Trouble in Dubai!!!

[asianphoenixx]

You think most non trans-attracted men would give that girl a sniff at 2K per hour??

If guys like myself had access in everyday life to attractive, available transwomen, there would be no lucrative escort business for TS.

It's about supply and demand. And there's a huge supply of GG chicks who offer more from an attraction standpoint than this female.

There are women who can make every man in the room turn their head when they walk by, and their are chicks who can have an entire party spellbound waiting to listen to her next word.

This chick is moderately attractive, her bod isn't special enough IMO to be a GG escort, and if you're paying 2K per hour for stimulating conversation, your life is a mess.

I really have a hard time believing this girl ever earned $1 mil a year escorting.
Since when has an escort ever quoted precisely exactly how much money she earns??lol

Don't tell me that wealthy men are more discerning and refined in their tastes either.

The more money you make, there are literally more people scheming to find ways to rip you off.

I don't see it. At all.

I know...i know....smart men are complicated.

I'm too lazy to be serious at the moment.
Shall we enjoy porn instead?

I need urgently a cock right now

[Stavros]

Again, you're focusing on material differences, i.e. the wealth of Dubai versus the poverty of North Korea, rather than the underlying structure of autocracy, oppression, and exploitation. Likewise, your characterization of UAE working conditions as "less than ideal" is perhaps the understatement of the year, and you are incorrect that workers in Dubai can simply "resign and go home" any time they want, as that requires their employer relinquishing their passport and the worker relinquishing any claim to unpaid back wages, wages which the worker would likely need to get home in the first place.

All of this shit has been well documented. Just because Western tourists can have a nice vacation there doesn't mean there isn't some truly hellish stuff going on behind the glitz and gleam.

The problem is that the facts are that there are some employers who take their employees passports, and many who don't. To begin with it is illegal, unless the worker hands over the passport as a mutual agreement. Again, some employees don't get paid for months, many get paid on time, but you could ask yourself if the situation is as bad as it is why people keep going. Filipinos go to the Middle East (including Israel) because there is work and they can get in, where, for example, it is next to impossible to emigrate to the EU and there are restrictions on working in Japan. Yes, there have been horror stories of Filipino maids in the UAE as well as other countries, it is not some special problem that Dubai has, and by reputation it is more liberal than Saudi Arabia where a lot of Filipinos work, these things are relative. It is a fact that the royal houses of the UAE rule and that there political system is as autocratic as North Korea, but the comparison is weak thereafter as I tried to suggest. The sad fact of the matter is that there are more countries in the world where 'autocracy, oppression and exploitation' are normal than open democracies. I wonder how any transgendered persons would successfully negotiate their way round Lagos in Nigeria without being harassed and ripped off, in the largest democracy in Africa. Kazakhstan is another country which because of its oil wealth attracts a lot of foreign workers, most of whom have no illusions about the country.

Because with many countries it is precisely about material things. People will tolerate all sorts of situations you never would to make enough money to buy a house, a car, breast enhancements, etc.

[Stavros]

You're being a little disingenous but I will only address the comment about Filipino workers going to Dubai - or any other country for that matter - for work. it's clear to me that you haven't spent a lot of time in the Philippines around poor people or you'd understand perfectly well WHY they go to Dubai. The reasons are simple: the chance to earn money (somewhere between USD175 and USD400 per month), ignorance of muslim countries, and the chance to earn money! A large part of the Filipino population is UNEMPLOYED. Those lucky enough to get a job usually earn around USD250/month and that's for more skilled work. Someone working as a domestic helper may earn USD50/month + food or working as a salesperson/labourer USD100 - USD200 per month.

When they are in the Middle East either the agency bringing them over or their direct employer WILL withold their passport. When abused they cannot go to the local authorities as that will create significant problems. They may go to the Filipino embassy only if they are certain the officer at the embassy handling their case isn't taking bribes from the employment agencies to bury reports. Keep in mind a flight home costs about USD800-USD1000 which they will not have available. The added worry for them is losing the ability to earn any money whatsoever since that will create problems for the family they are supporting back in the Philippines.

Like I said in my earlier post, if I told some of the stories I've heard first and second hand, you will likely be shocked and outraged.

But I have spent time in the Philippines and am perfectly well aware of the rip-offs that happen, but you seem to take the worst examples that have been publicised and assume this is the norm whereas I believe it is more complex than that. In the 1970s there were agencies that brought Filipinos to the UK to work as domestic assistants in hospitals; I was a union steward at the time and our union (NUPE, these days Unison) successfully campaigned to change the practices which effectively imprisoned Filipino workers in the UK through debts they could never pay off. I have personally twice had to deal with bent agencies in the Philippines promising my friends work (in the UK and Singapore), on both occasions the 'agent' disappeared, in one case with a substantial amount of money robbed from many different people. If you also know the Philippines you will know about these practices which happen before anyone sets foot in Dubai or anywhere else for that matter. There is also the possibility that some Filipino workers decide after they get to Dubai they don't like the place and want to leave but have signed a contract. I am not denying your stories are true, but the facts are more complex than they can appear from stories in the newspapers.

