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Sex work on the rise in Jamaica
Diamond and 'the sweetie shop’
By Andrea Downer
THE PART-TIME farmer part-time mason spends most of his days farming or doing odd jobs around his house. He also cooks and makes fruit juices. Every night - except Fridays - *Diamond stays home with his nine-year-old son like most fathers.
But on Fridays, Diamond puts away his farm tools and transforms himself into someone his son would not recognise.
On Friday nights he is the main attraction at an erotic nightclub in the Corporate Area called 'The Sweetie Shop'. (This is not the real name of the club.)
The club opens at around 9:00 p.m. but the bulk of the patrons, who are mostly young men, do not usually turn up until after 1:00 a.m. And from 1:30 a.m. until 4:00 a.m. when Diamond, the main attraction hits the stage, the anticipation inside the dim, smoky interior is stoked by half-naked women who alternate between gyrating wildly to reggae music and gliding seductively down a sorry-looking metal pole that is in the centre of a stage area. The stage is defined from the rest of concrete floor by ceramic tiles.
EYES GLUED TO DANCERS
The dancers, in various stages of undress, take turns dancing in groups of threes and fours on stage, the eyes of the men and the few women in the club, following them hungrily. For the half hour that each set lasts, every eye in the club stays glued to them, and they know it. They exchange caresses and simulate various forms of sexual acts with each other and the patrons. At intervals, they dole out vigorous lap dances for $100.
As three o'clock approaches, the crowd, which has begun to wane, slowly begins to thicken as persons who had gone outside for fresh air return to take up strategic positions in the club. A few newcomers also join the small voyeuristic crowd and the watching and waiting continue in earnest.
Four o'clock is fast approaching. As the clock winds down, the time for their weekly treat draws nearer and the looks of concentration on their faces deepen. The sound of the club's theme song spills from the speakers and you can hear the excitement when the DJ announces that Diamond's performance is just 10 minutes away.
As the rhythmic strains of the popular rap song reverberates in the small, dimly-lit room, the atmosphere in the club becomes electrically charged. Scattered applause wobbles around the room when a crude single bed frame is brought in and squeezed in between the metal pole and the metal bars that surround the 'stage'. The cheers grow louder when a piece of sponge is brought in and flung unceremoniously onto the bed. Two of the female exotic dancers who had performed earlier come onstage in comic disguises and start circling each other. They eventually give in to the demands of the DJ for them to "spread up the bed" and pull a faded sheet out of a plastic bag and throw it onto the sponge.
CROWD DELIGHTED AT ANTICS
The women exchange kisses, much to the delight of the crowd. After about 20 minutes, the crowd grows restless and rebuffs suggestions by the club owner that the two women introduce sex toys into their act. Cries of "Diamond!" go up and a young man who had been watching the proceedings keenly from the side of the stage enters the ring and stands before the two women. One of them undresses him and when his pants are removed, a collective gasp goes up as he stands - exposed. Seats are abandoned and the crowd surges towards the stage to get a better view.
By now Diamond wears nothing but a wide grin. What follows can only be described as acrobatics. The women climb on ropes, balance on bars, fall on the floor, crawl under the bed and spread eagled, grasp the pole skillfully with one hand. Wherever they go, Diamond follows. Bathed in sweat, he grabs each of them in turn and clings to them like a second skin. The crowd loves every moment of it. For one solid hour, the trio keeps up its public performance of the very private act, discarding condom after condom until, minutes before 5:00 a.m., it becomes apparent that Diamond is spent. The crowd, evidently sated, files slowly out into the emerging dawn.
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