Dubai's sex industry - a snapshot of four days of fun

March 2010

Dubai which is in the midsts of a recession like much of the rest of the world is a very curious but interesting place. An Islamic society exhibiting many (but not all) the trappings of the decadent west. But as recent news stories show, even kissing on the lips in public, or sending suggestive texts to each other can get you into trouble.

Arriving there, the first thought that came to mind was that this place, with its tall, extraordinary and mostly tasteless architecture on either side of Sheikh Zayed Road, looked a bit like Las Vegas and it's strip. Look closer and you realise that Vegas does not have a 12 lane freeway running down the middle of it with vehicles beeping along at 120km/h plus. The beeps being the sound every vehicle has to make when it is driven faster than the maximum speed limit there.

Dubai's Freeway, effectively splits the town in two. There are limited crossings and a failure to leace at the right point leads to frustrating detours with no guarantee you will ever get back to where you wanted to be. Many crossing are under consstruction but the local press recently found one road tunnel that the local transport authority claimed not to know about!

Unlike the Vegas Strip, Dubai does not have casinos, or strip joints or any of the other adult play places that allows Vegas to say "what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas". At first sight, it does not look like a lot "goes on" in Dubai - but as I set out to discover, it does.

Prostitution is common and seems to be marketed in all the usual ways, nightclubs full of working girls, Internet sites and even girls on the street outside (or inside) hotels. As I talked to some of these working girls, I learnt of their customers, their business, who runs things and how and actually really got to like one of them very much.