The Democratization of Vice

"Sitting inside Bethlehem Chapel, on Bethlehem Square in Prague’s Old Town a few weeks ago, listening to the church organ, it was impossible not to think of
prostitutes.
Just before visiting the church, I had read that in the mid–1400s, a Czech reformer named Jan Milíč had converted prostitutes who were working in that area, and with the reformed local prostitutes, Milíč started a religious community called Jerusalem, on the spot where Bethlehem Chapel now stands.
Over 500 years later, the area nearby Bethlehem Chapel is still bursting with prostitutes. There is something about this area. Under communism, and now capitalism, even though the city’s police headquarters is just one block away, nothing can deter the persistent sense of vice that looms in the air, especially down its infamous red-light street, Perlová.
More than a decade since the transition to democracy began, Czechs remain disappointed with the state of things. This is not breaking, nor even heart-breaking, news. People all around the world are disappointed with the society around them.
Disappointment implies that there once was hope, an expectation, and this is precisely the word I heard from one of the first Czechs I met, soon after arriving in Prague in 1990. After leading me to the old Koruna Automat at Můstek, Ivan, a decent looking guy in his 40s, quickly explained to me how much and why he had hated the Communists, and how now he didn’t necessarily hate the new government, but yet he felt a great “disappointment” with democracy.
After downing a few beers and describing his disappointment with life in general, despite his newly acquired freedom, Ivan explained to me what it was that he still yearned for, yet could not buy. He wanted, but could not afford to pay for, a whore.
Ivan was obsessed with whores and could not forgive the Communists for making prostitutes unobtainable for him — for all men like him. The common working guys.
He told me that under communism,
whores were only available to high-level Communists, foreign diplomats, and those staying in hotels exclusive to foreigners. He told me how he used to pace as inconspicuously as possible back and forth in front of the hotels on Wenceslas square, just to catch glimpses of the hookers lounging around inside.
Then why didn’t you just become a high-level Communist, I asked?
He had no answer. And when the Velvet Revolution finally came around, he admitted that he was one of the thousands protesting on the square. But while others chanted “Freedom,” “Democracy,” “Down with Communism,” he just flat out screamed.
I have no idea whether Ivan was married, with kids, or not. I wouldn’t even recognize him on the street. I can only imagine him now. No words coming out, just noise, and in his heart, he was jubilantly yelling out, Whores Whores Whores!
Since I was talking to Ivan almost one year after the revolution, it was hard for me to understand why it was still so impossible for him to buy a whore. Anyone could see them along Perlová, day or night, and this street was just minutes away from where we were standing. And if he didn’t want a streetwalker, Prague already had lots of discos filled with women, who, at least to me, were dressed and cooed like whores.
He pointed out that whores could recognize that he was Czech, and they just
assumed he didn’t have as much money as a foreigner to pay for their services. And they were right. But this made it even worse for him than before. It was a more personal humiliation.
When I refused to believe that women on Perlová would turn him (or any man) away, he replied. “Okay so they don’t
ignore me. But that is because they are not even Czech. I want a Czech whore, a white woman…,” he repeated over and again.
My talk with Ivan, more than ten years ago, has been reverberating in my mind, as Prague today is a city crammed with commercialized vice. And no longer is it just for foreigners. Newstands throughout town openly sell Czech adult magazines and revues with titles like Perverse, 69, and Ecstasy; the city is littered with flyers for local strip clubs and brothels. Sections of the city, far and beyond the little quarter around Perlová, resemble Las Vegas or the Sunset Strip in Hollywood with neon signs for casinos and strip shows. And this is not just in Prague.
On a recent weekend family outing with my partner and our toddler son, driving through the picturesque countryside near Mělník, we were surprised to see pink
day-glo posters lining the street, promoting Latex and Sado-Maso shows. The next day, entering Doksy, a pleasant Czech
resort town along Mácha Lake, we were greeted by a massive billboard advertising live sex and a non-stop strip show. Is this where I would find Ivan today?
Milan Kundera dealt with the Ivans of
his generation differently. Kundera’s Czechoslovakia under communism was a hot bed of sex. His path to escape a
stifling society was simple: have an affair. Not just that: have an affair with the Communist party boss’ neglected wife who lives next door. I’m tempted to put Ivan into this scope but cast as a loser. Unable to mastermind seductions like a Kundera character, Ivan is stuck with a dull life in a grey world without hope, and without a lover. He can only envision an escape into the world of whores, and these forbidden fruits become his obsession.
