He had to support his family and couldn’t find a job that gave him enough, not even to buy food, clothing and rent a small house where he could see his children grow up. He was born in Niquero, in Cuba’s eastern end.
“It’s a job like any other,” says Daynier, a young man who tries to explain to me the difference between a male prostitute and him, who also does not accept being called a pinguero, which is what the young men of the sex trade are called in Cuba.ĭaynier is twenty-six years old. With a pair of jeans and a tight-fitting shirt over a buffed-up body, one can get enough to live on, and even to support one’s family. To sell one’s body near the Payret cinema, one need not be as sophisticated as the taxi-boys that abound in the vicinity of luxury hotels. The crowd looks fairly uniform, but it is in fact made up of well-defined groups of people: those who have, those who have little and those who hope to get lucky that afternoon or late into the night. Just about everyone passes through those two areas: tourists who have their pictures taken in front of the Capitolio, where the Cuban Senate once convened, common Cubans who wait for hours for a bus to take them home after a day at work (which was just as exhausting as the wait), others who have a bit more money and go into and come out of stores or line up at the entrance of a luxury restaurant.
In contrast to La Rampa, located in the very heart of Vedado, or the more popular discos in Miramar, the Payret and Parque Central sidewalks are the areas where Havana’s cheapest prostitutes work. If they don’t, they are sent back to their provinces of origin in the interior, and there isn’t much they can do there, at least nothing to feed their hopes that they will one day be able to stop selling their bodies. They also have to pay to be there, making a buck. They have to buy the documents they need to stay in Havana for at least six months and bribe the police so they won’t detain them for harassing tourists. They have to eat and pay the rent, after all. They are willing to do whatever is asked of them.Ĭubans are charged a little less than yumas (foreigners), but these working kids will bargain with anyone if they’ve gone many days without taking in enough. When a group of tourists nears, the young men and women prepare for battle: they straighten out their clothes, take out cigarettes, ask for a light, smile, make suggestive gestures. An hour or an entire night of pleasure, or all the time needed to satisfy the lustful cravings of those who pay.Īs night falls, the crowd begins to grow and the competition becomes more intense. The young men and women sell themselves for nearly nothing. HAVANA TIMES - The afternoon settles in Havana and young people who sell their bodies begin to throng on the sidewalk in front of the Payret cinema.