On the night before Germany was to play Argentina in the quarterfinals of the
World Cup, the prostitutes who work at the Artemis Sauna Club here were putting
on their game faces.
Artemis Sauna Club, an
upscale sex club in Berlin, had expected far more customers during the
World Cup.[nytimes.com] |
Hamburg's red-light district had expected a surge of customers, but for
brothels there and elsewhere, the increase was smaller than expected.
With tens of thousands of soccer fans piling into Berlin for the game on
Friday, this was going to be one of the women's last big chances during the
tournament. The mood in the club, however, was as subdued as the lighting.
"The last time Germany played, not that many men came here," said Luna, 33, a
Serbian woman who came here from Bavaria to work during the four weeks of the
tournament. "Maybe they went out to a pub and drank instead."
To the list of pernicious things that have not happened at this World Cup,
add one more: a spike in the sex trade. While clubs like Artemis have been
busier than usual after games, the tournament has generated nowhere near the
surge in demand for prostitution ！ or the influx of temporary prostitutes from
Eastern Europe and Asia ！ that many experts predicted.
"Our business is O.K., but it's not great," said Egbert Krumeich, the public
relations manager for Artemis. "We get 250 to 260 customers on a game day. We'd
be happier getting 600 a day."
Soccer and sex, it appears, do not mix very well ！ even in Germany, where
prostitution is legal and the World Cup organizers have pushed the slogan "A
Time to Make Friends." There are plenty of friendly fans here, most of them male
and many pie-eyed by alcohol. The bad news for the sex trade is that they would
rather guzzle another beer than go looking for a prostitute.
Artemis, which claims to be the most luxurious sex club in Germany, opened
last September in anticipation of a bordello bonanza during the World Cup. It is
strategically situated next to one of the main highways into Berlin, and only 20
minutes by foot from the Olympic Stadium.
While the club has had lots of publicity ！ Mr. Krumeich spends much of his
time escorting poker-faced reporters past the nudist bar and Finnish sauna ！ the
hype has not translated into hordes of paying customers.
All the talk before the World Cup about mobile "sex garages," multistory
brothels and rampant cross-border sex trafficking may have kept a lid on the
high jinks, people in the sex business say. It may even have scared away some of
the regular clientele.
"The police carried out a lot of searches to look for forced prostitutes or
women without legal papers," said Stephanie Klee, a prostitute who leads a group
that lobbies for the rights of sex workers. "When clients see police at the
brothels, they think that sex work is linked to crime."
In fact, prostitution is well regulated in Germany, where about 400,000
people work in the sex trade. Since 2002, prostitutes have been guaranteed the
same rights as those in other industries. They must register with the
authorities and pay taxes, and they receive health insurance.
Critics say this legal status emboldens traffickers to send prostitutes to
Germany, often against their will. In its annual report on forced labor and
trafficking in persons, issued just before the World Cup, the United States
State Department described Germany as a "source, transit, and destination
country" for prostitutes.