This scenario works fine in a closed society, as it was before 1989. Ivan is pathetic, but not necessarily contemptible. Fast forward to the present, where sexual vice is abound. Ivan may not even be interested in the demi-monde anymore, since the mafia has moved in with an organized enslavement and trafficking ring of women for prostitution. He even begins to feel embarrassed, sometimes, by how crassly sex sells in his country. On top of this, he is fed up with the heavy influx of foreigners, whether prostitutes, pimps, or tricks.
Sex tourism did boom after 1989, and it’s still alive and kicking strongly today; in northern Bohemia, the border zone along Germany is too bewildering to even include here. Foreign journalists have already beaten this theme over the heads of everyone. On another level, however, Czechs have had to reform relations among themselves at all levels of society since 1989: in schools, in relations with the government, in the workplace, and in the marketplace. Re-establishment of the private negotiations between citizens, men and women, in one of the oldest trades in history was inevitable.
We all have our vices and most of us would be better off keeping them private, as I very much intend to do here; however, it’s important to keep in mind that vice goes hand and hand with democracy. This is not to say that democratic states or segments of their societies don’t ever try to impose morals on others; they constantly try, but fortunately, compared to authoritarian and totalitarian states, they can’t be as effective in setting up one big government vice squad, controlling all aspects of society.
In the Czech Republic today, the appetite for sexual kink and perversity seems to be unusually high. Not just the aggressive street and sidewalk promotion of vice leaves me with this impression. One of Czech TV’s most popular shows, Little Feather, interviews assorted sexual deviants, strippers, and sexologists in a genial talk show atmosphere. For breaks between guests, the show plays clips of American or European porn, or shows interviews of others working in adult entertainment. On the same channel, Nova, every night around midnight, a beefy guy or a slim young woman enters the screen naked, then proceeds to dress appropriate to the next day’s forecast. It’s a reverse striptease. I admit that not all Czechs appreciate this programming, but neither is anyone up in arms about these shows. When taken into consideration, how vice was pervasively repressed for most of the last forty years, this relative openness and non-moralistic “whatever turns you on” attitude today actually represents a minor sexual revolution.
Freedom is nothing but the distance
between the hunter and the hunted.
—Bei Dao

Back when Prague seemed to have a funky, rundown cinema in every neighborhood, I would see movies as often as I could, especially matinees. I’d go to see anything, in any language, even though I couldn’t understand Czech subtitles. Just absorbing the interiors and atmosphere of these cinemas, especially those outside of the center, was often more entertaining than the film.
For a period, there was a series of films by the Italian director Tinto Brass that filled cinemas like none I’ve ever seen, anywhere. For those who don’t know Tinto Brass, his films (circa 1970s–1980s) generally feature fleshy, sexy Italian women,
usually strutting up and down beaches, flirting like wild — cleavage and butt shots galore. Men of all ages in these films mostly ogle, but some also get some action. The sex scenes in a Brass film are not excessive, and not explicit. Brass’ films have a peculiar style; they are humorous with silly plots, but not as moronic and predictable as American beach and boob films (circa 1970s to present) for horny male teens.
I’ll admit that I like Tinto Brass films, but not necessarily for the reasons above. There is also an artistic touch to each of his films, and I’ve recently come to realize how much he has influenced contemporary art. In particular, perhaps the hottest name in New York gallery circles, today, is an Italian named Vanessa Beecroft.
Beecroft creates photo spectacles using emotionless nude women, usually models, with apparently no erotic point to her work. One of her most well-known shots lines up about forty women, standing at attention and in formation like soldiers, totally nude but for their knee-high, black marching boots. You could think that the piece is either a jab at fascism, or an ode to the
director Luis Bunuel. However, if you were to watch one of Brass’ more serious (soft-erotica with a socio-political element) films, specifically Salon Kitty, you’d notice that Beecroft’s “ground-breaking” shot was taken from a scene in this film. This in no way discredits her work; rather, Brass films have taken on another dimension.
