In the past 16 months of the pandemic, queuing has become as normal as this “filtering face piece” in front of your mouth and nose. At the bakery, in front of the restaurant, and recently again in front of the cinema: people are well behaved everywhere, sometimes even within the prescribed interpersonal distance. What used to be a nuisance has long since become normal.
But queuing in front of the pouf? You have actually neither seen nor heard of anything like that, but Jürgen G. reports about it. He’s the manager of Organ Organ and Caesar’s World, two of the largest brothels in town. They have started operations there again since Thursday, and if you ask Jürgen G. how the demand was on day one, he says: “Very, very, very large.” He even had to regulate the traffic – the one in front of the door: “We temporarily closed downstairs so that the house wouldn’t get too full. From the day the opening was announced, the phone never stood still.”
The city’s brothels were closed for eight months, but then the 13th Bavarian Infection Protection Ordinance came along. After an urgent application by an operator, the Bavarian Administrative Court eased the corona-related restrictions on prostitution in Bavaria. According to the decision of the highest administrative court in the Free State, “prostitution sites” are allowed to reopen, ie companies in which clients appear individually and do not meet other customers or sex workers because there are no rooms for them.
A disinfectant dispenser is available at the entrance.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
An example would be a hotel that rents rooms by the hour. In brothels, on the other hand, according to the legal definition, there are rooms for collective catering for customers: sex cinema, dark room, sauna, swimming pool or sunbathing area. Since there is no mass activity in “prostitution centers”, unlike in brothels or clubs and discotheques, the judges do not see any increased risk of infection there.
The bar is still prohibited.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
Even if the demand was high and the first suitors were at the door at ten in the morning: The business with pleasure started “very difficult and very slow”, says Jürgen G. Only two days before he had found out that it was reopening may: “We had zero lead time, first had to see that word got around. Many of the women work privately. Prostitution was allowed in Munich, only the brothels were closed. Completely absurd, but that’s how it is.” Instead, the women rented apartments or hired themselves out as escort ladies. “They worked just as they would if we had,” says G.
“North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein all opened before us, Austria even before that. They had the shops full of women. Now they are everywhere, from Austria to Hamburg. We are among the last to be allowed to open.” Unlike in Austria, where the bar was allowed from the start, it is still banned in Bavaria. “That makes a lot of sales,” complains G., “a decent loss”. On the other hand, bridging aid I, II and III were “a really great help in contrast to the first lockdown”, “otherwise I would not have known how we should have survived it. The rents continued to run normally.”
Only the tenants stayed away, first from March to August 2020, then again from November on. It will take a while until normal operations are back to normal, as it were, estimates Jürgen G .: “80 percent of the women on our telephone list are currently still employed elsewhere. They cannot and do not want to get out of their jobs.”
Opening subject to conditions: When visiting prostitution sites such as Caesar’s World, corona measures must be adhered to.
(Photo: Alessandra Schellnegger)
When it reopened last week, there were just four women, meanwhile around 15 percent are back on duty. In addition, July and August are vacation time: “Many women say to themselves: ‘It was too long now, the one month doesn’t matter anymore.'” Then there is the problem with the so-called whore and health passports: “If this occurs have expired on November 1st, there are currently almost no dates to have them extended, “says G.,” the district administration department is completely overwhelmed by the onslaught.
The prostitutes do not have to be fully vaccinated, both in the organ organ and in Caesar’s Palace, however, there is an offer in the house to be tested daily, says G. His employees are tested daily: “After all, we also have to adhere to hygiene concepts. ” This provides for the FFP2 mask and contact form and only one person per ten square meters. Jürgen G. says: “For us that means more effort with fewer women.” During the day he needs at least two employees, at night three – because that the demand dwindles, that is rather unlikely.