There are 3,000 prostitutes in the Canary Islands and researchers issue a warning over the normalisation of the activity

Girls

Some 3,000 women work as prostitutes in the Canary Islands, most of them Latin American and Spanish, according to an estimate in the first report on this activity prepared by the University of La Laguna on behalf of the Government of the Canary Islands. The professor of Sociology and Anthropology, Esther Torrado, who presented the report before the commission of the Parliament of the Canary Islands last Tuesday, has said that women and girls at risk of social vulnerability are those who are more likely to be captured for the trade, a phenomenon whose presence on the street is already infamous, due to the "diversification" of the offer with clubs, flats or through the internet. The study lasted two years and had almost 1,700 surveys carried out and the collaboration of professionals.

The usual profile of prostitutes in the archipelago is a woman in a precarious economic situation with children and relatives under her care, with little academic training and who, in the case of foreigners, must send money remittances to their country. Almost all are victims of gender violence and many have suffered sexual, physical or emotional abuse during their childhood.

Torrado points out that prostitution has mutated and bears little resemblance to what was practiced in the 70s and 80s, as international networks predominate controlling the second most economic business in the world through the "commodification" of a woman's body.

The study describes the high mobility of the activity in the islands given that clients demand variety and low prices, so 'mafias' change the offer frequently, highlighting also a high demand for services in the islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, resolved with 'shipments' from Tenerife and Gran Canaria. Clients of prostitution have a very varied profile in social and age, and in general, justify prostitution as a "necessary service", hence the activity is trivialized and minimized, because there is no empathy as prostitution has become a commodified leisure activity, just like going to buy jeans or shoes.

Pornography, the prelude to consumption

The ULL warns that young people's early exposure to pornography, through the internet and mobile devices, is a prelude to the consumption of prostitution. From there they go on to prostitution to represent their pornographic fantasies. 

Torrado has also warned that in young people there has been no affective-sexual education and that they have taken up technology so strongly, which has caught parents and educators off guard. According to the study, prostitutes distrust the administrations, because they fear that they will take custody of their children and thus prefer to to turn to charities for support.

Sex at bargain prices because of the crisis

Last year it was reported that the word "crisis" overtook the word "sex" in internet searches for the first time, so it's clear priorities have shifted. 

A recent report (via Gomeraverde) tells the tale of Mili, a prostitute in the south of Tenerife, who, before the crisis, worked 3 hours per day to obtain an average monthly income of around 3,000 euros. Now, she says, she works as many as 12 hours per day, but doesn't manage to earn over 800 euros per month.

It's reported that, because of a decrease in clients, many of the girls have been obliged to drop the prices of their services to attract "more careful" (read poorer / meaner) customers, or to accept clients they would normally refuse, advertising services at "anti-crisis prices" starting as low as 20 euros. 

Meanwhile, sex shops aren't reporting any drop in trade, saying that while people are spending less on going out, they are spending more time at home (presumably, playing with their "toys") and sexologists are reporting a boom, as couples realize that it's cheaper to seek counselling than it is to separate.

Finding a lady of negotiable affections in Tenerife

Hookers, whores, prostitutes, tarts .. Or sex workers, so it seems an acceptable "employment service" to contract and, clearly, there are plenty of er, "gentlemen" wishing to do so. One such visitor from Finland used Google to search for "tenerife prostitute price" and the unfortunate fellow ended up here. So, always aiming to, ahem ... give satisfaction (though I emphasize that my own street walking adventures in Tenerife are of the purely non-prostitute kind), I thought I would carry out a little research into this, erm, niche of the service sector.

Of course, the world's oldest profession is nothing new, even on this island.

Tenerife manages to get a mention in this book, The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts by Sian Rees, set in the 1780's and sub-titled "The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and its Cargo of Female Convicts". And the female convicts antics are compared to the notorious dock-women of Tenerife (presumably driven to prostitution through poverty) in The Fatal Shore: History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia, 1787-1868, which contains the following passage:

"Since the liaisons were free of legal ties, a settler could simply throw a convict woman out when he was tired of her. This caused a troublesome floating population of whores and unattached "disorderly women" to accumulate around Sydney Cove, whose westerly arm, "The Rocks," soon acquired a well-deserved name as the rowdiest and most dangerous thieves' kitchen in the colony. As early as 1793, these women were offending all who met them, including a Spanish lieutenant who stopped in Sydney on an exploration vessel, the Atrevida: They made "continuous seductive advances" to his crewmen, slipped them Mickey Finns, robbed them blind, and were so "degraded by vice, or rather greed" that the notorious dock-women of Tenerife paled in memory beside them."

Mostly British, French and German travellers chronicles from the 18th and 19th Centuries also reveal the invisible History of Canary Islands Women, in which,

"Some travellers also spoke of how misery drove many island women to prostitute themselves in exchange for a few coins, mainly those who did not have a man to look after them. And there are stories of how women offered themselves to sailors or a group of thirty girls, accompanied by their old mothers, who begged insistently for "the favour of an intimate conversation"."