What made screenings of Tinto Brass films especially appealing to me, in 1990–91, was the mixed crowd. Not at all restricted to the loner, sweaty middle-aged male crouched up in his seat; instead the audience was full of cuddling couples, lovers young and old, even curious seniors. And most noticeably, everybody was having fun watching the movie. People were laughing out loud, making jokes; the only interactive experience in a cinema that I have had to match this atmosphere of Czechs watching a Tinto Brass film was seeing earlier Spike Lee films in American cinemas filled with young African-Americans. That too, as you can imagine, can get pretty loud. In these two cases, the packed room of exuberant movie-goers totally enhanced the film.

Czechs were packing the halls to see Tinto Brass at the same time that George Bush Sr., U.S. President, made his ceremonious visit to Prague. Bush and his predecessor in office, Ronald Reagan, were like rock stars to the Czechs, and Bush’s speech on Wenceslas Square in 1990 was such a call to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that it drove the Czechs wild in the streets. It became a New Year’s Eve celebration, without the cherry bombs and fireworks. For hours after Bush’s speech, the square was full of drunken revelry and wanton kissing.
Blocks from the square, the med school dorm where I was staying even had a post-Bush party with an alcohol and acid-spiked punch. For me, that party capped the whole élan of the city. The tape played repeatedly that night in the student club was the soundtrack to Easy Rider. For a brief time, there was such a remarkable openness to anything new and Western, epitomized by the message in this film. This period was also, needless to say, quite decadent. When I see so many grumpy faces on the metro nowadays, I sometimes wonder if everyone still isn’t just hung over from the festivities of 1990 and 1991.
Days after Bush’s homage to freedom and the pursuit of happiness, I went to visit someone in Paris. My friend there did her best to show me everything that had to be seen and experienced in her city, famous for both culture and sleaze. She took me to the Louvre, the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried, the Bastille, and Montmarte though we didn’t bother to see a cancan show at the Moulin Rouge. Instead, she took me to one of the most unusual parks I’ve ever visited in my life. It was a bustling zone of fancy cars, taxis honking, all cruising by topless streetwalkers. (I had thought they were women, but now I’m uncertain.) While I didn’t actually notice this aspect at the time, I’ve recently been told by a very well-informed source, that this park’s speciality is Brazilian she-males. Le Bois de Boulogne is not strictly for transvestites but it is
mostly known for this. In any case, the park is an amazing sight to behold; it’s a carnival of vice. The French hookers were all topless, some even naked, (not counting high heels).
I’m only citing this experience in Paris so the reader does not have the impression that I’m singling out the Czechs as having a kind of “rogue” hedonistic state. The point, again, is that vice is a part of life; it has always been with us, throughout
human history, and in practically all civilizations. It’s not just that Czechs have now become as “bad” as any other modern nation; if we simply look at the history of Perlová in Prague, we see that it has never been and perhaps will never be
possible to suppress vice.
Communism in Europe tried and failed to completely repress vice. Perhaps if the nomenklatura had kept their noses out of citizen’s private affairs, and dealt solely with economic or strictly public matters, the economy and society itself would not have been such a failure. There could even be a moral here for democracies.
One weekend, in Prague, I saw about 50 motorcycles, only a few choppers,
cruising along the Vltava river embankment with police escorts. At first I thought it was another of the shiny motorcycle clubs from Germany. But this group turned out to be the most raggedy motorcycle caravan I’ve ever seen. Bikes varied from Harley to whatever. A few of the hogs flew American flags. It was a procession of Czech riders led and followed by beatup, 1970s Cadillacs hoisting a large banner which read “Vltava Ride.”
For the first time ever, I felt misty-eyed seeing American flags waving. Watching the riders pass, some with tube-topped girlfriends hugging on tightly, I felt that the whole Easy Rider lifestyle is just as responsible for bringing down the Iron Curtain, as politicians like Ronald Reagan or Mikhail Gorbachev. Dennis Hopper and Frank Zappa were certainly more inspiring to many adult Czechs than someone like George Bush.
Coincidentally, the next evening, Czech public TV showed Easy Rider. The description of the film in one TV guide uncannily connects to the whole theme in this essay. TV Magazine wrote (in Czech), “Freedom is a whore, and we ride on without a care.”"

01.02.2002