Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (45 page)

Read Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business Online

Authors: Ronald Weitzer

Tags: #Itzy, #kickass.to

7
. Figures on city tourist destinations for 2007: Euromonitor International,
www.euromonitor.com
.

8
. Street prostitution is permitted in Hamburg, Germany, and in some Dutch cities that have created special zones, discussed in
chapter 6
.

9
. World Values Survey, 1999,
http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSAnalizeQuestion.jsp
.

10
. World Values Survey, 1990,
http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSAnalizeQuestion.jsp
.

11
. Interview with Antwerp prostitution official, Antwerp, June 24, 2008.

12
. Noelle Knox, “In Belgium, Brothels Are Big Business,”
USA Today
, November 4, 2003.

13
. Email from Antwerp prostitution official, June 21, 2010.

14
. Hans Willems, “Schipperskwartier, a Seductive Quarter in Antwerp,” Social Welfare Office, Antwerp, Belgium, 2009.

15
. Ibid.,
p. 5
.

16
. Mayor Patrick Janssens, quoted in Stephen Castle, “Passports and Panic Buttons in the Brothel of the Future,”
Independent
(UK), September 23, 2006.

17
. The film was commissioned by the Flemish Association for Space and Planning in 2007 and is available on Terenja van Dijk’s website, “Skippers’ Quarter,”
http://www.terenjavandijk.net/en/project/schipperskwartier/2/
.

18
. Interview with Antwerp prostitution official.

19
. Willems, “Schipperskwartier,”
p. 4
; the man recalling the former street scene was a poster on Ignatzmice, Will82, January 16, 2011.

20
. Interview with Antwerp prostitution official.

21
. Dan Bilefsky, “Belgian Experiment: Make Prostitution Legal to Fight Its Ills,”
Wall Street Journal
, May 26, 2005.

22
. Officer quoted in ibid.

23
. Willems, “Schipperskwartier,”
p. 5
.

24
. The Antwerp Health House,
www.ghapro.be
.

25
. Willems, “Schipperskwartier,”
p. 5
.

26
. Information in this and the following paragraphs provided by Antwerp prostitution official.

27
. Interview with Antwerp prostitution official.

28
. Ibid.

29
. Postings by Davide, September 19, 2009; G.laGaffe, October 15, 2010; and Smurf, April 7, 2010, on
www.ignatzmice.com
.

30
. Clients have complained for years about the curtains and the sofas—for example, a posting on
www.worldsexguide.org
, April 28, 1998.

31
. Client postings in 2009 and 2010 on
www.ignatzmice.com
.

32
. Posting on
www.worldsexguide.org
, April 15, 1997.

33
. Posting by Brad07,
www.ignatzmice.com
, July 5, 2010.

34
. Postings on
www.ignatzmice.com
.

35
. Posting by G.laGaffe,
www.ignatzmice.com
, September 10, 2008.

36
. Interview with Antwerp prostitution official.

37
. Dimap poll, 1999, cited in the government’s explanation of the prostitution bill that became law in 2002, Parliamentary Paper BT-Drs. 14/5958, May 8, 2001. I thank Gerhard Walentowitz for this source.

38
. World Values Survey,
http://www.wvsevsdb.com/wvs/WVSAnalizeQuestion.jsp
. The 1981 survey was for West Germany; the later polls covered the reunited nation.

39
. Barbara Kavemann and Heike Rabe, “The Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes: Implementation, Impact, Current Developments,” report, Berlin Research Institute for Social Science and Women’s Studies, Berlin, 2007,
p. 4
.

40
. Ibid.

41
. Annette Jolin, “Germany,” in Nanette J. Davis, ed.,
Prostitution: An International Handbook on Trends, Problems, and Policies
, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993,
p. 139
.

42
. Ibid.,
p. 131
.

43
. Susanne Dodillet, “Cultural Clash on Prostitution: Debates on Prostitution in Germany and Sweden in the 1990s,” paper presented at Conference on Sex and Sexuality, Salzburg, October 14, 2004.

44
. Petra Pau, Party of Democratic Socialism, statement in parliament, quoted in ibid.,
p. 3
.

45
. Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth,
Report by the Federal Government on the Impact of the Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes
(
Prostitution Act
), Berlin: Ministry, 2007,
p. 79
.

