Skip to content

This isn’t quite how war zones work

Women struggling to survive in the war-torn Sudanese city of Omdurman say they are being forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for food.

Depends onm your definition of the word “forced”

More than two dozen women who have been unable to flee fighting in Omdurman said that sexual intercourse with men from the Sudanese army was the only way they could access food or goods that they could sell to raise money to feed their families.

Now that is true.

To get something from the men with guns you’ve got to offer something the men with guns want. That this often is – the men with guns are often young men with guns – some poontang is just one of those things. But it is a transaction of varying levels of distaste, not a “forcing”.

35 thoughts on “This isn’t quite how war zones work”

  1. Bloke in Germany in Eire

    I came here with guns, destroyed your economy, looted your shops and farms, so you can either starve or have sex with me for a cup of rice.

    Sounds pretty coercive to me.

  2. Sex is the oldest currency in the world, so why would it ever go away? Even in 2024, when it can be exchanged for money, fame or a vice-presidential ticket…

  3. ‘But it is a transaction of varying levels of distaste, not a “forcing”.’

    Just like torture or being mugged, then. Give the nice man the information or your wallet, because having your fingernails ripped out or bleeding out in the gutter is more distasteful.

  4. If that’s how the story leads ( not knowing where it’s running) it’s one tells you more about the person who wrote it than what’s going on. It’s actually a story about the disruption of necessities in a war zone. The women side is just an aspect. We all know that women can be transactional. There will be women currently in the UK being forced to offer the assets in exchange for the latest iPhone. So there’s nothing particularly unusual about it. Apart from to the writer.

  5. Bloke in North Dorset

    More than two dozen women who have been unable to flee fighting in Omdurman said that sexual intercourse with men from the Sudanese army was the only way they could access food or goods that they could sell to raise money to feed their families.

    Something’s not right there, why would they be using sex to get food which they then sell to be able to buy food? Why wouldn’t they just offer sex to the people who have the food they want/need?

    Anyway, its not about having guns as we saw with the Red Cross in Haiti, its about having control of what other people need to survive.

  6. @ Simon Neale

    “Just like torture or being mugged, then.” – not really. I’m with Tim on this, it’s a matter of distaste.

    If I was on the street and someone asked whether I would voluntarily go to a factory to be tortured or mugged there would be some equivalence. There are some who might go for that – Marius Gustavson for example – but the majority would be unlikely to agree.

  7. I don’t read it like that, BiND. Some of the guys won’t have food to exchange. But they do have an item of value ( likely looted) that can be exchanged for food or money to buy food. Possibly what’s mostly going on. Items of value will be more portable & non-perishable & leaves the women able to source more variety.
    Roughly what went on in Germany at the end of WW2. Women would fuck for cigarettes, then exchange the fags for what they needed. So they were a currency.
    Sorry if that conflicts with Spud’s theory that currencies have to government issued legal tender, but there you go. This is the real world, not just the one visible from Ely.

  8. Must confess I still don’t want to send our troops to Sudan to help sort things out. Clearly the locals are perfectly capable of fucking up their affairs without our assistance.

    And as BiND and BiS imply, our blokes would no doubt take advantage of the opportunity to shag a prostitute themselves.

  9. Joe Smith:

    True, but the equivalence lies in the fact that a torturer or mugger doesn’t invite one to go with them, which is the point at which one’s choice looks like an option in an economics textbook. One finds oneself being tortured or mugged, just like these women found themselves and their children starving among hostile males. The offer being made is one that cannot be refused if , as it says, the women cannot flee. Unless they are whores who voluntarily travel to or remain in Omdurman because soldiers have what they want, what they have to do is distasteful, but not *merely* distasteful.

  10. Bloke in North Dorset

    bis,

    I get the cigarettes as currency bit, anything is better than nothing in a barter system, but why not go straight to the guy with the goods you want and shag him for what you need plus some currency?

    Maybe I’m over simplifying the problem not had the experience?

  11. The Meissen Bison

    Wasn’t it nice, non political, not campaigning Oxfam rather than the Red Cross in Haiti?

  12. Same reason as other currencies. You want a little bit of what this one has, a little bit of what that other – but only have to put out the once.

  13. Omdurman.

    Kitchener, Haig, Churchill. Gordon, depending on how you look at it.

    Time to send Tugendhat out there?

    Funny old world.

  14. Indeed Tim. The advantage of tokens of value in commerce. Shame they don’t seem to teach that in economics these days.

  15. @BiND,

    … and when the slags are old hags, they’ll say that they were forced to do it. If white females could get away with it (Epstein, Weinstein et al), then just imagine to furore when it turns out that the ‘victims’ have that second Gold Card (hint: female, black).

  16. @Simon Neale
    You do actually have to prove that’s what’s going on, not assume it. I’ve already shown this form of commerce is ubiquitous in any form of society. So can you prove that it’s different here?

  17. Sounds pretty coercive to me.

    Agreed, BiG. Perhaps Tim would like to explain the economics of the Asian distasteful transaction gangs in Rotheram, etc.

