A Colombian mayor got himself into massive trouble after claiming his town had no prostitutes “because the women are very hot and do not need to get paid.”
The mayor of Segovia, a small town in the north of Colombia, made his statements after being asked about the exploitation of women in the area around his town that is dominated by gold mining, an industry known to attract prostitution.
The comments released a storm of criticism on social media networks that forced the mayor to go on Colombian national radio to explain himself.
In his defense, Mayor Jonhy Alexis Castrillon explained he never meant to say the women from his town were frivolous, but was referring to the climate when he spoke about “hot women.”
“Segovia is cheerful, happy and a hot land because our temperature always exceeds 30 degrees,” said Alexis adding that, “all the human beings who live here are hot,” he said.
However, when the radio host asked why Segovia did not have prostitution, the mayor again showed little understanding of women.
“What I was trying to say is that you don’t need to pay women, because we, men, are ‘cachones’,” a word used locally to describe men who allow their girlfriends or wives to sleep around.
When alerted to his error, the mayor explained that in his understanding the verb “cachonear” means “to court a woman without the necessity to tell her we’ll pay her some to make love … ‘cachonear’ means making her fall in love, making her feel special and that she is worthy as a person…tell her in a thousand ways she is beautiful.”
According to the mayor, the Bogota journalist that initially reported on his seemingly sexist remarks was an “idiot” and couldn’t have understood the local courting culture because he “stayed in Segovia no more than 15 minutes.”
Segovia, Antioquia
Sources
- Alcalde enciende polémica tras llamar ‘calientes’ a mujeres de Segovia (El Tiempo)
- Alcalde de Segovia aseguró que al hablar de “mujeres calientes” se refería al clima (El Espectador)
- Alcalde de Segovia, se reafirma en declaraciones desobligantres sobre mujeres del pueblo. (Caracol Radio)
- Alcalde dice que no hay prostitución en Segovia porque “los hombres son cachones” (El Colombiano)