This page is devoted to the question of whether prostitution should not rather be consistently banned for the sake of the mental and physical hygiene a society requires, and in particular to protect women from exploitation and human trafficking, as is already being handled with varying degrees of strictness in numerous countries. In order to achieve this goal in Germany, Europe's largest sex market, the well-known women's rights activist Alice Schwarzer launched a forceful anti-prostitution campaign in 2013; the result was the German Prostitutes Protection Act (ProstSchG), which came into force on 01.07.2017 and has caused plenty of confusion in the industry ever since.

In Part 1 of this article, some fundamental and also provocative considerations are first presented as an introduction. This is followed by three detailed pleas that characterize the positions of each side, pro and contra prostitution; first, in Part 1, from Alice Schwarzer as the leading representative of the opponents of prostitution. Attached to this is an open letter from the Freieroffensive to Alice Schwarzer.

In Part 2 follow three statements from Doña Carmen e.V. an association for the social and political rights of prostitutes.

In Part 3 follows, finally, a series of thought-provoking articles worth reading on this topic, which were published mainly in nationally known daily or weekly newspapers not otherwise close to the subject of prostitution, and are to be understood in particular as a reaction to the above-mentioned campaign by Alice Schwarzer.

 

Sex is a woman's most important commodity, sexual favor her most important lure, sexual boycott her sharpest weapon. The prostitute sells off this commodity below its value and she violates the sexual boycott. Charles Bukowski once wrote, roughly, that the wife does not like prostitutes because they inflate the currency system of pussy ("The attitude of the professional whore inflates the currency system pussy").

The prostitute breaks the female consensus according to which sexuality must be sold as dearly as possible; she breaks out of the cartel of women offering sex, she engages in dumping, she switches to the enemy's camp. She turns a relationship, which should typically, in the female manner, be organized as one big emotional blackmail, into a fair deal among equals, in the male manner. That's why women hate prostitutes.

Even if all that is true: why do men join in the campaign against prostitution?

Men have various motives for this, resulting from different interests and practical constraints. For successful men with a wife and mistress, or changing mistresses, or a trophy wife, sex is a status symbol. So why should there be sex for everyone at a low price? For the same reason one can fight brothels, walk-in houses and street prostitution, but tolerate (expensive) escorts and call girls, as in France.Men have daughters, especially older men, who either no longer seek constant sex themselves or have money for mistresses and call girls. It is in their interest to preserve their daughters' market value.Men are under the thumb, because their wives shape the relationship as one big emotional blackmail. Firstly, they do what their wives want anyway, and secondly, they gain nothing if others are better off.Men, when in the spotlight, are great hypocrites.In societies with a surplus of sexually frustrated young men, those in power have the opportunity to exploit their sex drive for their own purposes, for instance by promising them women as spoils of war – or 72 virgins in the afterlife.And finally there are men who are honestly opposed to prostitution because they consider it exploitative, harmful to the community, or godless. But a great, shared, unifying interest of the entire male sex in fighting prostitution, one that must break through in some form – that does not exist. It does exist, however, for the female sex.

 

A service like any other – prostitution, brothel operation and everything that belongs to the erotic sector. Or is it only a means to an end, to make as much money as possible with a dirty activity? Should the oldest trade in the world therefore finally be finished off with a law? A question that not only Sandra Maischberger and her guests addressed in a discussion round in November 2013.

Opinions on the subject of prostitution are still highly contested, and the line between voluntary and forced prostitution seems to blend seamlessly into one another. To approach this topic appropriately, one must first define when something happens voluntarily and where coercion begins. If something happens voluntarily, then, according to the Duden dictionary: "happening of one's own free will; carried out without coercion." Coercion, on the other hand, has many definitions and at least as many ways of manifesting itself. One thing is certain, however: it deprives the victim subjected to it of any possibility of choice and thus subjects him to an influence so strong that it cannot be escaped. So-called "poverty prostitution" therefore, strictly speaking, does not count as forced prostitution, since survival could also be secured in other ways, and thus there is no compulsion to prostitution from which one could not escape. If one wanted to, that is. But feminists like Alice Schwarzer see it differently: "We must name the cause by name: men. There would be no prostitution if men didn't buy girls and women."

Of course. And there would be no more car manufacturers if everyone walked from now on. – Logical consequence: unemployment rises. Not to mention that there are indeed male prostitutes too, and women who pay for them. But that's not all! A ban on prostitution, or punishing johns as demonstrated by the Swedish model, would also lead to far more illegal activities and crime, since people still want to satisfy their desire for such natural basic needs – indeed, must satisfy it – and thus seek other ways to still their hunger. They come, for example, to countries like Germany, where prostitution is still permitted, and there they ensure that the usage rate rises.

