Work and Life at the Flamingo: Portraits of the Girls 5. Annegret D. Staiger is Professor of Anthropology at Clarkson University. Legalized Prostitution in Germany offers an extremely novel and sophisticated approach to understanding a very complex topic and includes perspectives from individuals across the sex industry, rather than just sex workers, which is typically the case. Typically, sex workers work in a brothel or buy a daily "ticket" to sell sex in designated street areas.
Europe's 'biggest brothel' is Germany. While sex work was tolerated as early as the s, the government formally legalized it in Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany has long been one of the world's most famous red-light districts.
In its s heyday, it was home to over 1, prostitutes, but in recent years, the area has become better known cheap bars and binge drinking. Hamburg's main sex-trade street is blocked by foot high barricades on either end, and men under eighteen and women are prohibited from entering.
The barricades are a major point of contention for feminist activists, who frequently demonstrate nearby. The women then sell to customers at prices they negotiate directly.
The brothel takes only the room rental fee. The oldest brothel in Hamburg is Hotel Luxor, which opened over 60 years ago. In , Waltraud Mehrer, the Luxor's "madame," closed the brothel due to declining business. One of the largest 'eros centers' is Pascha, a story brothel-nightclub in Cologne, Germany.
Typically, a woman has to sleep with four men to break even. Pascha has hair, tanning, and nail salons, a restaurant, and a boutique for the women. Pascha is run by Hermann Mueller, whose father opened the brothel. Mueller told The Telegraph in that his girlfriend of several years is a prostitute. Her profession doesn't bother him. Legalized prostitution has spawned even bigger ventures than Pascha, like Paradise, a chain of five brothels across Germany, with more on the way.
Not everyone is happy about the increased sex trade. From there, anyone can use the facilities, which include saunas, a movie theater, a restaurant, and rooms. Sex workers negotiate directly with customers.
Many are coerced or trafficked. Not every customer wants sex. One worker not pictured told The Telegraph that she's had customers that want to be walked on a leash "like a doggy," while others only want to tell her stories about their childhood. Become whatever they need," she said.
While the sex trade has encouraged "sex tourists" from the UK, France, and the US to visit, many customers are locals that have been going for years. A man named Michael told Reuters he'd been going since he was 13 and had a favorite sex worker he frequented.
When the Nazi Party came to power they threw the prostitutes into concentration camps, labeling them as degenerates. However, unlike most political parties, the Nazi Party decided there was room for brothels in society, it just had to be under their control and work according to their order.
So, the Nazis created brothels in concentration camps and military brothels, with boundaries under their strict supervision. By the end of the war, brothels became illegal in East Germany, but remained legal in West Germany.
By the 21st century, codes and laws became tighter and prices and profits began to rise. Women were then able to obtain contracts, pay taxes for their work, have employment benefits and receive health insurance. Today you can order a woman from your phone, find a drive-thru sex outlet, or simply pick up the girl of your choice from the streets of Berlin.
With new rights and privileges credited to prostitutes, the German government thought they could reduce, if not eliminate, human trafficking. However, according to many officials the numbers may have only increased.
The police have no real control over this sex scene, so are therefore unable to gather accurate statistics. Representatives of Germany's legal, organized sex workers say they have nothing to do with unlicensed and forced prostitution or human trafficking.
They say that repealing the Prostitution Act would punish the innocent and rob thousands of women of access to healthcare benefits and other basic rights. Bars and hotels could also lose their licenses if sex workers were found operating on their premises. Passed by a coalition of Green Party members and Social Democrats, the reform was meant to protect prostitutes from exploitation — along with getting them to pay taxes.
Politically aware sex workers insist the law has succeeded in both, and that any remaining problems with organized crime and human trafficking should be tackled by further normalizing the trade rather than adopting the Scandinavian model.
A recommended licensing regime for brothels, for example, which might have given the authorities more power to prevent exploitation, was never put in place, they say.
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