Cuban Jineteras--the Sexiest Place on Earth

Another unattractive foreigner walks by with a lovely Cuban on his arm--she couldn't be more than 17 years old by my estimation. She has the gorgeous look of a Cuban mulata, but her face looks sour even as she leans against him and lets him take her hand. This is a jinetera, a Cuban willing to marry any foreigner for the chance to leave the country legally. Once she gets to wherever he's from, it's anybody's guess how long "true love" will last. Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he never dreamed he could land such a beauty, no matter how long it lasts.

The Cuban Revolution did away with prostitution in the very first year, 1960. Pimps were forced into exile and Cuban prostitutes were taught trades and how to respect themselves, to sell what they could create or do rather than selling themselves to foreigners. A great stride for women, the experiment failed utterly. No, you don't see legal prostitution in Cuba because it's against the law now, and yes those retrained women became seamstresses and found a new life, but the bars here are packed with an informal kind of prostitution the state can't control, one that rises up out of human nature and need in young women and their male counterparts.

On the one hand, I've never felt sexier than in Cuba. Every block I'm greeted with "piropos" from Cuban men of all ages, compliments meant to seduce and enamor. "What a lovely little body you have," a man told me in passing the just this morning. Once I get past the American instinct to turn away or become offended, these comments can be quite a stroke to the ego. Ana and family took me dancing in Habana last week, and I attracted jineteros like flies; I danced for almost three solid hours, nearly all of that in the arms of beautiful young Cuban men. "How pretty you are," they told me; "I like you," they said, and they didn't care when I claimd to have a boyfriend, be uninterested. Everyone cheats here--if I have a boyfriend, that's no obstacle.

On the ohter hand, it's hard to know a real friend when you see one, hard to know if someone really likes and finds you attractive when there are so many potential motives hidden behind their flirtacious smiles. I'm in the south of Cuba now, and in Santiago I met a kind Italian man with cerebral palsey who married a Cuban the day I arrived. It was painful to watch; she was clearly running the show, and I couldn't decide whether she had any real affection for him or just saw him as a meal ticket and a way out of Cuba. She was playful and there was a touch of something real in her eye, but I couldn't stop feeling like the poor man was being taken serious advantage of.

But then, who am I to judge the human instinct to improve one's life by any means necessary? Ana's son Micha, who'd lik nothing more than to marry an American even with his lovely woman and new child in Cuba, pointed out that I'd never really understand his perspective. I was trying to conince him that a difficult life among family and friends was better than a differently difficult life without them, and he said that was an easy position to take when one wasn't wondering where the next meal might come from, when one wasn't wondering how to make sure one's children had what they needed. "You've never gone hungry or spent a month's salary on one pair of flip flops," he told me. "I know you've had your share of difficulties, Jennifer, but if you haven't known what it's like to be trapped and desperate for a better life, even in a country you love with all your heart, you can't understand why I'd be willing to choose a loveless marriage and even spend the rest of my life flipping hamburgers at McDonalds to find it."