In short, this would mean: if prostitution were banned in Germany too, brothels would be run illegally, rents for rooms would become more expensive, and prostitutes would be forced to either "service" more customers daily or relocate abroad. A debatable solution? Hardly. Schwarzer would most likely now argue that in such a case the workers in this trade would love to look for another job and would actually want to. Because, of course, all prostitutes practice their activity under coercion.

That this opinion stems only from a lack of empathy and a lack of acceptance of other opinions is obvious. The counter-position to the feminists are sex workers who took up their profession voluntarily and enjoy practicing it. But they are simply denied a voice. They are declared "mentally ill" or "forced into prostitution" and equated with victims of human trafficking. Jonas Trolle, a police officer from Sweden, even emphasizes: "Nobody practices this profession voluntarily," and has many activists and feminists on his side with this opinion.

That prostitution can indeed occur voluntarily, and in such a case is a perfectly normal service like any other and has nothing whatsoever to do with human trafficking, seems completely inconceivable for Schwarzer, Trolle, and their like. It seems as if something, just because it is not okay under coercion, is also not okay voluntarily. In the end, it's like fieldwork in Africa. If you force people to do it, it's absolutely inhumane. No question. Working in the field itself, however, provided it happens voluntarily, is a perfectly reasonable way to earn a living. A dilemma from which it seems impossible to break out.

This may be due, among other things, to the fact that there are no clear figures on how many workers pursue their profession on a voluntary basis. Only in the field of prostitution is it supposedly known exactly that the number of those who are forced into prostitution, trafficked and sold is frighteningly high. According to Munich police headquarters, 90% of prostitutes in Germany work as forced prostitutes, as Commissioner Helmut Sporer explains. Ms. Schwarzer, too, still throws around remarkably high numbers in various media to this day: 90% of prostitutes are supposedly under coercion, moreover 90% of sex workers supposedly come from Eastern Europe, and in any case "over 90%" of the women have supposedly already been abused as children. There is, however, no source for these claims. But what about the figures for properly registered employees in the prostitution trade? None to be found. One reason for this could be that many are only active in this trade temporarily. However, figures like those from the Munich police are neither conclusive nor backed up by reliable data.

Sad but true: apparently prostitution is still regarded in today's society as dirty and depraved, and both brothel operators as well as sex workers and customers feel compelled to conceal their interests and professions, sometimes even having to feel ashamed of them. This is due not least to the fact that it is imposed upon them that their work surely cannot be fun and is therefore inhumane. Ergo, work must be fun in order to be recognized. But what about "normal" work such as sewer cleaning, for example? If that gives the workers no fun, is it then likewise inhumane? Hardly. Amber Lain, too, former voluntary sex worker and today a brothel owner, counters: "Prostitution is, of course based on one's own will, a service like any other. Prostitution is not the same as human trafficking. And a sex worker is by no means mentally ill or a victim." But it is of course easier and more convenient to polemicize against something than to make the effort to change one's perspective and understand it that way. Even the human rights organization Amnesty International spoke out in favor of the legalization of prostitution in a vote in Dublin.

 

 

 

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Dear supporters of voluntary prostitution!

published on August 14, 2014 by Alice Schwarzer

 

Should the reform of the fatal prostitution law of 2002 fail now, it will be your fault: the fault of left-wing women. You, the committed women in the SPD and among the Greens or the Left; you, the upright Protestant women; you, the cool scene bloggers – you are leading the way in supporting prostitution (the men are conspicuously holding back). And you perhaps even mean well by it. Because you ultimately consider outlawing prostitution to be outlawing free sexuality.

You seem fascinated by what you write or read in Brigitte or Zeit or taz about "happy sex workers." You close your eyes to the hundreds of thousands, mostly Eastern European, destitute prostitutes. Instead, you idealize the few thousand, mostly German, so-called "voluntary" prostitutes who still exist in this country. These are occasional prostitutes, self-employed dominas or former prostitutes who have long since been running their own "studio," where they have other women earn money for them.

Are you actually aware that your pro-prostitution stance is unique in the world, a genuine German phenomenon? In countries like France, Sweden or America, you in particular would probably think quite differently. Because there, prostitution is referred to as "white slavery," and progressive women there are, of course, solidly in solidarity with prostitutes, but they criticize or fight the system of prostitution.

This system, which makes women the purchasable sex – and this precisely at a time when "communicative sex," i.e. a truly equal and mutual sexuality between the sexes, is on the rise (as sexologists also state). But your trivialization and affirmation of commercialized sex reverses this positive development.