46
. Section 232(1) reads,

Whosoever exploits another person’s predicament or helplessness arising from being in a foreign country in order to induce them to engage in or continue to engage in prostitution, to engage in exploitative sexual activity with or in the presence of the offender or a third person, or to suffer sexual acts on his own person by the offender or a third person shall be liable to imprisonment from six months to ten years. Whosoever induces a person under twenty-one years of age to engage in or continue to engage in prostitution or any of the sexual activity mentioned in the 1st sentence above shall incur the same penalty.

47
. Federal Ministry,
Report
,
p. 41
.

48
. Ibid.,
pp. 79
,
61
.

49
. Ibid.,
p. 14
.

50
. Ray Furlong, “German Prostitutes in Rights Plea,”
BBC News Online
, June 24, 2005.

51
. The amount of unpaid tax within the sex industry was estimated to be

2 billion in 2003, when the annual income from legal prostitution was estimated at

6 billion. There are no recent estimates of the amount of unpaid tax, but the annual income from legal prostitution was estimated at

12.7 billion in 2009. The 2003 figures are from Bundesrechnuupshof,
Bemerkungen zur Haushalts und Wirtschaftführung des Bundes
, Bonn, 2003,
p. 185
. The 2009 figure is from Erik Kirshbaum, “Global Economic Crisis Hits German Sex Industry,” Reuters, April 20, 2009.

52
. Kavemann and Rabe, “Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes,”
pp. 15
–18.

53
. Federal Ministry,
Report
,
p. 20
.

54
. I thank Gerhard Walentowitz for assisting me with these statistics, which were drawn from the Federal Criminal Police Office (Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik, Kriminalistiches Institut, Wiesbaden, Germany, 2000–2009),
http://www.bka.de/pks/
.

55
. Federal Ministry,
Report
,
p. 44
.

56
. Ibid.,
p. 79
.

57
. Ibid.,
p. 80
.

58
. Kavemann and Rabe, “Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes,”
p. 8
.

59
. Interview with Juanita Henning and Gerhard Walentowitz, officials at Doña Carmen, Frankfurt, May 6, 2009.

60
. Anne Dölemeyer, Rebecca Pates, and Daniel Schmidt, “Deviant Girls, Small-Scale Entrepreneurs, and the Regulation of German Sex Workers,” in Melissa Hope Ditmore, Antonia Levy, and Alys Willman, eds.,
Sex Work Matters
, New York: Zed Books, 2010,
p. 190
.

61
. Ibid.,
p. 191
.

62
. Ibid.

63
. Based on a 2006 survey in Frankfurt reported in Juanita Henning, “Wie Funktioniert die Bordellprostitution in Frankfurt/Main?

in Philipp Thiée, ed.,
Menschen Handel: Wie der Sexmarkt Strafrechtlich Reguliert Wird
, Berlin: Vereinigung Berliner Strafverteidiger, 2008,
p. 168
.

64
. “Cologne Leads the Way in Safe Prostitution,”
Deutsche Welle
, July 7, 2005,
www.DW-World.de
.

65
. Interview with manager of RTO, Frankfurt, April 29, 2010. See
www.rto.de
and
www.ladies.de
.

66
. Kamilla la Dee website:
www.kamilla-dee.com
. Advertised prices are

80 for a half hour,

160 for an hour.

67
. Interview with Henning and Walentowitz, May 6, 2009.

68
. Crazy Sexy website,
www.crazy-sexy-germany.de
.

69
. Martina Löw and Renate Ruhne, “Domesticating Prostitution: Study of an Interactional Web of Space and Gender,”
Space and Culture
12 (2009): 232–249.

70
. Ibid.

71
. Henning, “Wie Funktioniert die Bordellprostitution,

pp. 168
,
170
. The average of 920 prostitutes and ten clients per worker is based on Henning’s 2006 survey of women working in the area’s brothels.

72
. Maria Kontos and Kyoko Shinozaki, “Integration of New Female Migrants in the German Labor Market and Society and German State Policies on Integration,” Working Paper No. 1, Institut für Sozialforschung an der J. W. Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt, 2007.

73
. Henning, “Wie Funktioniert die Bordellprostitution,”
p. 171
.

74
. Ibid.

75
. “Romania Tops EU Sex Worker List,”
BBC News Online
, January 26, 2010.

