Lebanon’s Super Night Club Industry

Thanks to a post by Mark, I found the Foreign Policy article “Sex for Sale in Beirut” by Sulome Anderson.

I started reading it expecting a fluff piece bidding for the highly prized Google keywords “sex” and “Beirut”, but instead found a great piece of investigative journalism in which Anderson actually talks to various players in the industry and puts together a revealing account of how things work in Lebanon’s super night club industry. Most importantly, the piece sheds light on the government’s involvement.

The piece is so full of quotable nuggets that I couldn’t decide which one to pick for this post. Anderson may have Landed the Lebanese government (and the industry) in hot waters. There’s a reason why this article was published in Foreign Policy magazine, not say in Reader’s Digest. Depending on how you see this, the system is either a sloppy attempt by the government to regulate prostitution (which I support), or outright government-sanctioned international slave trade. It is very obvious from the article that many of the girls are held against their will, that their work is forced on them and that they lead joyless soul-crushing lives.

I recommend that you read the article and spread it. Don’t worry, people won’t think you’re a pervert if you post it on Facebook.