Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (24 page)

Figure 5.5a. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district.

Figure 5.5b. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district.

Figure 5.5c and 5.5d. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district.

Figure 5.5e. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district.

Figure 5.5f. Bahnhofsviertel red-light district.

• When I walked by one of the erotic bars one night, a female solicitor convinced me to take a “free look inside.” A dancer was working the poll, and a few men watched from their booths. Eight women were visible. The solicitor told me that the women will do lapdances, but she refuses to reveal the cost until I sit down and order a drink. When I ask if they do “anything else,” she says, “Yes, but it is up to the woman,” and will not reveal what services are available or the prices.

• This scenario is repeated a few doors away at a place that features a live sex show in addition to other attractions. I enter and see a man and woman having sex on a small stage in the center of the room. Six women sit at the bar, waiting for men to enter or for the live show to end and the stripping rotation to begin. The dancer who brought me inside says she will give me a lapdance but will not quote a price until I come in and buy a drink. She says that nude lapdances are performed in private rooms and hints that other sex acts are available, but “you have to come in to find out more.”

• In two other bars, I was taken to a small room, with a couch and table, where erotic encounters take place. In one, the hostess tells me that “this is where you can play with a lady.”

• At each of these places, alcohol drinks are €4–€5, but the man is also expected to buy a woman a drink for €20–€25. This is mandatory at every bar except one, where the solicitor told me that men could decline paying for the woman’s drink.

Describing these places on an online discussion board, a man wrote,

The “girls,” most of them are over 30, offer plenty of promises. They will sit with you and play with you and then give you a very expensive bill, backed up by muscle. In some places you may get more but you will pay through the nose for it. … I have spoken to guys who have shelled out 200–300 Euros for less than an hour for a couple of drinks and a girl nuzzling their neck and stroking their ego. Unless you have a large expense account or plenty of money and a desire to be exploited, AVOID.
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The erotic bar scene differs radically from the atmosphere in Germany’s hotel-brothels. Frankfurt’s main RLD is home to a large number of these brothels, 21 at present. The women in the buildings are not visible from the street: all windows are closed and draped, and there are no rooms on the entry-level floor. The hotels are not required to register with the authorities as brothels, since owners simply rent rooms to independent providers (on a
daily basis). A manager is present to accept rental payment from the women and to provide security, but this person exercises little supervision except to maintain order and a drug-free workplace. (Women are allowed to drink alcohol in their rooms, but being drunk or using drugs is frowned on by managers because it upsets order and may lead to police intervention; use of intoxicants has not been a major problem in the hotel-brothels.)
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In 2010, the standard room rent was €130 ($180) for a 24-hour period and €90 ($125) for 12 hours. Workers who have immigrated from another country prefer the overnight stays because of convenience and to avoid paying rent for a separate apartment. They are not pressured by brothel owners to rent the rooms for long periods of time, but many of the women do so.
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The workers I spoke to charged €30 ($42) for hand relief, oral sex, or vaginal sex, though a few charged €20 or €25 ($28 or $35). In the Netherlands and Belgium, the going rate for the same services is significantly higher: €50 ($70).