How could such a misunderstanding come about? What could be the reason that you close your eyes to the motives of the johns and at the same time so stubbornly deny the everyday reality of women in prostitution? All you would have to do is look.

We older ones remember. It began, yes, in the name of feminism. That was at the end of the 70s. That's when the first texts appeared about how chic it supposedly was to prostitute oneself: in the feminist magazine Courage, in the anarcho-left Pflasterstrand, in the taz. Mostly they were female students who worked as occasional prostitutes. They knew how to report how "hot" it was to do a quick job for good money sometimes. Or how easy it was to earn a few marks in the peep show to add to the shared-flat kitty.

These were the daughters of the "sexual revolution." But feminists – such as Kate Millett in "Sexual Politics" (1971) and "The Prostitution Papers" (1975), or Shulamith Firestone with "The Dialectic of Sex" (1974), as well as I myself in "The Little Difference" (1975) – had already analyzed this long ago: this kind of "sexual revolution" was only the other side of the coin of bourgeois stuffiness. We women, who up to that point had only had to belong to one man, were now supposed to belong to all men.

One of the consequences of the new libertinage was that quite a few a "sexually liberated" woman said to herself: why not simply collect payment for it too, then? These were women who, in the course of equal rights, had taken over the traditionally male separation of feeling and sex – or else, for well-known reasons, had never had feelings during sex in the first place. Indeed, why not then simply collect payment?

A few voices, among them EMMA, opposed this perversion of sexual liberation from the very beginning. In doing so, we feminists naturally did not and do not assume a natural "female" or "male" sexuality. Sexuality is culture, is learned. And the expectation that sexuality and love go hand in hand is, incidentally, relatively new. Under patriarchy, sexuality for men was nothing but a kind of "branding" of women, an exercise of power over women; in doing so, men distinguished between "saints," who belonged to them alone, and "whores," who belonged to everyone.

This has changed, not least thanks to the women's movement. Most women today have a largely self-determined sexuality and their own desire. So should we, of all people, progressive women, now contribute to restoring the old order by accepting the system of prostitution? In the name of emancipation? And of profit! Because the profit margins in prostitution and human trafficking, both inextricably linked, are today easily a thousand percent. The globally organized trade in women brings in at least as much as the trade in drugs and weapons.

Will people, in twenty or thirty years, look back and say: how could that happen? How could we allow that! Perhaps. But that does not console me. We must act now! Every day costs battered bodies and dead souls. That is why we must stay in dialogue. And that is why your motives interest me.

• Do you believe men like it when you are pro-prostitution? – Or do men not rather despise that, because they know far better what prostitution really is?

• Do you believe prostitution is sexy because you yourselves sometimes have "dirty" fantasies in which you "sell yourselves"? – Then you should consider the difference between fantasy and reality.

• Do you believe prostitution is identical to sexuality? – Then you should ask prostitutes and johns about their true motives and true feelings (not the ones they act out for their customers). Women who prostitute themselves are concerned with money; usually they have no other choice. Johns are concerned with exercising power: for once not discussing or asking about the desire of the other, but simply demanding.

• Do you believe there are prostitutes who enjoy it? – Then you should see the sore vaginas and torn mouths of the prostitutes who have to accept ten, twenty johns a day for 20, 30 euros per go. For sheer survival.

• Do you believe that we have no business interfering in the conditions under which the majority of prostitutes in Germany work? – But then why do you protest against the working conditions of workers at Amazon? They, after all, get a wage above minimum wage and live in containers. Most destitute prostitutes dream (after deducting room rent) of such an hourly wage. And as a rule they must sleep in the very beds in which they service the johns.

• ​Do you believe it is old-fashioned to say: the body is not a commodity? And do you think that under capitalism one should sell everything that is commercializable? – Then, for example, you would also have to be for the legalization of the organ trade or of surrogate motherhood.

• Do you believe one could, indeed should, separate sexuality and feeling? – Or do you yourselves in truth know the emptiness this separation leaves behind?

• Do you believe "these women" are simply different from you? – Or were you simply born at the right time in the right place?

• ​Do you believe …

But whatever you believe, dear women: think it through to the end. What would it be like if you yourselves were in this situation? In the situation of these so-distant prostitutes, across the way on the street or next door in the "model studio" or in the brothel.

And whatever you believe, consider how the mere possibility of going to a prostitute can shape the desire and gaze of a man and of your sons. A gaze that is also directed at you and at your daughters.

And above all: have compassion! Have compassion for the hundreds of thousands of women driven into prostitution by material or spiritual misery. Do not turn away from these women. Contribute to their protection – and to their real chance of a dignified life. A life such as we, you and I, lead so naturally.

