The liberalisation of prostitution has triggered a boom in the market for erotic services. Up to about ten years ago, I used to go to Thailand every so often. I had a great time over there, like so many people do. Then I came to Berlin, and I found Paradise. Many German brothels offer you a flat rate: clients can have as much sex as they want within 24 hours β if they can handle it β for between fifty and a hundred dollars, depending on the quality of the brothel.
Germany is every man's dream, at least for me. This is Anthony speaking, a man in his fifties from Baltimore, USA, one of the thousands of sex tourists landing in Berlin every year to take advantage of what is considered to be the biggest I prostitution scene in the world.
Operating mainly in Asia, Russia, and North America, they offer five to ten-day packages that include flights, hotels, and limousine service, and promise their clients a complete tour of all the most famous red-light establishments in the entire country. According to this law, which is still in force, the exploitation of prostitution per se is still to be considered a crime, whereas it became legal to provide prostitutes with a clean and safe working environment.
The objective was to get rid of the criminal element of the business and increase the number of safe places where prostitutes would be protected just like any other worker in the country.
But the end result of the reform has been nothing short of disastrous: according to data provided by the German Federal Employment Agency, only 44 of the , prostitutes currently working in Germany have chosen to officially register so that they may qualify to receive the benefits afforded to German workers.