Poverty is at the root of this problem, on that we agree; the lack of uniform legal behaviour across the board in Dubai is another fact on which we can agree; where we disagree is on the detail and I suggest it is because the whole of the truth is not known, and would require an extensive survey to be conclusive. Incidentally, I do not like Dubai as a place, and though Abu Dhabi is better, I dont think of these as typical of the Middle East and would not recommend them as holiday destinations either.

[tsmirandameadows]

You seem to be missing my point. You state that "The sad fact of the matter is that there are more countries in the world where 'autocracy, oppression and exploitation' are normal than open democracies." This is true, and while Western-style Liberal Democracy shouldn't necessarily be the goal world wide, a basic respect for human rights should. When you go to a place like Dubai for a vacation, and spend your money there, you are giving tacit approval of the VERY well documented human rights abuses that routinely occur there. As long as Westerners are willing to overlook the very real and very obscene abuses just because there are some nice shopping malls and night clubs, then there will be no incentive for the UAE to ever change. That was my point: taking a vacation in Dubai is to help prop up a pretty evil system, and just as no one, aside from Dennis Rodman, would want to help prop up North Korea, no one ought to help prop up places like Dubai, even if they are an awesome vacation spot... so long as you're not a transsexual.

[Stavros]

I don't think you are on strong grounds when you object to a tourist spending their money in a country with documented human rights abuses. I live in a country, the United Kingdom, which has locked people up without trial, and denied them the right to know why they have been locked up. I also live in a country where a murder trial has been held in secret for reasons which are unknown -so much for justice being seen to be done. The country I live in has arrested people and 'rendered' them to overseas agencies to be tortured. Does this mean that tourists who come to the UK are endorsing the worst practices of the government and the secret services?

I have not been to Dubai as a tourist, it was work related. Unlike millions of other British tourists, I did not go to Spain while Franco was alive, for political reasons. I have been to Russia as a tourist, in spite of its reputation for harassing homosexuals and transgendered people -does this make me complicit in their oppression?

Can I assume you will not spend your dollars in any state of the Union that does not satisfy your definition of human rights?

[runningdownthatdream]

The problem is that the facts are that there are some employers who take their employees passports, and many who don't. To begin with it is illegal, unless the worker hands over the passport as a mutual agreement. Again, some employees don't get paid for months, many get paid on time, but you could ask yourself if the situation is as bad as it is why people keep going. Filipinos go to the Middle East (including Israel) because there is work and they can get in, where, for example, it is next to impossible to emigrate to the EU and there are restrictions on working in Japan. Yes, there have been horror stories of Filipino maids in the UAE as well as other countries, it is not some special problem that Dubai has, and by reputation it is more liberal than Saudi Arabia where a lot of Filipinos work, these things are relative. It is a fact that the royal houses of the UAE rule and that there political system is as autocratic as North Korea, but the comparison is weak thereafter as I tried to suggest. The sad fact of the matter is that there are more countries in the world where 'autocracy, oppression and exploitation' are normal than open democracies. I wonder how any transgendered persons would successfully negotiate their way round Lagos in Nigeria without being harassed and ripped off, in the largest democracy in Africa. Kazakhstan is another country which because of its oil wealth attracts a lot of foreign workers, most of whom have no illusions about the country.

Because with many countries it is precisely about material things. People will tolerate all sorts of situations you never would to make enough money to buy a house, a car, breast enhancements, etc.

Pardon my french but you're woefully ignorant of the temporary worker process. Filipinos would prefer to go to the US, UK, or Canada. However, most cannot afford to pay the fees that the Filipino employment agencies demand from them to arrange for work in those countries. And yes Stavro, it's illegal for employment agencies to charge a fee to the worker, however it is the normal practice in the Philippines. Just as it's illegal for employers to withhold passports but it is the norm. (And by the way workers must also take a letter from employers to the airport when leaving the country which attests that said employer is releasing said employee.) So..........the only places workers can go without having to pay exorbitant fees is the Middle East and Central Asia.

Yes people will suffer many types of abuse to pay for the things you mention, for Filipinos though they suffer that abuse simply to buy food and pay the electric and water bills back in the Philippines and I find your flippant remarks quite offensive. You might want to portray what happens there as anomalies but from what I've heard from actual workers, it's more the norm. While I won't sympathize with people going to the Middle East to break their laws - such as performing as prostitutes - I don't agree that any of those countries should be given accolades because they use state funds to build enormous structures and provide great shopping while they continue to promulgate hateful behaviors. You're the guy always bashing Republicans in the US but yet here you are advocating for a muslim country in the Middle East - what the fuck gives?