Alice Schwarzer

 

Source: https://www.aliceschwarzer.de/artikel/liebe-befuerworterinnen-der-freiwilligen-prostitution-317539

 

 

 

 

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To the Federal Chancellor and the Bundestag

published in autumn 2013 by Alice Schwarzer

 

Prostitution is "the oldest trade in the world"? Prostitution is "a job like any other"? There will always be prostitution, because its abolition is utopian? Wrong. The abolition of slavery, too, was still considered utopian not so very long ago. And even though slavery has by no means completely disappeared from our world, it would nowadays be unthinkable for an enlightened, democratic state to tolerate, let alone propagate, slavery.

Yet that is exactly what Germany does with prostitution: it tolerates, indeed promotes, this modern slavery (internationally called "white slavery"). The reform of the prostitution law in 2002, which was supposedly meant to benefit the estimated 700,000 women (average value) in prostitution, bears the handwriting of the traffickers of women and their lobbyists. Since then, Germany has become Europe's hub for the trafficking of women and a paradise for sex tourists from neighboring countries. A German special path. Even the Netherlands is backpedaling. The Scandinavian countries introduced the outlawing and punishment of johns years ago. And France and Ireland are in the process of following suit.

Worldwide, the trafficking of women and prostitution, both inextricably linked, are today, alongside the arms and drug trade, the business with the highest profit margins (over 1,000 percent). Profit not for the women. Even the minority of prostitutes of German origin, often already victims of sexual violence as children, end up in old-age poverty at a rate of over 90 percent. Not to mention the foreign women in poverty- and forced prostitution.

The system of prostitution is exploitation and at the same time a continuation of the traditionally grown inequality between men and women (and countries/continents). The system of prostitution degrades women to the purchasable sex and overshadows the equality of the sexes. The system of prostitution brutalizes desire and violates the human dignity of men and women – including that of the so-called "voluntary" prostitutes.

That is why we demand of politics and society:

• A change in the law that puts a stop, as quickly as possible, to the deregulation of the trafficking of women and of prostitution, and that protects women as well as the minority of male prostitutes.

• Prevention in Germany and in the countries of origin, as well as help to exit for women in prostitution. And protection from deportation for witnesses, along with their right of residence.

• Education about the consequences of buying women, already in schools, etc.

• Outlawing, and if necessary also punishment, of johns; that is, the buyers of women, without whom this human market would not exist.

• Measures that lead, in the short term, to a containment and, in the long term, to the abolition of the system of prostitution.

A dignified life is conceivable.

 

Source: https://www.emma.de/unterzeichnen-der-appell-gegen-prostitution-311923

 

 

 

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„Only a world without prostitution is humane"

Interview with Alice Schwarzer, published on November 4, 2013 by Jörg Eigendorf, Marc Neller in "Die Welt"

 

Feminist Alice Schwarzer will not let go of the dream of a world without prostitution. She says: 90 percent of prostitutes want to get out – but many cannot.

"We demand: abolish prostitution": Right on time for the coalition negotiations, 90 prominent figures signed a call. In doing so, they are taking a stand against the prostitution law with which the red-green government attempted to legalize the whores' business in 2002. Experts in any case do not believe that the oldest trade can ever be eliminated from the world; "Emma" publisher Alice Schwarzer, however, does. She does not want to give up the dream of a prostitution-free world, but pragmatically demands that, for now, the small steps be taken first. This could even include nationalizing brothels.

Die Welt: Ms. Schwarzer, who benefits from such a call – the whores, or the signatories whom you're now depicting on your front page?

Alice Schwarzer: It benefits the topic and is hopefully an impetus for the overdue societal debate. Because prostitution in Germany today is socially acceptable. It's considered cool. Whoever signs such a call must presumably hear a lot for it.

Die Welt: You don't really believe that. The ARD Tatort episode "Wegwerfmädchen" or the ZDF film "Operation Zucker" caused a great deal of outrage.

Schwarzer: Of course everyone is outraged about that, because children were involved. But criticizing the situation of adult prostitutes – that is not currently in vogue. People like to say that prostitution is "a job like any other." The women and men who signed our appeal to abolish prostitution belong to a courageous minority.

Die Welt: You want to abolish prostitution. That is completely naive.

Schwarzer: Do you think so? People said the same thing, not so very long ago, about the opponents of slavery.

Die Welt: Yes, and slavery still exists in many parts of the world.

Schwarzer: Yes, unfortunately. But no enlightened, democratic state would still tolerate, trivialize, or even propagate slavery – as Germany does today with prostitution. Only a world without prostitution, a world in which men cannot use a woman's body and soul for a banknote, would be a humane world. The immediate goal is protection and help for women in prostitution – and the possibility of prosecuting the traffickers, pimps and brothel operators who rent rooms to the women at usurious rents. Yes, and we must also talk about punishing johns. After all, they are the ones who create the market for buying women in the first place.

