Sun, Oct 18, 2009 page12

• Berlin brothel goes green to beat economic crisis

  The owner of Maison d’envie, or ‘House of Desire,’ is offering a 5 euro discount for clients who prove they walked or biked to the brothel. As one customer said, ‘Everyone’s a winner’

  • By Audrey Kauffmann / AFP
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  Stung by the economic crisis, a brothel in Berlin has leapt on the “green” bandwagon and is offering discounts to clients who can prove they arrived by public transport or bicycle — with some success.

  “Everyone’s a winner,” explained Regina Goetz, a former prostitute who runs the Maison d’envie — “House of Desire” — brothel in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg. The district, located in the former East Berlin, is a stronghold for the ecologist Green party.

  “The environment is a topic on everyone’s lips and it’s pretty difficult to park around here. So we came up with the idea of an “eco discount” of 5 euros (US$7.40) to anyone who leaves the car at home,” Goetz told reporters.

  

  A prostitute walks toward a room in a brothel in an apartment in Berlin on Sept. 12, 2007.

  PHOTO: AFP

  “The crisis has slashed our turnover in half in the last year,” the 56-year-old told reporters over coffee and cakes, flanked by scantily clad prostitutes.

  But the green discounts have proved a roaring success and got business back on track, she said.

  Fifteen minutes in the brothel costs 25 euros rather than 30 euros for environmentally conscious punters, around 10 percent of whom have taken up the offer.

  To qualify for the discount, “clients who come by bike show their helmet or their padlock keys,” she said. “Others hand in their ticket or monthly pass if they have come on the bus.”

  The brothel itself is a model of discretion — only a small brass plaque advertising “the little sexy address” betrays the true purpose of the building, housed in a block with a bike shop, a burger bar and a pub.

  Clients pass through a courtyard scattered with rubbish dumps, pushchairs, kids’ bikes and buggies before arriving at a corridor where a doormat emblazoned with a red heart indicates the hoped-for destination.

  “We have a really nice atmosphere here, the neighbors are great,” said one of the prostitutes, a blonde in her 30s with short hair, sporting fishnet tights and red lacy undies under her turquoise dressing-gown.

  She said that she had already welcomed several customers on the eco tariff, like all her colleagues — about a dozen women aged between 20 and 45, the majority of whom work part-time.

  One of them said she was a nurse secretly moonlighting as a prostitute. Another said she was a dietary counselor in a gym — “but times are hard.” A third said she was a housewife.

  As for the clients, they come in all shapes and sizes, from all social classes and all ages, right up to the “doyen,” who is 86 years old, said Goetz.

  All the employees of the Maison d’envie wholeheartedly approve of the eco tariff. “Regina is full of good ideas,” one said.

  The establishment also offers special “weekend rates” with jacuzzi options and a “two-for-one” rate.

  For Goetz, the brothel is “a business like any other” and prostitution is a legal sector in Germany with around 400,000 employees.

  “In these tight times, we are cutting costs. We’ve binned the tax advisor, reduced the hours of the cleaning lady and I only buy low-cost cleaning products,” Goetz said.

  And like any other head of industry, she is careful to appear bullish on the sector’s prospects.

  “In a business like ours, there are always ups and downs. But we want the recovery to come quickly. I check the stock market prices every day,” she said.
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