Of late, when scrolling through social media platforms, adverts of AI-generated people giving hints about residential hotels and the ‘safety’ they offer for couples are becoming common. There isn’t any obscene language, but the suggestive tone says it all: if you want some privacy with a companion, this is the place to go.
Also on social media are several video footages, taken mostly by online media bodies, about police crackdowns at hotels, spa centres and other establishments which were allegedly being used for what is commonly referred to as ‘anti-social’ activity.
On one hand, the relentless adverts on social media; on the other, the crackdowns. The footage shows young people detained at such hotels and other establishments trying to hide their faces, with others preventing them from doing so. The moral reprimands are often heard, laced sometimes with sarcasm.
Needless to say, these images carry the embarrassment of those caught, while for many social media viewers, keenly following such drives and raids, there is, sorry to be blunt, an unmistakably titillating factor. If there’s perverse pleasure, then go no further!
To be honest, raids at hotels and establishments that are covers for something else take place in almost all big cities across the globe. The euphemism ‘guest friendly’ is a commonly used term in many countries to send a thinly veiled invitation.
However, in Bangladesh, the aggressive marketing ploys of ‘abashik hotel’ (residential hotel) expose a predatory social creed, leaving a damning indictment of stark ethical degradation.
From small business cards to AI-generated ads
To look at the dubious hotel trade which has mushroomed in and around Dhaka, one needs to go back several years when small cards with phone numbers, with the name of a person in bold letters, used to be strewn across the footbridges of Farmgate, Mirpur and Gulistan. Curious, people picked them up to read.
The advert said it all: if one wanted to stay in a hotel, then the person named on the card with the epithet ‘Bhai’ had to be contacted. A smaller line below added: all services are provided. Unless one was totally naïve, the inner meaning was all too clear. These so-called ‘abashik hotels’ are in fact brothels, and providing accommodation to a general visitor to the city is hardly their main business. The cards, which began appearing at Farmgate, were soon spotted in other areas of town, with the university campuses becoming the final target.
No one saw or sees the person (s) tasked with placing the cards on the pedestrian walkway, giving credence to the speculation that they must have been placed late at night.
What began with cards around four years ago has seen a seedy evolution of sorts, because today, the same adverts are appearing on social media platforms with AI-generated characters. With heightened glamour quotient laced with a heavy dose of seduction, the allure transforms from plain business cards to digital razzmatazz. When the number given on the card is called, the response is swift and, on the phone, several subtle and, sometimes, obvious hints are given as to what is on offer.
To go into the legal privileges of an adult – any grown-up person has the right to seek entertainment as long as there is no coercion or exploitation involved.
This rule is pretty much adhered to all over the world, but the fact that a flesh trade has become so rampant triggers a sense of concern not only about moral values but also about how a mercenary creed has come to vitiate our ethos.
Degradation sparked by desperation or moral decay
It would not be wrong to say that both the degradation of values and the spread of a pernicious social outlook, dominated totally by avarice plus instant gratification, are the reasons.
Frankly speaking, brothels are not new to Bangladesh. In the 70s and 80s, two massive red-light areas existed: English Road in Dhaka and Tan Bazar in Narayanganj. Workers who lived and provided services did so because their livelihoods depended on their work.
Setting aside the moral debate regarding sex work, the point remains: in the past, earning a livelihood was the key motivator, whereas at present, the overpowering temptation of swift material pleasure appears to be the catalyst. It’s the desire for instant gratification, the urge to obtain quick money to acquire fancy gadgets and, at times, the need to get fast cash to buy drugs that fuel the whole seedy ‘abashik hotel’ culture.
The general social perception of yaba addiction is mainly dominated by preconceived notions where the concept of young working-class women, addicted to the meth-based narcotic, entering the sex trade presents a grotesque degeneration.
Regrettably, a large number of women who work at these sleazy hotels are driven to a sordid world by their addiction. Police raids result in the detention of both men/ women, and while the publicised/denounced vice is the flesh trade, the inner sub-layer of a social evil, involving drugs, is never analysed/exposed in detail.
Address the vice, stop the voyeurism
Several recent raids at some hotels by the law were accompanied by media cameras, which seemed to be at the spots to record the mortified expressions of those caught. Derision is heard along with some pointed remarks, compounding the embarrassment of those found at the hotels.
One explanation for such videos may be that having their faces all over social media might work as a deterrent. For argument’s sake, if someone is caught and recorded, later takes his/her own life out of shame, then who will take responsibility? A person captured on camera may see his/her life crumble because the eventual stigma can lead to ostracism/self-isolation plus prolonged depression. Any consideration for the long- term mental damage to those filmed?
Media presence per se works to unsettle the people engaged in such seedy activity and therefore, forcing embarrassed men or women to show their faces appears plainly sadistic. The vice to address is the mercenary, grasping social attitude which continues to impact the modern-day young; the destructive sublayer being the pervasive yaba addiction, affecting all social spheres from bottom to the top.
To digress a bit, hotels advertised on the cards and on social platforms usually target middle-class people, and those detained after a raid also belong to the same social sphere. Interestingly, the law never steps into the star-rated establishments where rooms are also rented out without any questions asked.
Oscar Wilde becomes so poignant: “The poor cannot afford anything but self-denial; beautiful things, like beautiful sins, are the privilege of the rich.”
The writer is the Current Affairs Editor, Daily TIMES of Bangladesh