Die Welt: That might work in Stockholm, where you only need a few police officers. But in a country like Germany, with so many big cities and a completely different social structure, that's completely unrealistic.

Schwarzer: From the mouth of the Swedish police, however, it sounds very practicable. They have great successes – also with the women to whom they offer a way out. 75 percent of men and 93 percent of women in Sweden are now against the system of prostitution.

Die Welt: Swedish men travel to Germany or Austria and blow their savings on whores in two weeks. In winter, prostitutes are bussed to Styria.

Schwarzer: With prostitution, it's just like in the financial world. We need global regulation.

Die Welt: Which won't exist in the financial world either, for the foreseeable future. Isn't it better, then, to offer prostitution under strict state control within one's own country, rather than driving johns abroad? Then prostitutes and the state earn equally, but not pimps and dubious landlords.

Schwarzer: That would be a first step. But even in front of these brothels, the pimps stand and collect. Especially when they are women from dirt-poor countries who barely speak a word of German.

Die Welt: What do you propose?

Schwarzer: We have to start with small steps. First and foremost, we should develop compassion. For each of us, it is a matter of course that one doesn't hit an old woman over the head and steal her handbag. But what happens to the prostitutes right next door is much worse. We have a social climate in which prostitution is not understood as an evil. The second step is that we need to make better laws, strengthen the police apparatus. Only in this way can we prosecute traffickers, make life hard for pimps and brothel owners. And thirdly, we need more help for the women to get out of this scene.

Die Welt: What perspective can the state offer the women? Many are so broken that they can't do a normal job at all anymore.

Schwarzer: That's true. Many women are so dependent, so destroyed, so helpless, that there seems to be no other way. But that can't be an argument for simply looking on. I have often fought for something that seemed utopian. Believe me: at some point society wakes up. Who would have thought, for example, that "Die Welt" would one day campaign so vehemently against prostitution?

Die Welt: Experts say something is moving in the fight against the dark sides of prostitution. What do you think?

Schwarzer: What does "dark sides" mean. The whole of prostitution is a dark chapter and lies like a heavy shadow over the relationship between the sexes. Women are the purchasable sex – and men the (potential) buyers. Our ethical and our legal sense must change.

Die Welt: You sharply criticized the red-green government's prostitution law from 2002. How large is that law's share of responsibility for the current situation?

Schwarzer: It's decisive. This law was written from the very beginning for traffickers and pimps, not for the prostitutes. The lobbyists had a strong hand in drafting it – and some female politicians naively went along with it. The women have been even more unprotected ever since. For 95 percent of prostitutes, this has nothing to do with self-determination. The left-wing and liberal milieu has utterly failed in the whole of sexual politics. The main mistake was the denial of power relations: between adults and children in pedophilia, between men and women in prostitution.

Die Welt: Are the conservatives more progressive there?

Schwarzer: No. But at least they still have the good old double standard. That's better than no morals at all. Conservative men at least are still embarrassed to go to a brothel.

Die Welt: The lobby associations of prostitutes advertise the profession. You, on the other hand, deny that women do this voluntarily.

Schwarzer: Of course they advertise for it. These associations are in the hands of the brothel operators – and they profit from the women. In the past 40 years, I have not yet met a single woman who enjoyed doing the job and did not actually want to get out. 90 percent of all prostitutes want to get out – but often they can't.

Die Welt: And what about the female students who earn quick money on the side as escorts? Following the motto: better to sell your body than to clean?

Schwarzer: That exists too, of course. I'm just afraid the hangover comes later. In doing so, a woman naturally destroys any unselfconsciousness in her own sexuality. But presumably it was already destroyed beforehand. Over 90 percent of all prostitutes suffered abuse as children. Women who were spared that are lucky. When I was 21, I lived in Paris as a language student. Back then I cleaned for three francs an hour. It didn't even occur to me to sell my body instead.

Die Welt: Many women from Eastern Europe or Africa see no other choice but to prostitute themselves. It is an existential question.

Schwarzer: That's how it is. Most prostitutes come from the poorest countries. 90 percent of the so-called "fresh meat" offered in Germany's brothels today comes from Bulgaria or Romania. They are poverty- and forced prostitutes. Some are sold by their own families. To speak of voluntariness in that context is pure cynicism.

Die Welt: Where do you get such figures?

Schwarzer: You can very easily research that yourself too. Talk to the police, to social workers, go into the brothels.

Die Welt: We have done that too. As our prostitution atlas shows: there are no reliable figures – not even on how many whores work in a given city.

