Advertising agencies have long known that sex can sell pretty much anything – from soft drinks to chocolate bars, from cars to bedroom furniture. But proof if it were still needed is paraded everyday on the streets of Taiwan – where scantily clad girls bare as much flesh as they possibly can to win trade at their basic betel nut stalls!
Betel nuts are as common on the streets of Taiwan as chewing gum is on the streets of the US or the UK. The nut itself is the seed from a palm that’s rolled up in leaves smothered in lime paste. You chew the nut, spit out the juice and the whole experience gives you a little stimulation along the lines of a strong caffeine kick – and can leave you with mouth cancer to boot!
In many parts of Taiwan, and indeed across Southeast Asia, everyone seems to chew the betel nut – and selling this mild narcotic is blooming good business if you can attract enough customers. The girls in Taiwan can earn twice as much as their sisters who have graduated college, and all they have to do to win sales and influence people is flash flesh and titillate trade!
The girls themselves have become an international phenomenon – featured in guidebooks, paraded before tourists and sought out by those after a cheap, (or even a free) thrill, the debate about the morality of their presence rages on. Are these women being degraded by the trade, should they be allowed to continue to work as they do, wearing little more than sexy underwear or negligees?
You may choose to take the high moral ground and agree that they’re being exploited, you might decide to take the health line and say that chewing the betel nut causes cancer and so should be banned – or you might prefer to look at it like these women do. If sex sells, and sales generate so much cash, who cares what it takes if you’re able to bring in twice as much as a college graduate?
The women are smart and they’re savvy, they look out for themselves and each other; if you get too close as a punter you get your face slapped, your butt cattle prodded or your entire being beaten to a pulp by minders who lurk in the shadows. So I guess the only downside of putting so much on show to earn an income is that you have to have such measures in place…but then I’m way too old to be making my income in this way, so perhaps I’m not in a position to comment at all!
What do you think – is using sex to sell exploitative for the women, for their customers, or just a savvy way to bring in an income? Feel free to comment below.
Image the copyright and courtesy of Tobie Openshaw.
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