ABSTRACT
Arturo had kept up the deception for over 35 years. ‘Still,’ he told me, ‘I think my wife probably guesses. Saves her having to do it with me anyway. She’s always ill and never wants sex. What’s a man supposed to do?’ Early in February 1991, Arturo and I were standing outside a religious waxworks museum in the barrio (neighbourhood) in which I was doing ethnographic research on street prostitution. Whilst we talked, a couple of prostitutes interrupted us to say goodbye to memost of them were going home for the night. Of the 40 or so prostitutes who worked in the barrio, only a handful stayed to work past 8 p.m. ‘Watch old Arturo,’ laughed Matilda, ‘he looks sweet as shit, but he’s dangerous.’ Arturo voiced his disagreement. I played along, assuring her that I would be careful.–Arturo and I were discussing how he fitted into the barrio’s prostitution scene. His story was a familiar one, versions of which I had heard many times during my research. Nevertheless, in some respects he was quite different from other prostitutes’ clients whom I had interviewed. The way in which he talked about HIV was quite typical of the way he voiced
opinions on other things. Arturo created the impression that he got what he could out of life: he lived for the moment.
