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Panamanians and Mistresses

There is a common misconception that the Latin-American male is a creature that, while decidedly Christian, does seem to have a habit of having mistresses to relieve the stress of married life. Moral implications aside, the frequency of hearing about how X person keeps going to Y strip club and goes to his favorite stripper for some uncompromising sexual deviance is enough for some people who look in from outside of the confines of our culture to assume that this is a common occurrence. Accepted, even. While this mistress thing is a fact of life, with many politicians, foreigners and well-off businessmen partaking in the practice, it’s not culturally accepted. In fact, the irony of a country with 85% of its population being Christian while at the same time having lovers is part of why I believe in pancakes and Cthulhu and not on some church. It’s very hypocritical, not only towards the idea of belief but to spouses as well.

Let’s get down to business, here: life brings many ups and downs, but it is in our strength as human beings to push forward and keep going past adversity. Many situations come our way and it’s in our best interests to deal with them with valor and determination. I’m sure you have a situation like this present within 3 degrees of separation: man has spouse. Man meets girl. Girl becomes “the other woman.” The other woman has child of Man. Spouse finds out when Other Woman’s kid is 15. Man tries to shack everyone up under the same roof. At least in Panama, this sort of thing, though not common, is something I hear about more often that I’d like, sometimes within my immediate family. The logic these men adopt is one where, for them, it is imperative for their children to live with their father no matter what womb they came from. So, of course, the next logical and downright egotistical step would be to grab the mothers and stuff them in a home, disregarding their feelings completely because all that matters is the happiness of the children. This is ridiculous enough, but what if there are no kids involved, I wonder? What if it’s just some girl/boy your spouse has been seeing on the side and in their chicken brains it’s time for the introductions in an attempt to gel both married and mistress lives as one happy unorthodox communion of love and affection?

Lately Panama has been the focus of a real estate boom of ridiculous proportions. Areas where it was once thought you could never populate beyond the measure of small fishing towns are now being conditioned as ocean front properties with golf courses, exclusive communities and all of those pretty things foreigners and retirees love to hear when they’re looking for a nice, tropical place to take their shoes off. These real estate shenanigans has brought with it an influx of foreigners from all over the world into Panama, making the country that much more of a cultural melting pot in virtually all aspects of a cultural, economic and sociological nature. These changes, I sense, are two-fold: even though Panamanians are slowly losing their prejudice for Americans in favor of other nationalities (Colombians are a fan-favorite, it would seem), the real estate boom pushed forward by Americans, Canadians and Europeans has kick-started a strong degree of social discomfort due to the notion that Panama is being sold piece by piece, fearing that there will come a time where Panama won’t be for Panamanians at all. The benefits are, of course, plentiful: plenty of jobs, more money from outside coming in, lots of investment on an increasingly-more stable economy and plenty of other benefits.

I could go on about the myriad of ridiculous situations this plot point has caused, but I would be straying from my point: where I’m trying to get at with this is that one thing the influx of foreigners has caused is that, like the moth to the flame, the standard, lower class Panamanian woman gravitates to these foreigners who, in their eyes, make more money in a year then they will see in their lifetimes. If they have to get intimate with an old geezer in order to secure a good future for themselves and their children, then so be it. This theory is by no means absolute, since I have met couples of army men married to nice ladies from Colon and they’re genuinely happy, but the “getting married for the visa” reason gets thrown around a lot. It works for everyone because, and I believe this is the foundation as to why this sort of thing happens so often, opposites attract: put me in front of a cute, blond-haired, clear-eyed girl and watch me salivate in such a pathetic way it comes off as adorable. In the same way, If someone from Middle America comes to Panama and sees a dark-skinned, well-proportioned, dark-haired and dark-eyed exotic beauty, he’ll make it his personal mission to prepare her for penetration. This applies for both genders and all sexual preferences… opposites attract.

People use their looks to their advantage all the time; a smile and the right words, coupled with a dashing presence go a long way no matter what you set out to do. It’s a little sad how a lot of the time things get done a little faster or you can get ahead a little better when you’re pleasing to the eyes, and in Panama things are even more so that way for foreigners because they stand out because of the way they look, only for it to be maximized due to the society around them that sticks them out even more. Because foreigners stand out so much, and it’s a very wrong preconceived notion that all foreigners are rich, they become the target of gold diggers, scammers and robbers. This amount of attention is sort of the thing foreigners aren’t really used to, and it somewhat maximizes the culture shock to a degree that some people quite simply can’t handle it. Anyway, because of all these things, getting a Latina mistress is incredibly easy for a foreigner. Of course, this isn’t exclusive to foreigners, as it’s somewhat of an accepted fact that many business and family men have women on the side, like to go to strip clubs (considering all strip clubs here double as whore houses) and all the shebang. Women can get their man whores as well, as ads for “gentlemen” are popping up now more than ever though I think that niche ain’t as big since Latina women tend to be conservative… or better yet, they’re very conscious about the way the society they live in sees them. But, again, that’s a topic for another day.

Having mentioned how having a mistress is commonplace, I must stress the fact that this is NOT an accepted social occurrence by any means. I don’t want to get into the morality of it and all because my beliefs are pretty unorthodox considering where I live, but I think that if you marry someone, you marry them because you love them, warts and all. And a mistress is only a mistress when you hide her from your spouse; broadening horizons is always great for individuals and relationships alike. I’m not going to talk about my opinion on the sanctity of marriage, but I will say that honesty, just like good looks and charisma, goes a long way.

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