Interview: Sex work

"They say the street is the lowest level of sex work, but I wanted to know how it is to turn towards every car that comes towards me."

Interview with 61-year-old sex worker and activist Stephanie Klee.

Stephi has been a sex worker in Berlin for almost 40 years. She’s done everything – from walking the streets of Schöneberg to welcoming the flood of new East German customers into the western brothels after the wall fell. Now she divides her time between working as a sex assistant in old people’s homes and campaigning fervently for sex workers' rights. 

Stephi helped set up BesD (Germany’s first association for erotic and sexual services) back in 2002. She fights hard to bring sex workers out of the shadows of society and into the Bundestag. She believes that sex and eroticism are intrinsically connected to our joie de vivre, and so she “doesn’t want to imagine what a society without sex work would look like”. 

Stephi agreed to talk to me, but only if I joined her on the BesD stand at the socialist’s annual fair at Weberwiese – a little park in the heart of east Berlin, just off Karl Marx Allee. 

So amongst the red bunting and hammer and sickle flags, beneath the tooting cornets and crackling megaphone, behind a table of spread pamphlets and scattered condoms, Stephi and I perched side-by-side on a pair of camping stools for a couple of hot, sticky, slightly stilted hours. 

Stephi has short grey hair and a voluptuous physique, which was kept under wraps in jeans and a t-shirt branded with a red umbrella – the sex workers' rights symbol. She maintained a very relaxed and self-assured posture, as a man in camo with a small fox tail pinned to his ass sniffed around her. Stephi remained relaxed as a skinny young feminist started ranting at her about “how could she undermine women and play into the patriarchy.” etc. etc. Stephi listened attentively to my badly pronounced pre-prepared German questions, answering with one eye on me, the other one alert to what was going on around her. 

Good old Foxtail bought Stephi a bratwurst smothered in ketchup. He presented it to her like a rose. She took it, then instantly turned back to me. She wouldn’t let him interrupt us. 

What is it like to work as a street prostitute? 

I am a sex worker who has only my own experience to speak from, and with my own eyes, I have seen how all the areas of sex work function. Of course, when they speak about the street they speak about it as being really bad, the lowest level of sex work. People are just drug addicts, they say, so it's not professional. But I wanted to know how it is to work the street, to turn towards every car that comes towards me. 

The street has no structure, and so it suits people who like that. When it rains, they say ‘I'll stay at home’. They don't want to wake up early at six. They don't need to discuss how much the prices will be. They just deal with the customers themselves and the work happens very fast. If they go to a pension it's 15 minutes and they are back. To a park, 5 minutes and they're back. This is a big advantage for women who don't want to spend too much time talking. I find that pretty good. 

Is working as a street prostitute dangerous?

I wouldn't use the word dangerous. You need some backups though. You have to have a good relationship with your colleagues, for example, you give them a condom, drink a coffee together. They will also look at the car you got into and check when and if you come back. You do a hand gesture and they know you're just going to the corner, you do another hand gesture and they know you’re close by. Then you look at the clock and see if you are back in 10, 15, 30 minutes. If you're not back by then, they call you. That's the self-built security system you have on the street. 

In the car, you also need to take some security measures. Don't have any money on you. Leave all that you just earned somewhere else. Make sure there are no chains in the car. Make sure you can always get out. Make sure you're free in all your body movements when you're doing your sexual actions. You need to learn this. Of course, the most important thing is before you get in the car, you have to ask: ‘What, how long, how much?’  

How did you learn the ropes of street sex work?

Many years ago, I had a lot of luck. A friend from a Munich lap bar whom I'd worked with had a lot of experience on the street and she said ‘Come with me’. I was already working in a brothel at the time. The street is freer, you just work two hours and then you're done. But actually, for me, it's not so much my thing. I earned more money by sitting and talking and flirting. 

What is your favourite kind of sex work? 

All sex workers should try different kinds of work and make up their own minds, as all have different benefits. I've tried it all, apart from the webcam. It's not for me because I want cash upfront. 

With webcam, I don't want to present myself openly naked, without money. You have to do that, in the beginning, to get paid after. I like direct contact with my customers. I want to see how he will react if I stroke him, and what he would do if I fulfill his wishes. I want to see when he's happy and very satisfied.

What determines how much you earn?

When you don't earn money to finance yourself with sex work, not a fancy house and a Mercedes, but a normal life, then you are doing something wrong. You have to ask yourself, ‘Do I look alright? Do I have the right clothes? Am I in the right place? The right advertisement? The wrong brothel?’ 

I wouldn't work in a brothel where there are lots of women who are similar to me. If everyone is the same then there is too much competition and you won't earn anything. A good brothel has a variety. 

