Scott S. Ellis Madame Vieux Carré, The French Quarter in the Twentieth Century (2009)

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.Also, thecity loudly stated that it would enforce the ordinance24 unknown even tomost natives that forbids throwing anything from balconies.25 In reality,and as proved in subsequent Carnival seasons, the NOPD was not about tocharge into a building to apprehend a woman who had just shown her breastsfrom the balcony.Besides, the policemen appreciated the spectacle as muchas any other straight male.Men standing on the street showing their privatesfor beads flung from above are a different story; they are more frequentlyarrested.The tourism industry wanted to simultaneously keep the profits thatcorporate balcony renters and breakers brought, and walk the line to keep atleast a passing acquaintance with family friendly Carnival.As the last twofrenzied weeks of Carnival 2000 rolled around, the NOPD and the city back-pedaled and denied there was a crackdown at all.26This divided opinion, of traditions versus profits, resulted in pretty muchthe status quo.Around the country, other festivals were also experiencing thebeads-for-breasts phenomenon.27 The consensus, though by no means a uni-versal opinion, was that wild behavior should be hosted in, and restrictedto, the Quarter.The family parades should remain that way, and pressurewas brought to bear on suburban krewes to forbid the battle cry of the beadeconomy.After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, New Orleans s tourismindustry suffered, albeit to a lesser degree than some other localities.A largeinterlude: tourism 139percentage of the city s tourists arrive from surrounding states by car and sowere unaffected by fears of air travel.28 Discouraging any tourist segment isnow taboo.During short Carnival seasons, like that of 2005 or 2008, manyhotels drop minimum stays if rooms go unsold even at bargain prices.Sex TourismHistorically, it has been difficult to separate sex tourism from traditionaltourism in the Quarter.Until the widespread promotion of legitimate tour-ism in the 1920s, sex tourism was the vast majority of the Quarter s tour-ism business.Even after the preservationists of the 1920s and 1930s, Mrs.Werlein s crusades, and round after round of superficial cleanups, a baselinelevel of prostitution, female and male, remained,29 and, during World War II,expanded to accommodate servicemen.There was no published equivalent, after Storyville, of the famous BlueBooks.Robert Kinney s The Bachelor in New Orleans30 was a frank attempt tokeep young straight men out of trouble as they prowled the Quarter of WorldWar II and just after.It is interesting to note that some of the clubs Kinneydiscusses were, even at that time, gay tolerant, so the book may have been alsoused as a rather different sort of guide.After World War II, most, but not all, streetwalkers gradually vanishedfrom sight, but didn t change professions.The smart ones operated from theshelter of clubs that provided the police protection required to ply the trade.A few bordellos persisted.Most notable was Norma Wallace s at 1026 Conti,which stayed in business until 1962.31For a teenage girl to go to D.H.Holmes for her first ball dress was animportant rite of passage.Some teenage New Orleans boys, in their own riteof passage, were taken to bordellos by their fathers, or, in later times, takendown to Bourbon Street to be shown, and warned about, hookers and variousscams.32One of the best-known aspects of Quarter sex tourism was B-drinking.The origins of this worldwide practice must be ancient.B-drinking in theQuarter was noted many times over the years, yet it still flourished with eachnew crop of gullible and lonely men.Upon entering a bar, a man would bespotted by one of the house B-girls who would accost him and ask him tobuy her a drink.The man would order drinks for both.The B-girl s drinkwould typically be iced tea, masquerading as bourbon, or sometimes a soda140 interlude: tourismpretending to be an expensive call drink. The man s drink would be analcoholic beverage, of course.The B-girl would make time, chatting with thelonely visitor as he bought round after round of drinks.She might permit alittle mutual affection, all carefully watched by the bartender and whateverother supervision might be around.Eventually, the man would get as drunkas he cared to, run out of money, or realize that the B-girl was not going toentertain him carnally.He would then leave or be ushered out if unhappy orfalling-down drunk.In some bars the B-girls kept swizzle sticks from theirdrinks and turned them in at the end of their shifts, proof of their labors,much like punching a time card.33 The B-girl would get a percentage of thetake, with the house getting the rest.B-drinking and prostitution are frequently mentioned in the same breath,yet they are mutual antagonists.B-drinking had to be hosted in a bar, whichfound it very profitable to keep men tempted but unsated as long as theybought one drink after another [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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