Schwarzer: Your statistics only show how ineffective the prostitution law is, even at that level. Nobody has an interest in bringing transparency to this dark business: not the secretly working German prostitutes, whose own children usually don't know about it, not the poverty- and forced prostitutes – and certainly not the real profiteers. So we are dependent on estimates.

Die Welt: What about the few German women who still prostitute themselves?

Schwarzer: They were either born into the milieu. Or they had to learn as children to be compliant, to buy affection with sex – that is, they are victims of abuse. At some point they then discover that there's even money in it, and a bit of power. But that fades quickly. What remains is: three out of four prostitutes are dependent on drugs and alcohol, two out of three are raped on the job, two out of three suffer from post-traumatic disorders. That's what international studies tell us. Prostitution is the ugly face of the structurally unequal relationship between the sexes.

Die Welt: Why "the sexes"? There is prostitution among men too, and women also go to male prostitutes.

Schwarzer: It is indeed not a question of biological sex, but one of the power relationship in which people stand to one another.

Die Welt: Why does the federal government find it so hard to change the 2002 law?

Schwarzer: At first the SPD found it hard to admit its own mistake. And then the FDP blocked it. But that's no longer the problem now.

Die Welt: The SPD women did not sign your current call for a ban.

Schwarzer: Not yet. But the chairwoman of the SPD women, Elke Ferner, wrote to us that she and her colleagues consider "all the demands of the appeal correct." And that they will "in any case work for changes to the law." The time is ripe. The grand coalition will put an end to the deregulation of the prostitution market and, I hope, create the legal conditions for more humane circumstances.

 

Source: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article121496718/Nur-eine-Welt-ohne-Prostitution-ist-human.html

 

 

 

 

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Open Letter to A. Schwarzer: Thirteen Points and Three Questions

published by Freieroffensive

 