Hotel-brothels have their own distinctive signage and facades, giving many of them the appearance of a clean, classy establishment; some proprietors have invested considerably in decorating the exterior of their brothel. A few have sexually oriented interior decoration (e.g., statues of Greek goddesses, erotic paintings and wall murals, a mirror ball), but most have little if any decoration in the foyer, hallways, and stairwells—quite different from a posh brothel. The rooms are much larger than are the window units in Belgium and the Netherlands, and they are also homier, often decorated with the worker’s personal effects. Each room has an alarm system to be used in the event of a problem customer. Some of the hotel-brothels feature a variety of amenities for the women, such as a tanning bed and a large kitchen. According to the website for Rotes Haus (Red House), each room is equipped with a telephone, bathroom, and international TV.
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Frankfurt’s brothel owners have been more willing than their counterparts in some other cities to make improvements in working conditions. In collaboration with the prostitutes’ rights organization Doña Carmen, the owners developed a set of hygiene and safety standards for the brothels.
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Visitors are free to enter the premises to view the sex workers. There is no entry fee or gatekeeper restricting access, but there are security cameras at each place. Persons under 18 and women not working there are not allowed inside, and some of the brothels have signs at the front door prohibiting entry to women and underage persons. I visited all the Eros Centers in Frankfurt. The logistics are not particularly client friendly, as one must walk up four or five floors to view all the workers in each house. For local clients who have a favorite provider and know where to find her, this is not a problem,
but for novices, this vertical cruising can be tiring. I was exhausted after stair climbing at a succession of places, and I saw other men winded and sweating in the hot, stuffy stairwells. Clients in web-based discussion boards frequently complain about the stairs and voice frustration about climbing to the top floor only to find no one there sometimes. They also complain about uncivil men who troll these places. One client stated, “Unfortunately, there are large numbers of men who delight in traipsing through the place, being rude about the girls, and knocking at the [closed] doors. This is very off-putting, particularly if you are mid-thrust.”
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At the same time, the logistics are not conducive to loitering in these brothels, on the part of clients, voyeurs, or pimps. I rarely saw a man hanging out in the stairwells or on the floors. There is nothing to see from the stairwells, and anyone who lingers on one of the floors would be questioned or hassled by the women.

Compared to window prostitution where workers are separated and where the windows and doors are usually closed, the hotel-brothels allow women to fraternize freely, visiting each other’s room or congregating in the hallways. I saw several doing just that. Many of the floors are populated by women of the same nationality or ethnic background, facilitating socializing. That the workers can leave their rooms also gives them direct access to the men and much more opportunity to interact with potential clients than they can in window prostitution. Clients writing in online forums also like the fact that they can talk to the women freely in a secluded arena, unlike open-air RLDs, where clients are visible to the public. In the hotel-brothels, women stand or sit on stools in their doorways or linger outside their rooms and chat with men—exchanging greetings, bantering, negotiating a service, and sometimes arguing with or denigrating a man. Some gently coax, while others are more aggressive in trying to induce men to enter their rooms: the latter grab a man’s arm and try to pull him into a room; others touch a guy’s genitals, making compliments; and some operate in groups, surrounding a man and insisting that he make a selection. I observed all of this happening to other men in addition to experiencing it myself. One woman allowed a man in the hallway to kiss her breasts as his two friends looked on admiringly. In another place, a woman repeatedly yelled at one man, “I want your cock!” as nearby men scurried away. This direct, face-to-face marketing is much less evident in the window-prostitution model, in which the workers typically remain in their rooms and only briefly open their doors or windows to talk with a man.

I interviewed the owner of one of the hotel-brothels, who has run the place for 30 years.
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Most of his workers are from the Dominican Republic, and there are currently 28 women working (the brothel has 34 rooms).
The majority rent rooms for 12 hours, but 40 percent rent for the entire day and live in the room. Many of the women have worked there for years, and the owner knows them well. They come into his office to get food and drink from the refrigerator, giving him the opportunity to chat with them. Two women did this during my interview, smiling and saying hello to us.

On the owner’s desk, I see six video screens showing the entry to the brothel and each of its five floors. He monitors the screens constantly (as do two other managers during their shifts), and he intervenes quickly in the event of trouble with a client or when drunks are hanging out in the foyer. He tells me that the video monitoring is essential: “because you can prevent problems before they start.” If a woman has a problem customer, she can quietly alert the manager by taking her phone off the hook (an alarm might cause panic and perhaps an unwanted police response). This happens, the owner says, “at least once a day” and especially on weekends, when there are a lot of men around. The main reason for altercations is attributed to communication barriers, and physical confrontations are rare—occurring about twice a year. Problems can arise if the parties do not speak the same language, if the man is drunk and disorderly, and if the woman reneges on agreed services or charges extra for such things as removing her top or more than one sexual position—what clients deride as “upselling.” But this owner also says that most providers are very savvy and skilled in their ability to manage men. Novices have the most trouble because they have not yet learned how to preempt conflicts, while the more seasoned workers “are professionals and know the job” and are used to behaving in a way that prevents problems from arising.
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