Sex workers turn a naked lens on their lives

Sex workers turn a naked lens on their lives

Menghadang Mentari pun tak Peduli: Cerita tentang perasaan-
perasaan oleh Pekerja Seks Komersial (They Do Not Even Care to
Face the Sun: A Story About Feelings of Commercial Sex Workers)
A photo sketch by Bandungwangi
Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, 1997
176 pp

JAKARTA (JP): In the stillness of night, a row of women waits
at a drinking den in North Jakarta.

Outside, several men glance around them before entering. They
sit down with the women, but there is none of the awkwardness of
usual first meetings.

They converse with the intimacy of old friends.

As soon as dangdut music plays, several men move to the dance
floor, joined moments later by women. Even the thick haze of
cigarette smoke does not spoil their fun.

There is no holds barred, no reason for shyness. Each woman
knows her "duty" -- to meet the visitors, keep them company and
provide them with the "best" service, whatever that may entail.

This is one of the stories, told in pictures, from this book.
Fourteen sex workers took the photos with simple pocket cameras.
The book was edited by Yayasan Kusuma Buana in cooperation with
the Bandungwangi, a group of sex workers active in the campaign
against the spread of HIV, the virus which leads to Acquired
Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Of course, any discussion on the transmission of HIV should
not be limited to general assumptions on the "fate" of sex
workers.

It is rather a question of what they think and feel. Are their
dreams any different from the rest of us?

In its explicit and clear way, this photojournal answers these
inquiries, showing the daily lives of sex workers to keep
customers happy, and their desires to have a steady life partner
and to share love and have children.

"Oh, God, help this humble servant of yours," writes one of
the women. "Find a partner for me so that I can repent. Because I
become more and more frightened by AIDS... "

And while the disease remains high on priorities of activists,
it may be the case that the public and sex workers are fed up
with parroted imposition of information on the dangers and
prevention of AIDS/HIV, the same old messages from year to year.

A different strategy and new method are apparently necessary
to spread information about dangers of the virus to sex workers
and the public.

This book, representing realities without pretensions to
anything more, is on target for both groups.

Concerns for photographic technique should be overlooked, or
else the desire to read through the book would stop on the first
few pages.

The editor for graphs and photos, Kindy Marina, admitted the
workers were only skilled to use unsophisticated cameras.

"The important thing is the intention. The important thing is
that we want to try," said Darmi, a sex worker and a Bandungwangi
member.

The absence of explanatory captions for the photographs is
also part of the naked, nonjudgmental view of the workers' lives.

"We do not want you to be influenced by subtitles. We free
you from instinctive emotions and responses in order to derive
the meaning of each photograph," Marina added.

The book is not merely about how HIV can infect sex workers.
It goes further, providing a graphic illustration of how these
women pay the price for their lives through social condemnation.

They must bear this ostracism with patience and grudging
resignation.

This work, lacking judgments and moralistic attitudes, invites
us to take a non-voyeuristic peep into the world of the workers,
their customers and their daily lives in a community that is
pluralistic in many ways.

Yayasan Kusuma Buana, through Bandungwangi, set out to
acquaint us with these realities through photographs. This
documentation presented no easy task, even for those of us who
are photojournalists.

Lives of sex workers are often considered too distant from the
experiences of most of us. Conversely, understandable prejudice
of sex workers against prying from the moralistic outside has
been another hindrance.

The fact that there is a designated agency handling issues
involving sex workers often makes us feel there is no need to
become involved in their affairs.

This work is not a standard, carefully ordered photographic
essay. Groupings appear arbitrary, but in themselves they provide
a powerful overview of the complex social interactions in these
communities.

A group of women seated waiting for customers is followed by a
photograph of a man peering into the lens. A man guzzles beer in
the ensuing photo, which in turn is followed by a view of a child
waiting outside.

This nonsequential order is the pattern throughout the book.

Verses accompanying the photographs mostly express pessimism
on stark realities of life. A few give thanks for small
blessings.

"But I was grateful that in my poverty I could make my family
happy," a woman writes. "I was also touched when my mother woke
me in the morning to go to the mosque and join the ied prayer."

The book's images whittle away the comfortable distance
allowed by dismissing sex workers as a "social" problem, and AIDS
as a disease of "them", not "us". It puts a human face on the
lives of these women, some of whom are still in their teens.

-- Maria Sandra

The writer is a Jakarta-based freelance journalist.