The long shadow of the Iron Curtain for female sex workers in German cities: Border effects and regional differences

Abstract

This paper assesses determinants of habits and prices about sexual work in Germany. The paper alludes to a regional pattern, in particular, in pricing. This pattern varies with the size of cities and across as well as along the former East–West German border. In particular, the evidence suggests that there is a long shadow of the former Iron Curtain which leads to higher conditional prices in the former East than in the West, in particular, in larger agglomerations such as Berlin. Moreover, there is evidence of habit formation and spillovers within regions, which leads to regionally clustered prices as well as unsafe sex services being offered by sexworkers.

Introduction: Sex, consumption and commerce in the contemporary city

“…The papers in this special issue explore these economic dynamics of investment and disinvestment via case studies of sexual consumption in cities in different globalisation arenas, taking in both Western and non-Western cities. Though the methodological and theoretical approaches taken are varied, a number of overlapping themes can be readily discerned, namely: transformations in the evolution, location and visibility of both virtual and real 'sexualised spaces' in the city (see, for example, the papers by Gorman-Murray and Nash, 2017;Lewis, 2016, this issue;Smart and Whittemore, 2017;Yue and Leung, 2017); changes in the supply and demand for sexual services, goods and images in different urban contexts (see, for example, the papers by Chapuis, 2017;Della Giusta et al, 2017;Kong, 2017;Lindenblatt and Egger, 2016); and, finally, developments in the evolution and regulation of the sexual economy of cities in the light of sociotechnical change and the aftermath of the global economic crisis (see, for example, the papers by Collins and Drinkwater, 2017;Crewe and Martin, 2017;Ku¨nkel, 2017;Maginn and Ellison, 2015). As such, this special issue directly contributes to ongoing debates concerning the ways that sexual identities and practices create distinctive moments of pleasure and leisure in the city, and, conversely, how cities create and even fetishise different forms of sexual consumption.…”