[Stavros]

I have not endorsed the working practices of the UAE at all, I have merely suggested that what you are claiming to be the norm is unproven. My remarks about the Philippines are anything but flippant, so you need not be offended. The key point is one on which we agree, that the poverty so common in the Philippines drives people to work in places like the Middle East. You and I both agree it would be better if there were alternatives.

[tsmirandameadows]

I don't think you are on strong grounds when you object to a tourist spending their money in a country with documented human rights abuses. I live in a country, the United Kingdom, which has locked people up without trial, and denied them the right to know why they have been locked up. I also live in a country where a murder trial has been held in secret for reasons which are unknown -so much for justice being seen to be done. The country I live in has arrested people and 'rendered' them to overseas agencies to be tortured. Does this mean that tourists who come to the UK are endorsing the worst practices of the government and the secret services?

I have not been to Dubai as a tourist, it was work related. Unlike millions of other British tourists, I did not go to Spain while Franco was alive, for political reasons. I have been to Russia as a tourist, in spite of its reputation for harassing homosexuals and transgendered people -does this make me complicit in their oppression?

Can I assume you will not spend your dollars in any state of the Union that does not satisfy your definition of human rights?

I didn't think it would be controversial to suggest that the abuses I have described are abuses of human rights.

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2006/1...eating-workers
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcr...toryId=5250718
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...i-1664368.html
http://documentaryhive.com/slaves-of-dubai-documentary/

And yes, I stand by my statement that you shouldn't patronize countries which systematically violate the human rights of those living there. You are correct to raise the question of what qualifies as sufficient rights violation to rule out a visit: I don't at present have criteria beyond "I know it when I see it." But even lacking such criteria, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask yourself "do I really want to give legitimacy to an oppressive regime by going on vacation there?" Likewise, not asking yourself that question, strikes me as turning a blind eye.

[giovanni_hotel]

I don't think you are on strong grounds when you object to a tourist spending their money in a country with documented human rights abuses. I live in a country, the United Kingdom, which has locked people up without trial, and denied them the right to know why they have been locked up. I also live in a country where a murder trial has been held in secret for reasons which are unknown -so much for justice being seen to be done. The country I live in has arrested people and 'rendered' them to overseas agencies to be tortured. Does this mean that tourists who come to the UK are endorsing the worst practices of the government and the secret services?

I have not been to Dubai as a tourist, it was work related. Unlike millions of other British tourists, I did not go to Spain while Franco was alive, for political reasons. I have been to Russia as a tourist, in spite of its reputation for harassing homosexuals and transgendered people -does this make me complicit in their oppression?

Can I assume you will not spend your dollars in any state of the Union that does not satisfy your definition of human rights?

Come on, Stavros. It's all about proportion and degree.
The West may not have perfect political systems and protections for human rights, but to compare them to Dubai and UAE, hell the ME in general, is disingenuous.

The UK is still trying to sort out its policies for dealing with foreign gestated, ideologically driven, radical religious terrorism. The treatment of of terrorists in the UK and US in not the same treatment a random person processed through the legal system in these countries receives.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for a foreign traveler to feel 'less free' in a country like Dubai.

[Stavros]

And yes, I stand by my statement that you shouldn't patronize countries which systematically violate the human rights of those living there. You are correct to raise the question of what qualifies as sufficient rights violation to rule out a visit: I don't at present have criteria beyond "I know it when I see it." But even lacking such criteria, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask yourself "do I really want to give legitimacy to an oppressive regime by going on vacation there?" Likewise, not asking yourself that question, strikes me as turning a blind eye.

When it comes to vacations, people must make their choices. Members of my family have been to Cuba for holidays, did this mean they endorsed the regime there? I have been to China -same question, but the answer is no, I did not endorse Communist Party rule just by entering the country, I judged by visit by other criteria, such as my interest in Chinese history, my connections to the country through the people I was working for, and so on.

If the 'systematic abuse of human rights' is the criteria, then how many places in the world remain open to tourism? There is also the argument, it was made about Burma a few years ago, that tourism in an oppressive country can be of small benefit to local traders and undermine the oppressive authority of the regime as people come into contact with foreigners. It is a difficult one, but clearly it didn't matter to the British tourists who went to Spain when Franco was alive. Depending on the country I think it matters but people must be free to make their own decisions.

I think the key points are that Dubai is not unique in its treatment of foreign workers, and that if we were to draw up a list of countries where transexuals are at risk, then on a scale of 1-10 Dubai would be in the top ten with a risk rating of 8-10 where the risk is of imprisonment, arrest and so on. What other countries would be on that list I hazard to guess, and if I make some I will only attract more criticism!