Neighborhood watch

“Pepe”, José Merino, El DeFe statistician, researcher and Chilanogolist (or, should that be “Chilangologico”?) puts together a color coded map of market services available from one segment of what the District Assembly is calling in their regulatory codes, “unsalaried workers”.  As with other markets in Mexico City, specialties within the sex worker’s trade are generally found in the same marketplace.

Pepe’s map works best in Firefox, but the color coding may or may not be perfect, but you can check it out here.

It’s not quite a perfect market system.  While there are points of sale for:

• Women 24/7
• Women: evening and nights
• Women: nights only
• Drag queens
• Gay youths
• “Mayates” (gay men, presumably passive partners)*

… a large segment of the population is underserved (or underserviced). Pepe notes that women seeking men are denied equal access, and have to rely on Craig’s List.  Sounds like sex discrimination to me.

The Puente d’Alvardo “mercado” (women evenings and nights) has been the object of some complaints from the neighbors (which includes PRI’s Federal District headquarters).  Augustín Torres, the PRD Assemblyman representing the area, has responded to constituent complaints and has proposed moving the “zona de tolerencia” a few blocks north … to calle Luis Donaldo Colosio.  Torres mentions the safety and convenience factors — calle Luis Donaldo Colosio has a wide median strip (keeping the working women out of traffic and off the very heavily trafficked corner of Insurgentes and Puente d’Alvardo) and — with regular traffic crossings, allows customers to sample the wares easily from the convenience of their car.  Not mentioned, but certainly a factor in relocation is that calle Luis Donaldo Colosio is right in front of the National PRI headquarters.

* Use “mayate” with caution.  A Natuatl word meaning a scarab (specificially the green figeater beetle, Cotinis mutabilis), mayate  has a few different meanings in Mexican Spanish – mostly pejorative.  These were discussed (in Spanish) back in June 2006 on the Word Reference Language Forum.  In the north, especially in Baja California, it can mean a person of African or African-American descent, and is as offensive as “coon”.  In most of Mexico, it’s a crude word for a homosexual, allegedly referencing entomology (not etymology)… beetles laying their eggs in “organic matter”… i.e. shit, and somehow related to anal sex.  However, since “mayates” are presumably on the receiving end, that doesn’t make much sense.  But, then, fok etymology seldom does.