The story for Cuba is a little different. Willis P. Butler, the American doctor from Hawaii, who was there for several weeks in 1968, reminds us that the Communist regime had been in existence less than a decade at the time of his visit; so that what progress had been made, allowing for an inevitable lag in the beginning, was very recent indeed.

“Prostitution [he says] has been vastly reduced by elimination of organized gang style operations, improved economic conditions at the lowest levels, and emigration. Probably 80 per cent of prostitutes over 25 years of age left the country and 80 per cent of the younger ones remained. Almost all of those who stayed, it is claimed, have been rehabilitated, largely in farm work centers and trade training programs. Statistics on venereal disease reflect this improvement in social conditions.”

If the spectacularly low gonorrhea rate given us for 1967 is accurate, it is going to be of the greatest interest to watch the trend during coming years, and to see whether the high syphilis rate is also on the way down. Meanwhile it is to be noted that Cuba is a Latin land, and that Roman Catholicism (which traditionally treats sin more leniently than heresy) continues to have an influence there. The Church has begun to show sympathy for the Castro regime to the extent that not so long ago eight bishops in Havana formally petitioned the United States to lift its blockade.

Cuba, at all events, is not a puritan country. Its attitude toward sex seems to differ sharply from that of the U.S.S.R. (as well as of China). As we saw before, Havana, formerly a playground for rich libidinous Americans, has been largely freed from prostitution. An effort is evidently under way to deal with women as the equals of men, something particularly startling for Latin America. Butler comments parenthetically;

“The writer’s wife and other female travelers fresh from other Latin American cities observed with some surprise that the Cuban male tends to look a woman "straight in the eyes, as though she were another human being.”

Dr. Butler tells us that “the state of personal and social sex problems in Cuba would seem to rate as slightly better than average by middle class U.S. standards. Sex education in high schools is fair, with adequate mannequin demonstrations and physiology lectures. It is an interesting commentary on the common sense attitude toward sex that at least 95 per cent of the extensive artificial insemination work done in cattle is done by young women and teen age girls.” (see VD CONTROL MUST EMPHASIZE MORALS MORE THAN MICROBES PART VI)