The History of Sex: Prague -- 'No Kissing and No Licking' -- (Chapter X, Part 29)

After collecting a towel at the bar, Linda leads me down a dark passageway past the beach hut, another Christmas tree and the fake fireplace in the back bar.

The red bedroom is fitted with a blue light that makes the white sheet glow eerily as she lays it on the bed.

Linda points toward the cubicle in the corner and asks if I want a shower.

Instead, I tell her I just want to talk. Maybe it's my pride, my upbringing or fear of the Latin South African, but I don't ask her to fulfill her side of the bargain.

'Is it true that most girls save kissing for their boyfriends?' I ask.

'You have to have something to make different between work and love. No kissing and no licking.' 

'Licking?'

Naïf that I am, I imagine some guy trying to lick her face.

She points between her legs. 'No licking here.'

Ohhh.

Linda claims she's studied economics but went on the game after getting into debt.

She's worked in clubs for a total of two years now, taking month-long breaks at a time.

'This work is very difficult for your mind. For many people, Prague is a big city. But for me, in this work, it is very small. Sometimes I see clients on the tram and I have to hide to make sure they don't see me. Many people like to live in Prague, but I would like to go back to my village to live.'

And marry and have kids?

'Yes. Someday.'

But not to a foreigner.

'Because when you divorce, he might take the kids to his country,' she reasons. 'Your friend wants to make photos of me for erotic modeling, but that is different from this job. I do this job for money. But photos, anybody can see. When I'm finished with this, the chapter is closed.'

* * *

The History of Sex: Prague -- Pervy Pidgin -- (Chapter X, Part 28)

Determined to pimp me, in effect, he asks me to pick the hottest whores in the joint.

I nod towards a sultry pair who look like they don't want to be here, either.

'I'm starting to like brunettes, too,' he agrees quickly. 'With dark hair and skin—that gypsy kind of look.'

I don't know what he's talking about—I wouldn't recognize a gypsy unless she had a headscarf and crystal ball—but there's no doubt the two girls are gorgeous—especially the one with the butterscotch hair and matching eyes.

John's more than happy to invite her over for a drink, informing me that her name's Linda and she's twenty-four.

'She's nice—and she's got big tits!'

He's more than happy to say this to her face, lavishing praise on her cleavage the moment she joins us, telling her in pervy pidgin how much he'd love to take photos of her for 'erotic modeling.'

And it's at precisely this point that I begin to feel sorry for her.

She obviously resents the degradation but needs the money, and here's this creep trying to wear her down even though she's said no.

So I decide to get her alone.

And the most obvious way to do that in a brothel—while also getting a peek at the rooms—is to buy an hour of Linda's time.

The going rate is about 2,400 crowns—not even $100.

The History of Sex: Prague -- I Blame Gauguin -- (Chapter X, Part 27)

Noting my discomfort, John reckons we should double back to a place called Sweet Paradise, yet another oasis of kitsch in a concrete desert, a pseudo-tropical bar burrowed into a wintry grey street.

Not for the first time on my journey, I can't help but wonder: why do sex clubs have to be so tacky? Why do plastic palm trees and Pavlovian neon signal SEX to the male psyche?

Personally, I blame Gauguin, the artsy stockbroker who ditched his day job in Paris for a life of getting laid in paradise.

Unfortunately, he took his syphilis with him, sharing it with the fourteen-year-olds he purchased with sweets and alcohol until his running sores made him so repulsive even the poorest Tahitians wouldn't touch him.

Paul Gauguin's portrait of Tehura, his 14-year-old 'wife'
in Spirit of the Dead Watching

His paintings, now in every major gallery on the planet, are like The Picture of Dorian Gray in reverse: immortalizing an innocent sexual Eden, whereas the reality was sordid and syphilis-ridden, thanks to colonialist cretins like him.

Since Gauguin, the tiki-plasticky look has been the décor de rigueur of dodgy clubs and cocktail bars around the world.

In its own way, Sweet Paradise, promising 'luxurious ambience and almost family atmosphere,' is more surreal—and depressing—than anything Kafka ever dreamt up.

Outside, it's Christmas in the Old Country; inside, it's the Land of the Yuletide Luau, with a full-scale beach hut in the corner adorned with a snowman and accompanying conifer.

A dozen prostitutes sit drinking and smoking on the ledge lining the lounge, facing the few men on hand with expressions ranging from bored apprehension to fabricated lust.

John reckons he's getting the evil eye from the Queen of the Brothel, a pretty enough twenty-year-old, though her hair's so bleached you wonder if it's fallen out in clumps and been superglued back onto her head.

'She's one of the most popular girls here. Clients end up feeling sorry for her,' he laughs. 'She doesn't want to be here. She's got a kid.'

John knows this because he and Martina used to be an item.

'To have someone who you liked as a boyfriend, and who kind of liked you as a girlfriend, pimping you—well, it's not very nice.'