Monday, December 12, 2005

Singapore

, meanwhile, has dealt with its own sex industry in two ways: by
turning its traditional red-light district into a themed attraction in its
own right, and by moving its massage parlors into the Beverly Centers.Bugis Street, once famous for its transvestite prostitutes - the sort of
place where one could have imagined meeting Noel Coward, ripped on opium,
cocaine, and the local tailoring, just off in his rickshaw for a night of
high buggery - had, when it proved difficult to suppress, a subway station
dropped on top of it. "Don't worry," the government said, "we'll put it
all back, just the way it was, as soon as we have the subway in." Needless
to say, the restored Bugis Street has all the sexual potential of
"Frontierland," and the transvestites are represented primarily by a
number of murals.