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THERE is nothing remarkable about the five-storey red building, surrounded by tech firms, on a drab industrial estate. But this is no office block, although the people inside are certainly working β you could even say they are hard at it. This is the flagship Paradise brothel in Stuttgart, Germany, where prostitution has been legal since But there are calls for this to change, led by the resurgent Greens, who are expected to call for decriminalisation as one of its key election policies.
There is no shortage of punters. Since legalisation the number of sex workers in Germany has doubled to , The move was meant to end street walking, but critics say pimps have instead forced women into legal brothels, while paying for sex has become respectable. But the main draw is the girls. While the men lounge around in maroon dressing gowns or towels, the women sit bare-chested or dance in high heels and suspenders, hoping to lure a punter upstairs to one of the many bedrooms.
The Paradise is open from 11am to 4am. Before they begin work the girls have to pay the same entry fee as the men, plus 27 euros for a dorm room where they sleep with up to six others, and 25 euros government tax. But they negotiate their own price with their clients and keep all the money.
Bright and articulate, she is working at Paradise to earn cash to fund studies in criminology. They deserve it sometimes. There is nothing for free here. We are prostitutes, not sluts. Like many of the women she has come across in the sex trade, Josie was abused as a child. After that a part of you is dying a little bit and it is not a big deal any more to work as a prostitute.
