Subcomandante Marcos: a mask on his face and condoms in his market
CounterPunch just reprinted a fascinating piece by Uruguayan journalist Raul Zibechi about Mexico’s Brigada Callejera de Apoyo a la Mujer (Street Brigade in Support of Women). It’s part of the Mexican Sex Work Network collective, which works with prostitutes and transvestites. “This has meant transcending the ‘victim’ role and becoming people who want to be recognized as workers by their peers,” says Zibechi, “not seen as beings who have ‘fallen’ into the world’s oldest profession.” The Zapatista’s Subcomandante Marcos has met with the organization and praised their activities.
Zibechi describes how the group runs its own hotels and health clinics for sexoservidores, the Spanish word for sex workers. It finances these efforts through condom sales, and Zibechi wrote a sidebar detailing how the network runs that business. Counterpunch didn’t run the sidebar, so I’m copying it, below, from its original venue, the Center for International Policy – a great think tank in New Mexico that does radical analysis of the political economy of Latin America and how it’s affected by globalization and neoliberalism.
Here’s Zibechi’s condom sidebar, with some pictures from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America that I’ve collected from the web:
A Question of Charm
The sale of condoms is the main source of financing for the diverse projects of the Mexican Sex Work Network. Choosing the type of condom alongside design and name becomes a form of claiming ownership of the instrument of work and protection, and was left up to the ideas of prostitutes and transvestites.
“When we began the AIDS-protection program,” remembers Elvira, “we realized that price was one of the main problems. For older ladies, to spend 25 pesos on a condom was to invest almost everything they had charged the client.” Firstly they looked for donations from the State, which through CENSIDA, the organization dedicated to the fight against AIDS, donated them 60,000 condoms a month. “But when we began to report cases of corruption they reduced that to 3,600 condoms.”
They began to visit various distributors and factories and found that, in exact opposite to what market laws should indicate, buying in bulk raised the prices. They got in contact with a manufacturer who agreed to sell to them at the same price as to pharmacies and other distributors. “We nearly fell over in shock. He sold us condoms at 75 cents (about US$.07) each but in the pharmacies they’re 12 pesos ($1), that is 15 times the price of the cost,” Elvira says.
The Network began to distribute condoms at the price of one peso each, and with that profit they managed to subsidize almost all the projects, but particularly the clinics that consumed the bulk of their resources. “Before putting them on sale we spoke to the compañeras, we did workshops to see what they wanted, because some condoms smelled very bad or irritated because they contained harmful substances. They themselves suggested the name “El Encanto” (The Charm) to the three-month long debate process in which hundreds of sex workers chose between 20 brands.” The brand had to be attractive for both the client and for themselves. Currently, they sell three million a year.
But the transvestites decided not to use the chosen condom because it wasn’t suited to their needs. “They said it’s very thin and they were right, because it was designed for vaginal use and it would break when they used it.” They found a stronger and more lubricated condom and started the same debate as the women had had. In the end they decided to print the rainbow of sexual diversity on it, and a pink triangle. “They chose the name Triángulo (Triangle) because that’s the symbol with which the Nazis stigmatized homosexuals, so in that way they adopted it as a tribute,” says Elvira.
They failed with the female condom. A few years ago they began to import it from England until a multinational company realized that the Mexican market was growing and withdrew the Network’s permission to distribute. In effect, the market is very monopolized. “While in the world there are 67 condom factories, there’s just one for female condoms. We have to wait for there to be more competition,” says Elvira, with irony.
Subcomandante Marcos is El Encanto’s most famous supporter. In Mexico there is a long history of “condom fairs.” In November 2005 the 50th National Condom Festival was celebrated in Mexico City’s central plaza and in various states local annual fairs are held to raise money for organizations linked to sex work. Recently the first “virtual condom store” made its debut on www.elencantodelcondon.com.