View Point

Saturday, December 12, 1998

Bring back the bordellos!

By David W. Eyre

THREE or four times a year, prostitution comes under discussion in the media and then nothing is done about it. I have a plan. Restore Hotel Street to its original glory.

Round up Waikiki's hookers and put them in glitzy bordellos downtown. Waikiki customers could board a "Trollop Trolley" that will carry them to the heart of Chinatown, where they can shop for women (or men) like people do in Amsterdam.

I can tell you're disapproving already. But consider the pluses:

We'd eliminate the disgrace that exists, come nightfall, on Kuhio and Kalakaua avenues when women with hot pants and cold eyes prowl for customers. Tourist friendly? Hardly. A demand for their services? Obviously. So why don't we do it with style for those who are horny?

Bring back the bordello in a well-managed red light district. Once the girl is chosen, she takes the john to her room, which has a nice clean bed and maybe her teddy bear up by the pillows. Air conditioning. A hot shower. Sounds better than a quickie in a Waikiki alley.

And let's run an equal opportunity operation. There should be gay bordellos and bordellos for women, too. There must be hundreds of sex-starved female tourists who'd like some time with a Polynesian hunk. Local lassies, too.

The street would spruce up. A madam might place a new girl, garbed in pareu, in a showcase filled with orchids, there for window shoppers to choose as they do in Amsterdam.

Adult book stores could imitate Borders with department headings like Kinky, Hetero, Homo, Bi, Cross-D, Leather, Trans-V and a coffee bar over in the corner.

And maybe we'd get decent auditoriums with good-size screens for porno movies. Some of today's decrepit "theaters" show their heavy-breathing films on tiny TV screens. You need opera glasses to see what you came to see.

And we must not overlook "live sex" shows, which are only simulation but can provide a bit of stimulation for common voyeurs. Club Hubba Hubba could reopen and prosper with such a show. And bring back The Glades, where once boys loved to be girls.

We'd be making a major step in offering safe sex. Who knows what kinds of diseases are being passed around in the unsupervised sex scene of Waikiki. On Hotel Street, there'd be doctors to check out the prostitutes regularly; they'd make sure customers used condoms. In this day of AIDS, medical supervision is essential.

It would help the tourist business. In Holland, the Dutch Institute for Prostitution reports that the country's open-minded attitude toward sex has attracted thousands of visitors.

Nevada offers legalized prostitution, too, and the hookers love it. One of the girls at the Mustang Ranch (75 rooms and, yes, it takes Visa and Mastercard) says the house management provides panic buttons in each room, general security and protection from would-be brutes. The women who walk the walk in Waikiki are often beaten and some have been murdered.

I've been saving my brilliant idea for last. A tasteful, topless Polynesian review performing in Hawaii Theatre on nights that the splendid structure is dark.

Remember Jack Cione's naked waiters? We could count on him to produce a pulsating show, full of drums and chants and nose flutes and rustling ti leaves and an array of Tahitian, Maori, Hawaiian and Samoan dances, complete with fire-twirlers and sword-swingers. The rhythms of the Pacific -- topless! Be calm my beating heart!

Paris is famous for gorgeous girls at the Lido and Vegas has its showgirls. But a Polynesian review with sensual vibrations could outclass them all. Tourists and locals, too, would flock to Hotel Street to observe or participate in the joy of sex. The traffic might even push out the winos and dope pushers.

Of course, you know that this proposal has been written somewhat with tongue in cheek or someplace. But think about it. Talk about it. Erotica with discipline. And Waikiki would certainly be a better place for the Brady Bunch.

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David W. Eyre is a former editor of Honolulu magazine.