Enlarge image
Photo:
Andreas Arnold / dpa
Dear suitor,
what can you call a penetration that only you desire?
What should you call sex that your partner agrees to out of necessity and for money?
The law in Germany speaks of a »sexual service«.
French feminists call this service »viol tarifé«, a collectively agreed rape.
Do you honestly think a woman could want to be penetrated by strangers multiple times a day?
The fact is that she often simply needs money, is afraid of her pimp's violence, or is so broken that she cannot defend herself.
Also, your bad rating can cost them their lives.
Dear clients, according to studies or surveys like that of Melissa Farley, an American psychologist, most of you perceive that prostitutes suffer.
You still want the performance.
Why is that?
Does it secretly turn you on that the woman has to pretend?
Do you really think you're a great lover?
It may be that there are women who love to prostitute themselves.
Women who work as a dominatrix, for example.
They are very present on talk shows.
But they are a very small and loud minority - at most ten percent, estimates former chief inspector Helmut Sporer, who, as head of the German Institute for Applied Crime Analysis (DIAKA), campaigns for a society free of human trafficking and the associated sexualised violence.
As an expert, he estimates that around 90 percent of prostitutes are caught by pimps.
Women who smile at clients like you because they have to.
Not because they want to.
"Sex work" is a nonsense invented by the multi-billion dollar sex industry.
Dropouts report how difficult it was to overcome the trauma they suffered.
Rachel Moran in Ireland, Rozen Hicher in France, Sandra Norak and Huschke Mau in Germany - they are the credible voices of the majority of prostitutes who cannot raise their own voice.
more on the subject
Prostitution system of violence: The »Layla system« should be banned! A guest contribution by Inge Bell and Helmut Sporer
CSU Social Affairs Minister Ulrike Scharf: "The abolition of prostitution would be utopian" An interview by Anna Clauss
Can prostitution really be work?
According to the French aid organization The Coalition for the Abolition of Prostitution (CAP International), "sex workers" start working in the trade at the international average of 14 years - in Germany at 19. Their life expectancy is 40 years, and a third of them are minors .
According to estimates by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, around 80 percent of registered prostitutes in Germany are not German nationals.
Addiction and post-traumatic stress disorders, but also scars, broken bones and incontinence are part of their everyday life.
In many cases they abort – your children, by the way.
As a customer, you are king.
Pimps take care of the goods you want.
Does it really surprise you: too few women want to sell sex.
So some are lied to and lured to Germany.
For a long time I thought clients like you were lonely, poor wretches.
Until I read on the blog »The Invisible Men«: At least half of you are in a steady relationship and have a university entrance qualification.
Almost half of you are fathers.
Their wives and children know nothing.
With the legalization of prostitution in 2002, Germany dreamed of organizing "sex work", "sexual services", collectively agreed rape or whatever you want to call the sex trade.
Today, Germany has become an Eldorado for human traffickers and a magnet for sex tourists.
At Berlin Airport, some taxis advertise a male wellness oasis, and new brothels are opening on the German-French border.
On the other side of the Rhine, customers like you have been risking four-digit fines from 1,500 euros since 2016 – and in aggravated cases also imprisonment.
The Ministry of Justice sensitizes you to violence in prostitution in compulsory workshops.
Has France fallen on its head?
Since 1999, Sweden has also followed the so-called “Nordic Model” and later six other countries: Norway, Iceland, Canada, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Israel.
There, too, clients are punishable - prostitutes, on the other hand, go unpunished, even if they sell themselves on.
If they want to get out, they get help.
The population is informed.
According to a 2019 Ipsos poll, 78 percent of the French population support the Nordic model.
more on the subject
Prostitution in the corona crisis: some want to work again, others want the permanent ban by Sarah Heidi Engel
Federal Statistical Office: The number of registered prostitutes in Germany has fallen again
Prostitution is seen there as the last bastion of patriarchy to be abolished.
At first I felt it was too thick.
Then it occurred to me: Nowhere in the world are there establishments with impoverished, attractive, naked men waiting for aroused customers of all ages.
Prostitution is deeply gendered.
Almost all buyers are men, the majority of prostitutes are women.
Perhaps one can call the Nordic model the forerunner of the #MeToo movement.
Whether it's a slap on the butt or sheer violence - abuse in exchange for money, promotion or a job is a thing of the past.
Prostitution is part of the rape culture.
You're out!
You are probably now arguing that prostitution cannot be abolished.
Yes, there will always be men like you exploiting vulnerable women.
Murder and robbery cannot be completely abolished either – but they are still forbidden.
The Nordic model grabs the evil – you!
– at the root.
The main goal is that you become less.
Human trafficking and the number of suffering prostitutes are declining.
Because the supply determines your demand.
Germany has a lot of catching up to do.
France closed its brothels in 1946.
Today there are only an estimated 35,000 prostitutes there, in Sweden around 1000 - in Germany the estimates range between 90,000 and 400,000.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, only 24,900 prostitutes were officially registered in 2020.
Everyone else is in a huge dark field - under the guise of legalization.
Many people in this country still think that liberal laws like the one in Germany could ensure clean brothels and well-fitting condoms right up to retirement homes.
Even some feminists rave about "sex work" as an expression of "my body, my choice" for young women from impoverished Eastern Europe or from Africa.
The Nordic model, on the other hand, promotes a slide into illegality.
My impression is that legalization makes prostitutes all the more helpless because it negates the violence they are subjected to every time they buy sex.
Repeating unwanted penetrations is what traumatizes women.
Whether legal or illegal, whether in a luxury brothel or on the street - the risks are inherent.
Liberalization fails to recognize this, and it also fuels the scariest excesses of your demand.
The Nordic model is emancipatory because many women drop out or don't get on at all.
It also sends out the civilized message: The human body is not for sale!
The German state could earn millions by penalizing customers like you.
Generous exit assistance and therapies for prostitutes could be financed.
Women have been your victims long enough.