In a brothel, there are lots of advertised women. When a brothel makes an ad, 90 percent are going to be for young and blond. If you're an escort, you advertise only yourself. They see my photo and see that I'm not a young woman, not a skinny, blond woman. I don’t have long hair. If they want me they call me, if not, they move on. They know what they're getting. 

I stopped working in brothels, now I am going into old people’s homes and visiting disabled people. 

Is there competition between prostitutes?

Well, you have to specialise. Some learn massage, others learn to tie people up, others play the disobedient small girl, and others specialise in fighting and boxing. 

What do you need to be a successful sex worker? 

Every sex worker needs to maintain real-life contact. Family and friends are very important. Kids, partners, parents, it’s important to keep hold of them so the work is not your whole life. 

When did you start working as a sex worker in Berlin? 

I came in the 80s to Berlin, about 1984, to West Berlin. I worked in a brothel and on the street. After the wall fell I worked a lot as an escort. 

What changed for you when the Berlin Wall fell?

There were lots of new customers for us in Berlin. They were good customers, very respectful and paying good money. So we had lots of fun. The East Berliners had a different mindset to sexuality. They are more open, they walk around with less morals, and they have a different connection to their bodies, which is also connected to the FKK philosophy. 

The FKK culture brought them solidarity. In the DDR no sex workers were working officially, but in reality, they were. There was a need for there to be a stark difference between East and West. Prostitution became politicised, in that the East formed a certain image of itself. In the East, it was happening unofficially and in the West officially. Many women were working on the street, under the table, to be able to earn a little extra. 

Have you seen a change in sex work in Berlin since 1989?

Before the law in 2002, prostitution wasn’t really treated as a job, because of moral reasons. Unlike lawyers and bankers who could expect a certain wage due to a law that standardises professional services, sex workers were excluded from this. 

Of course, we still had to pay taxes, but we were not allowed health insurance or social benefits, so if we had accidents we wouldn't get any support. All of this changed with the 2002 law. 

We felt for the first time that we were women with rights. The job itself, nothing changes in the structures and the dynamics. The big change that happened was how we felt. 

With our new rights, we were able to stand up for ourselves to people who disrespect us. For example, when a policeman throws an insult, we could say, ‘Hey, hold on man, I have rights, please talk to me in a respectful way’. When a client came and said ‘You have to do this and that sexual act’, we were able to say, ‘one moment man, I have to do what we arranged, depending on the time and the money that you spent, as it says in the law’. 

Now you can go to the policeman and report something, as the law is now on our side. This increased our pride. This had the effect that more prostitutes were not hiding their profession anymore. They felt okay to come out in the open about it. We can use this law to establish different rights so we don't have to hide anymore. What we were wishing for was that this law would be developed over time. That was what the politicians promised us.

In the 2002 law, it states that people have the right to work as a prostitute, that brothels can employ prostitutes, that you can have working contracts, and that you are entitled to social benefits and health insurance. It was nothing more than an equalisation to other professions. 

But what was missing is that other laws were not established, for example, there were no laws for the establishment of brothels, so all in all, the laws didn't make sense together. The politics and the laws also moved too slowly, and there were too many people against the whole movement. 

The people who were against the movement established the Prostitution Protection Act in 2017, some 15 years later, which contained the conditions that sex workers have to be registered, and are expected to have a mandatory health check. It's unbelievable that I have to hear this same bullshit again. This is total discrimination. 

How does the 2017 Prostitution Protection Act discriminate against sex workers? 

As well as the registration, the law doesn't make distinctions between big and small brothels, they treat them all the same and demand them to abide by a whole host of regulations. A big brothel can restructure easily in alignment with the new regulations because they have the money. But for a small brothel, it's hard. 

It also created a big stigmatisation, because my personal data was saved and went to all authorities. Because of this, the ability to work somewhere else became harder. For all the people not willing to go through with the registration and process of stigmatisation, they have to work in the illegal sector of prostitution, meaning that they are not able to work in brothels, because they have to be registered to do so, and they don't get the health insurance. If all the brothels should shut down, where are we supposed to work, back on the street?

When the interview was over, Stephi handed me a pile of condoms and wished me all the best with Berlin men and learning German. This was back in August 2019. I pitched Stephi’s interview to Berlin’s English language magazines, but there was no interest. They picked out the names of Berlin-famous film directors, cyber brothel owners and sex party founders on my list of Intimacy Project interviewees, rather than Stephi. I would love to do a follow-up interview, to see how she survived the pandemic, what causes she is currently fighting for, and how Berlin is treating her now.