultery and of prostitution have occurred in bomb shelter in a sort of basement in sex with an unmarried woman were colonial and neocolonial states, her house. She was taken out, raped considered crimes, as were abortion and especially during wars of conquest or by six or seven people in front of her contraception unless ordered by the counter-revolution. South Vietnam in family, in front of us and the villagers. husband or the state. At the same time, 1965-75 provided, it seems, the most This isn’t just one incident; this was the authority of working class vile example since the second world just the first one I remember. I know of husbands has always been restricted war, revealing the depths of brutality 10 or 15 such incidents least.”2 by men of the ruling classes—by of which north American society is Some of the psychologists who priests, slave owners, feudal lords or capable. For we must be clear that this later treated GIs argued such behaviour capitalists—who took the greater share brutality was north American, not was but an extreme form of everyday of the wife’s surplus produce, Vietnamese, in origin; it resulted from American male urges. Ralph Garofai, a commanded her labour, controlled her occupation by more than half a million psychologist at the centre for diagnosis children for work or warfare, and US troops engaged in the most callous and treatment of sexually dangerous encroached on her sexuality. In slave forms of modern counter-revolutionary persons, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, states and among the lowest layers of warfare. Prostitution in neocolonial reported: “The rapist is not an exotic capitalist societies such as domestic south Vietnam has to be seen in the freak; in some cases, his behavior servants, many men as well as women context of economic and political merely an extreme manifestation the have had no families, both sexes being dominance, and of mass slaughter, normal male sex drive. I don’t think under the control of men of the owning racism and rape by foreign forces. there’s a man worth his salt who hasn’t classes. A ditty that accompanied training seen some chick walking by and wanted Prostitution is the other side of the exercises in the US army typified the to screw her. The crucial distinction is coin of male dominance and class ideology taught to GIs in Vietnam. normal men find a socially acceptable oppression of women. To maintain their Soldiers would chant: outlet for their desires, while the rapist privileged position, men must have “This is my rifle (holding up an loses sight of moral and legal access to sexual pleasures that are M19) considerations.”3 usually denied their wives, yet the This is my gun (putting hand at All too often, rape preceded murder private ownership of wives makes crotch) as a standard means of terrorising adultery dangerous. There are therefore One is for killing, peasants suspected of insurgency. A “public women” to whom all men, or all The other for fun.”1 GI told Jane Fonda: “1 saw one case of one class, have access. Depending In the countryside, especially when where a women was shot by a sniper, on the mode of production or the wealth troops sought out revolutionary one of our snipers. When we got up to of the customer, such women have been guerillas, prostitution was unnecessary her she was asking for water. And the commanded at will in the temple, owned since rape was the order of the day. lieutenant said to kill her. So he ripped as slaves or concubines, rented by the Peasants and national liberation forces off her clothes. They stabbed her in month or hired by the hour or the act. reported thousands of instances, many both breasts, then spreadeagled her Prostitution implies a double of them gang rapes of individuals or and shoved an entrenching tool up her degradation of women. Prostitutes public rapes of several dozen women. vagina, and she was still asking for themselves are oppressed by their Most people know that at My Lai in water. And then they took her out and partners and usually exploited by pimps 1968, US troops killed about 400 used a tree limb and she was shot.”4 and the state governments who take civilians within a few hours. What is In the cities and the barracks, rape their taxes,while wives are crushed by less often reported is that before the was less acceptable, and GIs and the knowledge that their husbands can massacre, troops of the Third Airborne puppet troops resorted to prostitution. always resort to the favours of Brigade raped several hundread Together with drug peddling, it was prostitutes. The traditional enmity women. GI testimonies bear out the south Vietnam’s biggest business and between wives and prostitutes that freqency of rape. Joe Galbally of the source of profit. The population results helps to bolster male American Division reported: “We went provided an endless supply of 30 MANUSHI prostitutes because millions of grew worse in 1973-75 after the US chemical weapons they were forced to peasants had come to town when their troops pulled out but the puppet use. A further three quarters to one villages were destroyed and their lands government remained. As their million are in psychiatric treatment in defoliated. The population of Saigon, employment disappeared and US hospitals.8 Many more are unable to in particular, increased from 400,000 to imports dried up, thousands of people adjust to civilian life, continually four million during the US occupation. started or had to resort to theft or reliving the nightmares of slaughter Thousands more were marched from lowgrade whoring. Girls of 10 to 12 and sexual brutality to which they were their villages and herded as prisoners were often sold by their families to the inured. in strategic hamlets to separate them highest bidder. When south Vietnam was liberated from the revolutionary forces. The GIs also paid their price. Out in April 1975, the country had at least Women were kidnapped by of 2.8 million troops who went to half a million prostitutes. Most were Vietnamese pimps, sold by starving Vietnam, 56,690 died there. Some were drug addicts. All of them were reported families, or beguiled with promises of killed by prostitutes while in bed with to have one or another venereal American consumer goods. Every rank and type was available. The highest, employed as concubines or callgirls by officers, often underwent cosmetic surgery to have their eyes rounded, cheeks and chins dimpled, hips padded and breasts stuffed with silicone. Lower down were the women whom GIs rented by the month from pimps to serve as domestic servants, laundresses and sexual slaves. Liberty Street, the red light district of Saigon, had more than 2,000 agencies recruiting or kidnapping girls from the provinces to serve in the 21,000 bars, hotels and whorehouses. Prostitutes crowded every street corner before curfew hour. Pimps drove around hundreds of them on the backs of motor cycles, offering them at bargain rates.5 Some facilities provided multiple services, for example, garages with signs saying “Car wash and get screwed.”6 Sin City, just outside the Pleiku base, was made up of tents with 15 or 20 beds. Prostitutes worked in shifts, receiving the equivalent of one dollar per customer. In each major city, pimps maintained hundreds of prostitutes, who were sometimes imprisoned in underground cells policed by thugs. Each evening, helicopters took scores of them to the camps of troops on operations. Officers were allowed one prostitute apiece; five to seven soldiers shared one girl per night. The women were ferried back them. Since the rest came home, another disease. Immediately, the Women’s next morning, broken and bruised in 57,000 have committed suicide. A Union, which has branches in every body and spirit.7 known 110,000 have died of cancer, no district, began the work of rescue and If anything, the plight of prostitutes doubt from defoliants and other rehabilitation.