The Prostitution Act has not only led to greater protection and self-confidence among prostitutes and escorts. Nevertheless, it has been criticised. From Axel Schock
Even if these three simple paragraphs were only formulated after a long and tough political struggle, their adoption was nothing more and nothing less than a social milestone: since 2002, prostitution has no longer been considered "immoral" in Germany. Anyone who offers sexual acts in return for payment agreed in advance is no longer liable to prosecution and can even sue for their wages in court if necessary. What's more, prostitution is no longer just the proverbial "oldest trade in the world", but is now (almost) a profession like any other. Anyone who wants to can now pursue it quite officially: with social insurance and taxes.
Like Tom, for example. The 35-year-old has been working as an escort for almost ten years. Initially, says the trained wholesale merchant, it was just a stopgap solution. "My job was a dead end, no amount of horses would have got me back into an office. Earning good money quickly with sex was pretty exciting at first. And tax-free too," says Tom and laughs. But there came a point when the dropout and adventurer's down-to-earth southern German streak kicked in. Being without regular health insurance and a statutory pension scheme in the long term was not a reassuring prospect for Tom.
Thanks to the possibilities offered by the Prostitution Act, Tom is now part of the army of freelancers. While others offer their services as masseurs, journalists or IT technicians, Tom delivers sex. On request, free of charge or in his specially equipped studio. His tax office clerk has already got used to the fact that, in addition to the rent for the flat, he declares the expenses for relevant adverts in city magazines as well as for sex toys and lubricant as work-related expenses on his income tax return.
Like any other self-employed person, Tom now has to make sure that his shop is running and sales are good. Unique in Germany, the Berlin project "querstrich" Callboys who want to work legally and consciously as escorts.
Compared to female prostitutes, comparatively few men take this route. For most of them, sex work is more of an occasional source of extra income; only very few of them finance themselves exclusively through it - and only some actually do so over a longer period of time. The majority of contacts today are made via the internet, says qualified social pedagogue Ralf Rötten from "querstrich". And the competition is greater than ever. Over 1,000 escorts offer their services on GayRomeo in Munich alone
and around 1,800 in the capital.
This is another reason why the debate about the Prostitution Act, which was recently reignited by Alice Schwarzer and others, has hardly caused any excitement in the gay scene. The criticism: the law encourages forced prostitution and human trafficking because brothels can now also be run legally and the authorities therefore have hardly any control options.
In their coalition agreement, the CDU/CSU and SPD have now announced a "comprehensive revision" of the Prostitutes Act in order to take better action against human trafficking and forced prostitution. Activists like Stephanie Klee think little of this. "Exploitation, violence and coercion and, of course, human trafficking are criminal offences that should be prosecuted under the existing laws," says the co-founder of the Federal Association of Erotic and Sexual Services e.V. "You have to protect the victims and help them. But by lumping everything together, we are avoiding criminal prosecution and victim protection." The result: all people involved in prostitution, customers and providers alike, are once again under general suspicion.
Cases of human trafficking and forced prostitution end up in Department 26 of the criminal investigation department in Cologne. "However, we have no experience in the area of male prostitution," says its head Hubert Derichs. His colleagues in Hamburg and Berlin are also unable to report any cases when asked. The common tenor is that when men go procuring, it is often due to a social emergency, but almost always without coercion. "Pimping is a phenomenon that we don't actually recognise from the gay scene," says Derichs, "but a dark field can of course never be completely ruled out." Rumours of minors being trafficked to wealthy clients in Germany, for example, keep surfacing. Helmut Wanner from the Berlin-based Hustler project Subwayto whom some of these boys, now grown-up young men, told of their fate.
Even if forced prostitution among prostitutes and clients is a very rare exception and only a few want to make sex work their official profession, the Prostitution Act has had a lasting effect for all of them: because their work is now officially recognised, they can pursue their job much more confidently and openly. Where previously a client could cheat on the sex wage without any consequences, prostitutes now have the opportunity to sue clients who are unwilling to pay. Even if only a few have made use of this option so far: According to a survey by the working group of German-speaking prostitution projects, almost 70% of the men surveyed are prepared to do so in principle, which is significantly more than their female colleagues.
