Cuba’s Unique Sex-Related Problem

Carlos Fraguela

HAVANA TIMES — Less than a month ago, I met a girl who’s dating a friend I know from work. My friend is currently working on a thesis for a restoration degree. The young woman is from Uruguay. She is visiting Cuba and complains that she can’t go to any movie theater in the city alone without being stalked by men who masturbate next to her.

When I think about it, I realize this is quite a problem: any person should have the right to go a movie theater in the city and enjoy a film without being interrupted by someone who attends the screening to carry out activities for which the locale was not intended.

I’d never thought about this because, as a man, I’ve never been stalked so aggressively. One need only change places in case the person insists, but, in the case of women, I imagine it can become a stifling experience.

The young woman I’m telling you about is a dance student and angrily claims the phenomenon is unique to Cuba, that she has never experienced it in any other place she’s traveled to. The men who practice these inopportune rituals don’t seem to care that their female relatives (daughters, wives or mothers) could fall victim to the same experience.

My friend Rolando told me that, during his trip to Argentina, curiosity led him to visit theaters aimed at different sexual orientations, where private screening rooms and locales that show different kinds of films are offered to patrons on the basis of previously agreed conditions. They are the so-called “sex cinemas”, aimed at satisfying a broad range of adult tastes, where people need not invade anyone’s space to do so.

Locales offering “dark rooms” are also found the world over. They are located next to discos or bars. There, adults can have the sexual encounters they please. I believe Cuba is in need of such locales, particularly for those who don’t have a place of their own and begin to invade peoples’ personal spaces when they are doing things like watching a film, when sex is the furthest thing in their minds.