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Without the embargos Cuba would be booming .. but even with the sanctions in place all these years, Cuba has made tremendous gains in medicine, education, and the overall health and well-being of its citizens. Cubans are far better off than under Batista.
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Sex tourism is a nasty and filthy practice in my opinion because not only do women get abused, so do children.
Cuba, freed of sanctions will be good to and for its people.
While there’s no doubt that political oppression exists in Cuba, there’s also no doubt that the Cuban people, on balance, are better off than they were under the authoritarian rightwing Batista regime. In terms of healthcare, education, and social safety net, they are light years ahead of many other Latin American countries. While their net living standards are appalling by the standards of developing countries, we need to own up to our responsibility: the American embargo has played a role in that. At any rate, political repression and totalitarianism are a hallmark of most Latin American countries, historically. And often, that oppression was not only tolerated by our government, but fostered and engineered by our government. I’ve never understood why Americans want to single out Cuba as this atypically horrid example of authoritarianism in Latin America…..
Well, actually I do. It’s because Cuba was a left wing authoritarian government; not a rightwing one. And Cuba is socialist, not proto-fascist. American multinational corporations could do business with Pinochet, in a way they couldn’t with Castro.
On the other tangent, I seriously doubt European and American men travel to developing countries on sex tourism vacations, simply because Latin American women are so sexually liberated and free. There’s a reason that sexual tourism is targeted at third world countries. If one simply wants to meet sexually liberated people, go to Iceland or Finland. Or Montreal, Canada. Or Manhattan, or San Francisco, for that matter. Maybe sexual repression is a problem in Alabama, but that’s a regional problem.
However, in Iceland or Finland a dude is going to be juxtaposed with women who are on relatively equal footing with you in terms of social status, income, power, and stature. There’s not going to be any weird power stratification. There’s not going to be any weird vibes or perceptions of inferiority or superiority. You’re not going to be able to leverage your money, your American citizenship, or your perceived superior social status to woo those women. Finnish women are not going to view you as the rich and powerful Norte Americano from the land of bounty and wealth. Those Finnish women will be your equals; they are not coming from a culture which historically has been viewed as a colonial possession. If a Finnish woman deems you worthy to sleep with, it’s because of your characteristics as a person. Not because of your citizenship, or because of any weird perceptions of your power, status or wealth. Honestly, it’s not really a well guarded secret why the internet is full of ads for mail order Filipino and Russian wives. You don’t see many offers for Swedish or Swiss mail order wives.
I can’t say anything about Cuba, never been there. But, I’ve traveled all over South America and women weren’t throwing themselves at me. And it’s not because I have body odor, or put out gay vibes like stuperfreak. Granted, I really wasn’t proactively trying to hook up or flirt with anyone; I had a gal back in the States. But, I think it can be problematic when rich Americans go to developing countries to hook up with poor women. Now, maybe if an American dude was partying in Bogata, with the rich Colombian women of the elite class that might be a whole other context. Those women would be more or less the equal (or superior) of any Rush Limbaugh tourist, and there wouldn’t be that weird colonial master/peasant girl vibe going on. Seriously, was the Viagra-addled Rush Limbaugh getting laid in the Dominican Republic, by the rich and powerful women from the elite class of Dominica? Or, was he was having sex with Dominican women from modest or poor backgrounds? We’re kidding ourselves if we dismiss the fact that European and American men go on sex trips to developing countries simply because the women are sexually liberated. There can be all kinds of economic, class, power, and cultural contexts going on whether we admit it or not.