The history of prostitution in Tenerife gets even darker when linked to politics and cult religion with "the ancient practice of religious prostitution" and the story descends even further into the murky depths when the Tenerife-born sex cult "messiah" turned killer. A fictional link to the sex trade in Christophe Honore's film Ma Mère, although critics said the Hooker's Oedipal romp was boring.

Getting finally down to business, the World Sex Guide had quote priced for these services in Tenerife, in pesetas, from 2000. Undoubtedly, these will have risen (no pun intended) since then, as they seem to in everything. Back then, the price for a 5' 10", blonde, "porn star quality" prostitute in Playa de Las Americas in Tenerife, apparently, oscillated around 30,000 Pts per hour. That equates to 180.00 Euros in today's money, which was roughly £120.00 sterling or US $220 in 2006.

World Sex Guide also informed us that "The word "whiskeria" is often used for brothel and that "Barra americana" (American bar) are bars where you can find girls. They said that the best was the "Bar de la Rosa" at the highway exit shortly after the Tenerife South Airport northbound in direction Santa Cruz de Tenerife. They didn't say when or for what, but paid 15.000 ptas (90 Euros/£60).

Nightclub The Matrix Club offers a variety of euphemistically named relaxation and escort services of varying levels of luxury and exclusiveness.

Out on the street, there are bargains to be found, although one man "blew his top at the €20 price charged by a prostitute for oral sex and tried to denounce her for over-charging", said The Western Sun Newspaper, under the headline of "Blow me! That's a bit steep!" They went on to say that, "The 48-year-old Spaniard was still complaining about the rising cost of loving as he was arrested and charged with drunk driving", after he arrived at the police station in Santa Cruz in his car, with the prostitute still in the passenger seat.

Today, around 80 percent of prostitutes working in Spain are immigrants from Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa. There is little doubt that many of the foreign prostitutes have been coerced into the trade by criminals who lured them to Spain with false promises of other jobs, as reported on numerous occasions with the headline 'Europe's brothel' - referring to Tenerife.

Certainly, there isn't and never has been, a shortage of prostitutes in Tenerife.

Travellers Chronicles Reveal Invisible History of Canary Islands Women

The chronicles of the travellers who visited the Canary Islands in the centuries XVIII and XIX have been helping investigators to uncover details of the daily life the women of the archipelago, who had surprised the foreigners with their beauty, but also by their ignorance, poverty and superstitions.

University professor and investigator in History of Education at the University of La Laguna, Teresa González, has investigated texts written by Elizabeth Murray, Piazzi Smyth, Olivia Stone, Verneau, Berthelot, Humboldt and others, to publish a book, "Las mujeres canarias en las crónicas de viajeros" (Canary Islands women in chronicles of travellers).

Outsiders' accounts have been an essential source of information about Canary Islands women in centuries past, about whom there are scarcely any historical accounts, because the past of the women of the islands is invisible: hidden.

González says it was interesting to observe how the travellers analysed Canarians from their European viewpoint. They value but also underestimate and, in some cases, ridicule the behaviour of the islanders. These travellers were mostly British, German and French and were of a "cultured class", with money, which made them look from a "position of superiority", analysing the island population as living in extreme poverty and intellectual misery. The chroniclers described people who were rough, but because they had been kept far away from knowledge. They particularly noticed that better off women were kept inside, infrequently going out into the street, unless accompanied.

Many of the travellers visiting La Laguna, La Orotava and Garachico in Tenerife, as well as Gran Canaria and Lanzaorte, spoke of empty streets and silence.

They also described scenes with peasant women laden with fruit and milk who went to market in groups, engaged in animated conversations, accompanied by children. English chronicler, Whitford's attention was drawn by the belief in witches, ghosts, apparitions and even curses, superstitions, which until recently pervaded among country women. (From my personal experience, I'd counter that these beliefs and rituals still exist in various, mostly, rural pockets.)

Many spoke of the moral order and in this respect, Brown confirmed that the morality of Canarian women was quite elevated, for instance if married they were almost always faithful, even when their husbands emigrated and they were left alone for a number of years. Single girls rarely had more than one boyfriend.

For Pegot-Ogier, the women of the Canary Islands were "uncultured, ignorant, had much less knowledge of the outside world than the men and were incapable of being the center of attention, despite their beauty".

Some travellers also spoke of how misery drove many island women to prostitute themselves in exchange for a few coins, mainly those who did not have a man to look after them. And there are stories of how women offered themselves to sailors or a group of thirty girls, accompanied by their old mothers, who begged insistently for "the favour of an intimate conversation".

La belleza y la miseria de las canarias sorprendía a los viajeros del siglo XVIII y XIX