Sex Tourism is Vile, or: Women's Studies Classes Only Make Life More Difficult, but You Should Take Them Anyway

Saturday night, we went clubbing.

We went to "Club Safari." I could write an entire semiotic analysis of that name, but I'll spare you.

There were a number sex workers lined up outside. I could write an academic defense of sex workers, neatly integrating feminist/queer and Marxist theory, but I'll spare you.

The music was almost all American, and mostly Snoop Dogg at that. I could write a feminist attack on Snoop Dogg, and a Marxist rant about global capitalism and the music industry, but I'll spare you.

The clientele consisted of:
-Sex workers
-Sex tourists
-A terrorist
-The best-dressed Cameroonians I've seen yet
-Us

I could say that the sex tourists were the ickiest, nastiest white men I've ever seen and that their comb-overs, white button-downs, expensive whiskey, and thin gold necklaces brushing against exposed chest hair just screamed Midlife Crisis, but I know better than to make such a sweeping generalization, so I'll reserve judgment.

Now, I wish that life in the United States had equipped me with any other way to describe a brown man with a dark moustache, wearing a white tunic and pants and a kaffiyeh wrapped turban-style around his head--perhaps, an "ethnically distinct person of ostensible Middle Eastern origin"--but, frankly, his behavior discouraged all such efforts. Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

Subversive little rebel that I am, when he approached me to dance, I thought, "Fuck you, George W. Bush, and your bullshit War on Terror! I am dancing with the enemy!"

But by "dancing," I mean, being totally objectified as he rubbed his penis up and down my leg. Ew, ew, ew. He asked me to leave with him. Yeah, right, sure, Mr. Terrorist, like they haven't warned little white girls like me about men like you.

Despite all that, clubbing was really, really fun.

Cameroonians love to dance and are freakin' good at it. Everyone dances with everyone--guys on girls, girls on girls, girls on guys, multiple people on each other--just not guys on guys, because homosexuality is illegal here. (Women are safe because, you know, we're not sexual creatures in the first place, so we can't be homos.)

When Cameroonians go clubbing, they deem it unsafe to leave after a certain hour and stay at the club until sunrise. I can't keep it up that long, so I made my host brother and his friend take my host sister and me home around 2:00. I was so tired I could hardly stand up, but they drove around, pointing out all the sex workers, and dragged me into a strip club.

I think they thought it was funny and were trying to shock me. Unfortunately for them, I am not easily shocked. I told them, "We have prostitutes in America, too, you know..."

The moral of the story is: I've taken several women's studies classes, which were wonderful and rewarding, but that night, they made my life a lot more difficult, because I don't know how to explain them in French.