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Sugar Girls & Seamen
http://www.sugargirlsandseamen.com
Sugar Girls & Seamen explores the world of dockside prostitution in South Africa. Based on research by Yale student Henry Trotter, it examines the social dynamics of sex work by local prostitutes with foreign sailors.
Recent Posts
History of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa
While preparing my forthcoming book, Sugar Girls & Seamen, I researched and wrote an article about the history of dockside prostitution in South Africa. This exercise gave me greater insights into the reality I was encountering at the seamen's clubs ...
Kinky Sex on the Dockside?
Though you might think that all sex workers are sexually adventurous, many dockside sugar girls cling to a host of idiosyncratic sexual taboos. Some refuse oral sex, others kissing, and most balk at anal play. (These taboos can change if they're drun...
Madams, Mama-sans or Matriarchs?
On my first visit to one of the Cape Town dockside nightclubs, I saw a woman in her fifties dancing with a group of younger girls. She was dressed in a mini-skirt and already drunk. When I asked a barmaid who she was, she said, "She's the pimp of tho...
Gay Prostitutes and Horny Sailors
Cape Town is probably the gay-friendliest city in Africa. Everyone loves pink in the Mother City. At the seamen's nightclubs, three gay guys sometimes make themselves available for manly romance. But they're not quite prostitutes: one is a taxi drive...
Why Don't Prostitutes Abort Their Fetuses?
Since the mid-1990s, abortion has been legal in South Africa. But you wouldn't know it if you went to the dockside nightclubs where local prostitutes solicit foreign sailors. At any one time, there's always a handful of pregnant ladies hustling the s...
Navigating Risk
Lessons From the Dockside Sex Trade for Reducing Violence in South Africa's Prostitution IndustryDuring my research into dockside prostitution in Cape Town and Durban, I found that sex workers who catered to foreign sailors faced a reduced risk of vi...


An interesting study into a side of life that none really wish to explore, or experience, themselves. Well done Henry!
Posted: March 7th, 2009 | More Reviews From Melisende | Report This Comment