Cartegena Journal

Photograph by Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

Now that the Secret Service scandal is calming down (with everyone properly reimbursed for the their services), all the girls in Angeles and other brothels have become erstwhile fans of the new HBO series “Girls.” The popularity of “Girls” in the brothels of Cartegena, according to informed sources, derives from the fact that the series actually makes “the girls” who man them feel good about themselves. All of the customers in the Cartegena brothels wear condoms and none of them dares to call any of the prostitutes a whore, as Hannah’s (Lena Dunham) boyfriend did in episode #2 of the HBO series. One of the jokes currently circulating in Cartegena is that if Hannah is looking for a paid internship, she should consider one of the city's love hotels. Hannah’s fears of AIDS, which surfaced in episode #2 of the series, would also attended to in a Cartegena brothel in a way that is far superior to what she experienced in the course of her normal life hooking up with guys in New York City. The Times interviewed a brothel owner who explained the enlightened practices that make life such a bowl of cherries for her girls. “Sometimes, she said, a customer will come to her and say that a condom has broken and he will ask if the prostitute he was with has been tested for sexually transmitted diseases. She will then show the customer the woman’s most recent results. Twice, she said, customers have agreed to take a rapid H.I.V. rest to show that they, too, are uninfected. (“Prostitutes Perplexed As Glare Falls On City’s Brothels,” NYT, 4/25/12). Twice is better than not at all.