Dear Ms. Schwarzer, at regular intervals you rant and rail at prime time about men who pay for sex. Most of all you'd like to arrest us and throw us into a cold, damp hole. We johns don't recognize ourselves in your tirades. One author for your magazine EMMA even asks: "...conscience. Where does it actually get parked, while one's own cock rages inside the woman's body?" In the current debate about paysex, active sex workers are barely heard. And the so-called johns don't speak up either. In your campaign against sex as a paid service, you demonize the customers of sex workers and even call for their criminalization. To counter your poor opinion of us – men who pay for sex – we dedicate the following 13 points and three short questions to you:1) Before we go to paysex, we shower and cut our nails. Respect is the top priority, not only because we know that the forest echoes back the way you shout into it, but also simply because we like most of the girls. Another rule is: don't fall in love with a whore, and vice versa for the ladies: don't fall in love with a john. The vast majority stick to this. We're happy to exchange phone numbers with our favorite traveling whores. And they with us. They move from town to town and from apartment to apartment. When they're back in our region, they send us a message and look forward to our visit. No, we don't think they're happy because we're so sexy. We know that money makes you sexy. But a bartender or a taxi driver doesn't do their job because of the nice clients either. Still, almost all service providers are happy about pleasant customers.2) Blowjobs, fucking, chatting, a kiss on the left cheek and a kiss on the right, "it was nice, until next time." We leave the scene of the crime with a song on our lips, but we are not rapists. Our surroundings benefit from our good mood, which can last for several days. Most of the women are from countries with high poverty, but German housewives and students "sell it" too. Conversations are conducted in German, English, Spanish, or other languages, and in body language. In the popular imagination of the john there are two types: the one who wants only "the one thing," and the other who only wants to talk. Far from it. We want everything. The AST (After Sex Talk) is pleasant and stimulating. Almost all the women we get to know are self-confident, proud and interesting. Every one of us can report highlights: wonderful experiences with heavenly women. Some we would marry on the spot, or would love to have as girlfriends forever at our side. And please don't take us for fools. Paysex is, admittedly, a paid game. Still, we know exactly who we have in front of us. 3) Looked at closely, neither the women nor the johns have a problem with morality. It's win-win. One side needs money, the other needs sex. That's a business deal, not coercion: we do not force our interest upon the women, nor vice versa. We've encountered the unhappy connection between power and sex elsewhere. With or without a wedding ring, we have – in many forms – often paid more with proper relationship sex than with bought love. No, we're not relationship losers either, quite the opposite. But we simply enjoy having good sex. What makes paysex attractive is the clarity of the agreement, the equal footing, the absence of power. You will now say that money is the power. Correct: sex as a commodity and a cold beer have one thing in common: both have to be paid for. But in walk-in houses, clubs and apartments, it's not power-hungry men meeting "fallen" women, but adult, everyday people of different origins entering into a business relationship. And whether you believe it or not, in the establishments things are usually cheerful to funny; a stupid world full of harsh contradictions can only be endured with a bit of wit.4) What's important is: we are not the minority, we are the majority, we are millions. Of course we're not all classy johns, but also bargain hunters, looks-fuckers, porn-rammers, romantics, eccentrics, cowboys, natural boys, love clowns, mama's boys, big, small, naive, dumb, conceited, intelligent and educated johns – to name just a few types; some SSPs (sex service providers) also offer their service to women, couples, and men and women with disabilities. Almost all johns will confirm that mutual respect between customer and SSP is the prerequisite and foundation of the bought act. This is for us – women and johns – not the highest form of love, but massage, with an illusion of time and climax. We know that work as an SSP can be hard. All the more do we appreciate it when the ladies are in a good mood. If our wallet allows it, we give more than agreed. There is no such thing as safe sex, but there are rules for safer sex. Whoever does not follow these – regardless of whether men or women – endangers others and, in our opinion, should be prosecuted.5) And don't take the women for fools either; they too know very well what's going on with us. Sex workers are not just noble women, but girlfriend, buddy, mother, domina, fat, thin, loud, quiet, strict, hard, kind, cheeky, naive, cunning, angry, dumb, conceited, intelligent and educated whores – to name just a few types. Many are craftier than they look. Otherwise they wouldn't get through at all, especially if they aren't at home in German lands. Whores too have professional honor, and there are said to be some who occasionally have fun with customers, for example with regulars they like a lot. Johns and whores form a multi-faceted variety of combinations. Whether the "chemistry is right" is decided anew each time. At the center of the rendezvous stand, quite consistently, the "11 Minutes" that Paulo Coelho made the title of his kitschy bestseller about prostitution.6) We know that our money feeds entire families in Romania, Bulgaria or the Caribbean. Or finances studies, in Poland, Hungary or Germany. We don't consider ourselves good people, but it can't be bad. Some tell us about home, about family and children. Life without money drives them to the money metropolises. Admittedly, some of the girls probably carry their earnings home to a good-for-nothing. It is not prostitution, however, when a woman works and a man freeloads. That kind of division of labor is called patriarchy. We do not paternalize the women by giving them unsolicited advice on what would be good or bad for them.7) Forced prostitution and human trafficking are a different matter; that constitutes the crime of rape. Whoever threatens women, injures them, or sells them, should be locked up. We're well aware that there are johns who get off on real brutality or on minors. We're ready at any time to report those pigs. If we ourselves are criminalized, that will no longer be possible. The less paid sex work is outlawed, the less room human traffickers have to operate in this milieu; gigantic profit margins for mafia-style gangs are only possible in illegal segments of society. This is confirmed by current figures: according to the BKA (Federal Criminal Police Office), cases of human trafficking have been declining since the introduction of the new prostitution law. Reflexively, Ms. Schwarzer, you call these figures "just the tip of the iceberg" and point to a mysteriously rising "number of unreported cases." You have no evidence. And even Wikipedia knows that the term forced prostitution "is countered by the argument that it attempts to force structural problems of migration and prosperity gaps into perpetrator-victim schemas." Unverifiable horror figures about human trafficking are mostly used to stir up sentiment against poverty migration.8) The entrepreneur's profit is the purpose of the free