76
. Survey conducted by Veronika Munk for TAMPEP (a European nongovernmental organization), cited in Kontos and Shinozaki, “Integration of New Female Migrants.”

77
. Henning, “Wie Funktioniert die Bordellprostitution,”
p. 168
.

78
. Photos of the bar are posted on the website:
www.penthouse-no1.com
.

79
. Postings on
www.ignatzmice.com
, by ST (August 5, 2007) and Bdltnt (August 1, 2007).

80
. Posting by Petertaylor69,
www.ignatzmice.com
, March 24, 2011.

81
. According to outreach workers at Doña Carmen.

82
. Email correspondence with Gerhard Walentowitz, November 1, 2009.

83
. Rotes Haus website,
www.roteshaus.com
.

84
. Interview with Henning and Walentowitz, May 6, 2009.

85
. Posting by Petertaylor69, on
www.ignatzmice.com
, February 25, 2009.

86
. Interview with Eros Center owner, Frankfurt, April 29, 2010, accompanied by Juanita Henning.

87
. Juanita Henning, who has close ties to women working in Frankfurt’s red-light districts, later confirmed to me that the women are generally good conflict managers and that altercations between workers and clients are relatively infrequent in the hotel-brothels.

88
. This is a point made by men who post on
www.ignatzmice.com
and
www.theeroticreview.com
, though most of their discourse about the sauna clubs focuses on their sexual experiences and recommendations as well.

89
. Posting by Bookguy,
www.ignatzmice.com
, September 19, 2010. The term “sample” was used by Bookguy.

90
. Postings by Monk69,
www.theeroticreview.com
, July 28 and 29, 2009.

91
. Posting by Jman57,
www.theeroticreview.com
, July 27, 2009.

92
. Posting by Makelove and replies, November 28, 2007. Quotations regarding The Palace are by PeachFuzz, December 16, 2010, and LondonBasketCase, March 29, 2011—all on
www.ignatzmice.com
.

93
. Posting by G.laGaffe,
www.ignatzmice.com
, September 27, 2010.

94
. Posting by Guava,
www.ignatzmice.com
, December 14, 2009.

95
. Posting by Derkdiggler,
www.theeroticreview.com
, May 26 and 27, 2010.

96
. Posting by Number 6,
www.theeroticreview.com
, July 31, 2009.

97
. Posting by Number 6,
www.theeroticreview.com
, August 17, 2009.

98
. Posting by Shiatsu and Cordelia,
www.ignatzmice.com
, May 15, 2006.

99
. Posting by Petertaylor69,
www.ignatzmice.com
, March 22, 2010.

100
. Interview with brothel owner and observations of premises, April 29, 2010, accompanied by Juanita Henning.

101
. Because we were accompanied by the house manager, our presence seemed to go fairly unnoticed by both the men and the women.

102
. Interview with brothel manager and tour of premises, March 19, 2011, accompanied by Juanita Henning.

103
. Visit conducted April 30, 2010, accompanied by Juanita Henning.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6

 

1
. Conversation with author, Amsterdam, 2002.

2
. Bylaw quoted in Chrisje Brants, “The Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance: Prostitution in Amsterdam,”
Journal of Law and Society
25 (1998): 621–635, at p. 621.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Marieke van Doorninck, “History of Prostitution in Amsterdam,” unpublished paper, 1999,
pp. 4
–5.

5
. This description is based on ibid.

6
. Ibid.,
p. 7
.

7
. Brants, “Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance.”

8
. “Between the Lines,” June 1997, newsletter of the de Graaf Foundation for Prostitution Issues.

9
. Tineke Oostdam, quoted in Nick Cohen, “Booming Business among Amsterdam’s Red Lights,”
Independent
(UK), April 24, 2002.

10
. Brants, “Fine Art of Regulated Tolerance.”

11
. Marieke van Doorninck, “A Business like Any Other? Managing the Sex Industry in the Netherlands,” in Susanne Thorbek and Bandana Pattanaik, eds.,
Transnational Prostitution: Changing Patterns in a Global Context
, London: Zed Books, 2002,
p. 196
.

Other books

Sacrifice by David Pilling
Permanent Lines by Ashley Wilcox
Black Tide Rising by R.J. McMillen
The Cellar by Minette Walters
El cura de Tours by Honoré de Balzac
A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick