by NATASSJA SCHIEL
A Navy sailor donning a military-regulation haircut sat next to me at Club G-Spot, an American strip club on the island of Guam. I watched the topless dancer on stage as I tugged at the halter top of my sheer minidress, aware of the visibility of my nipples. I sipped my vodka cranberry as the man next to me said, “I could take you out of here. Don’t you want a better life?” Did he perceive me as broken or for sale? I sucked down my lady’s drink, a concept borrowed from Japanese hostess bars. He’d paid $20, but it wasn’t just for the mini-cocktail that contained a half-ounce of liquor. The fee granted him a conversation. I’d profit $9 from each drink, and the mamasans—the elder Asian cocktail waitresses who often had been sex workers in their youth—made $1.
The tiny U.S. territory of Guam is 13 degrees north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean—south of Japan, China, South Korea, and Russia—which makes it a key location for the military. It’s also a popular tourist destination. Guam has no red-light district, but strip clubs, hostess bars, sex shops, and massage parlors still dot the approximately mile-long strip of the Tumon Bay, existing alongside restaurants, malls, hotels, an aquarium, and other family-friendly businesses. When the first strip club opened in the 1970s, mainland women were shipped in as entertainment for the military—a tradition that has continued. Sex work is an open secret in Guam, and it has earned the island a nickname: Pleasure Island.
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