market economy. That's why we assume that brothel owners make a fortune off us. Nevertheless, the women from Eastern Europe in the brothels of the most successful European economic nation still earn many times what their men can earn on German large construction sites. Otherwise they wouldn't do the job at all. The globally enforced competitive struggle makes them losers in their countries of origin. That's why the women try here to get hold of our valuable money. Which we gladly give them. Especially when we go home relaxed and satisfied. Then we know that the amount was well invested. To our delight, this is almost always the case. We are well aware that we are beneficiaries of this global economic order. However, we are not its cause. Incidentally, we also do not belong to the rapidly rising number of German millionaires and multimillionaires. We think nothing of consumer boycotts: that brings neither the women nor us any advantage.9) You, Ms. Schwarzer, paint a completely different picture of the sex-service milieu. Sodom and Gomorrah and the antechamber of the underworld serve as the matrix for your publicity-effective associations. The quote from the EMMA author mentioned at the outset, a Catholic social worker from southern Germany, is reminiscent of medieval torture by impalement, not of paid lovemaking; incidentally, we suspect that the author could no longer hold back her own sexual violence fantasies at that point. The lady is regarded by the German Bundestag as an "expert on combating human trafficking and monitoring prostitution establishments." She is not unfamiliar with what johns also know: "As a rule, the women work for their families and send their entire earnings from prostitution home. Many of the women are not here alone. They are accompanied by brothers, cousins, by their husbands, by their fathers... Every cent is saved and sent home... That's how the typical prostitute from Eastern Europe comes to be: in her early 20s and with two or three children back home" (Sabine Constabel before the German Bundestag, June 2013).10) We know it takes courage to pack your bags somewhere in Romania in order to earn money off strange men in a foreign country. Quite a few of the women have training; there are even academics among them. They tell us that word has long since gotten around back home about how a woman can earn money in Germany. Many – by no means all – come here as part of a family business, but not forced at gunpoint. Others organize independent carpools or commute by scheduled flight. When S. Constabel claims that the women don't know what they're getting into, she bases this assessment on her many years of work in Stuttgart's old town, mainly on the street-walking scene. She forgets that the clients she cares for are well aware that she is a social worker and – like other service providers too – does not do her job for altruistic reasons. Moreover, typical helper personalities are always on a worldview-driven mission. Everywhere in the world where poor meets rich, the destitute therefore tell their professional friends exactly what they want to hear. Anything else would also be of little use to the petitioner. The conversation between the (paid) helper and the needy whore is not a dialogue free of power dynamics.11) You, Ms. Schwarzer, as well as your sanctimonious social worker, are a paragon of hypocrisy. Your declared goal is the criminalization of johns and the banning of prostitution. In doing so you present yourselves as friends and helpers of prostitutes. Even though the repression you are aiming for would promote human trafficking and forced prostitution. You want to abolish sex work by taking away sex workers' source of income, and you declare this to be a protective measure for the sex workers. A strange and absurd logic. Did you actually ask those affected? As long as you are not able to place every SSP working in Germany in a job as editor-in-chief, we do not believe that you mean it honestly. Since it's clear from the outset that you neither want nor can do that, the functionalization of the women is a contemptible matter. We ourselves wish every one of our temporary girlfriends much luck and success if they look for a job elsewhere.12) In your crusade against sex as a service, you are diligently building the public anti-prostitution discourse. An essential building block of this discourse against paid sex services is the systematic equating of forced prostitution with voluntary sex for money: paid sex is meant to burn itself into citizens' minds as a metaphor for violence and exploitation. You want to achieve that women who decide to work in this trade because of the comparatively good earning opportunities are stigmatized wholesale as rape victims. That is utter nonsense with a side of sauce. You deprive of agency the women who set the prices, and demonize the men who book them. We make up a significant part of the population. It's strange that neither johns nor whores are included in your supposed rescue mission. Why you don't do that is clear. The beloved cliché of perpetrator and victim would wobble if a representative cross-section of those affected were given a voice. The goal of your campaign, to create a climate of vilification and slander, would suffer damage. Your efforts are flanked by dedicated Tatort detectives and the most reactionary cardinals the Catholic Church has to offer.13) When analyzing your texts and statements, it is striking that you deliberately conflate direct coercion with the violence of poverty. For this purpose, touching anecdotes from the social-worker clientele of the red-light districts are told. Mostly they are from street prostitution, a part of the sex trade that is not representative. Surely the examples are true, but not even characteristic of street prostitution. The journalistic product of your work is below tabloid level and has nothing to do with the life-worlds of sex workers, nor with the reality in brothels, clubs and walk-in houses, nor with the attitude of normal johns toward women. We know that everyone somehow has to earn a living. You do it by selling a deliberately distorted, but sensationalist image of the sex trade. You are not concerned with weighing arguments for the benefit of exploited women; rather, your goal is the violent eradication of a thousands-of-years-old interaction between the sexes. This is currently not banned in Germany and doesn't fit into your bigoted worldview. We are entirely on your side against rape, forced prostitution and human trafficking. But we consider your agitation against paid sex services to be counterproductive, boring, ancient, dishonest, and dangerous. Paid sex is not degrading for women, and it is no disgrace for men to pay for sex. Three questions for Ms. Schwarzer:1) Why shouldn't sex be a commodity? (After all, the food we eat and the water we drink are commodities too. Unlike sex, food and drink are even primary needs. And sex is supposed to be free? Only the air we breathe is (still) free.)2) Why shouldn't an adult woman be allowed to seize the opportunity to earn, within three days, what she wouldn't earn in three months in her home country?3) Why can Ms. Schwarzer only ever imagine women as victims, and men only as (evil)doers?

We would be delighted if Ms. Maischberger and Mr. Jauch also invited outspoken johns to the next show with Ms. Schwarzer. We call on all so-called johns to actively contradict Ms. Schwarzer's smear propaganda. Yours sincerely,Manuel Köhler, Patrick Maurer, Daniel Müller, Thomas Schuster, Martin Weber

Source: http://freieroffensive.blogspot.de/

 

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