  18. You do actually have to prove that’s what’s going on, not assume it. I’ve already shown this form of commerce is ubiquitous in any form of society. So can you prove that it’s different here?

    Assuming the story is accurate and truthful as seen above, there is a very significant difference between shagging a bloke so he’ll keep you in fresh iPhones and shagging a soldier so he’ll give you food or the means to acquire food.

    Looking from the other side, few people bar religious zealots would have any issue with a man saying, ‘No, if you want to have sex with me that’s fine but I am not going to shell out a grand for the latest iPhone for you.’

    But most decent people would expect any man in possession of food or the means to acquire it to give it freely to any woman (or any human) who was unable to find food for themselves.

    I’m with BiGiE – the women (assuming truth) are being forced by hunger to do something (again, assuming truth) they would otherwise not do. No-one is forced by a desire for sparkly gadgets.

  19. @PJF

    Agreed, BiG. Perhaps Tim would like to explain the economics of the Asian distasteful transaction gangs in Rotheram, etc.

    Very apposite.

  20. Bloke in North Dorset

    Wasn’t it nice, non political, not campaigning Oxfam rather than the Red Cross in Haiti?

    Yes. I should have checked rather than relying on memory 🙁

  21. The point at Rotheram is that the girls were all underage. Statutory rape.

    Hmm, not sure that’s the point most people were getting annoyed about.

  22. Poverty is the default state for humans – it’s not some evil forced onto the poor.

    We only aren’t in poverty because we (whitey mostly) did something proactive about it a few hundred years ago (yes, excludes the Roman’s and Chinese etc). Problem is that was in the past and we’re rapidly getting to the point where we’ll be going backwards again due to morons who think that it’s all the fault of the rich.

  23. Bis:

    “You do actually have to prove that’s what’s going on, not assume it. I’ve already shown this form of commerce is ubiquitous in any form of society. So can you prove that it’s different here?”

    I can’t prove what you have “shown” isn’t universally true, any more than you can prove that it is.

    “Prove” and “show”, see?

  24. Come the next civil war those soldiers (sans uniform and passports) will be over here on inflatable boats quicker than you can say Sangatte.

    I’m sure that once on our magic soil they will treat women of all ages from 9 upwards with due courtesy and respect.

  25. – it’s not some evil forced onto the poor.

    The powerful want to keep the unpowerful in that state. The imposition of poverty is a good strategy for that.
    See North Korea, sumptuary laws, climate cult, etc. It infuriates the powerful that the rising tide can float all the boats, so they’ll do their best to hole some and tie others to the seabed.

  26. Interested,

    “But most decent people would expect any man in possession of food or the means to acquire it to give it freely to any woman (or any human) who was unable to find food for themselves.”

    You’re thinking as someone living in a place where food is very plentiful. The competition changes. 200 years ago, you got to shag the prettiest girl in the village if you owned a house far from the river, the family could have meat a few times a week and you could pay to have your children learn to read. Now that’s a Land Rover Evoque, private schools, 3 trips abroad per year.

    In a warzone, if you have limited food to give away, how are you going to select who gets it?

  27. In a warzone, if you have limited food to give away, how are you going to select who gets it?

    Getting blowjobs – it’s a tough gig but someone’s gotta do it?

  28. The soldiers are guarding buildings which the women want to loot for goods, to sell for cash, to pay for food. The exchange is sex for entry to loot.

    The soldiers can’t give them the food out of the goodness of their hearts, because that’s not what they have on offer. They probably don’t want to just give them the goods because they’d be the ones doing the looting which alters the culpability somewhat. Being a lax guard and allowing the building to be robbed could be a mistake. Going in and nicking the stuff yourself is not a mistake.

    The women could fuck someone else, for a bottle of spirits, then give that to the soldier as entry payment to allow them to loot. Would the soldier be assaulting them in those circumstances? The only difference being the difference in token of exchange?

  29. Interested: “But most decent people would expect any man in possession of food or the means to acquire it to give it freely to any woman (or any human) who was unable to find food for themselves.”

    May I point you to a nice little yarn by Niven and Pournelle named “Lucifer’s Hammer” ?
    It deals with this issue. It also has an answer, a quite logical and economically sound one, you won’t like.

    Alternatively: “Oh dear Moonchild… etc…

  30. “No-one is forced by a desire for sparkly gadgets”

    I’m not so sure. The utter psychological dependence on their ‘smart devices’ that some teenage girls demonstrate suggests that they are as hooked on them as some people are on hard drugs, and will do exactly the same sort of things to maintains access to them.

    There’s videos online of teenagers in the US going into complete meltdown over having their phones taken from them by teachers, shouting, screaming, tantrums, attacking the teachers etc etc. They are not acting rationally in any way, and are seemingly in the grip of a severe addiction. So its no stretch to think they’d be quite happy to dole out sexual favours to the man who was prepared to keep feeding their habit.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *