Lubber
And now a little local news.
Beijing, preparing to host the 2008 Olympics, has ordered hotels to provide condoms in all bedrooms in a bid to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS after cases of infection soared to 54 percent in the first 10 months of this year.
Announcing the move, the official Xinhua news agency made no direct reference to the Games, saying only that all the Chinese capital’s 700 hotels must comply by the end of 2008.
With many thousands of visitors due to crowd into the city for the Olympics, which run from August 8 to August 24, every hotel is likely to be sold out.
I hadn’t heard this but it wouldn’t surprise me. Prostitution is widespread here. It’s completely illegal, of course, but it’s tolerated. The government is more interested in the appearance of order than in actual order itself. So, if allowing a few brothels to operate, or letting bars full of hookers peddle their wares keeps the public happy then it’s one less thing for the government to concern itself with. (There’s that “oddly libertarian” thing again.)
The vast majority of China’s wealth is located in its three or four big cities. The rest of the country, roughly a billion people, are dirt poor peasants. So girls come in from the countryside to act as prostitutes, knowing they can make enough money to support their entire family back home. Because of this AIDS is a growing problem here. When people come for the Olympics they’re going to be partying in bars full of hookers, and the last thing the Chinese government wants in the western media are stories of how people came here for the games and went home with a nice viral souvenir. If this happens the Chinese government can say, “Hey, we put a condom in every hotel room. If Hans from Deutschland forgot to wrap his braunschweiger beforehand it is not our responsibility.”
Thus it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Olympic committee did something like this. Actually I think it’s quite a good idea, and should be mandatory for all hotels at all times. You get drunk, you bring some chick back to your hotel, and oops, you forgot to pack your rubbers before you left, so you bang her anyway. Then, two days later, your dick rots off and falls in the toilet while you’re taking a shit. If the hotel had a condom in the bathroom along with the soaps and shampoos, and you didn’t have one of your own, wouldn’t you use it? I know I sure as hell would.
Interestingly, the other night the film “Must Love Dogs” was on HBO here, and I watched it while I ate dinner. There’s a whole scene where the two main characters drive all over town because they want to fuck and neither of them had a condom. How responsible of them. Of course, neither of them had been drinking 50¢ beers in a bar full of Mongolian hookers for the previous eight hours, an activity which may tend to impair one’s sense of judgment.
There ain’t no pussy worth dying over. Killing over, maybe, but not dying over.
