They Love Men for Money
I’ve never paid for sex. Either I always thought it was wrong, or I didn’t have the money—probably both. Sure, I’d scrape together cash for drinks and movies and whatever. But paying straight up, no cover story? It never happened. No pimps, no red-light windows, no hourly rooms. Not very rock star.
I’d pass Oranienburger Straße enough times that it stopped being shocking. What I couldn’t stop noticing was how pretty some of them were.
One night after pizza I was walking there with a friend and her eight-year-old sister. We passed these women in white boots—tired eyes watching us go by, women who probably took more in a single night than most people manage in a year. Short ones, tall ones, thin, thick, everything.
The sister’s name was Alina. She asked what the pretty girls in white boots were doing, and whether they weren’t cold. I tried to explain it to her simply. They were prostitutes, I said. And yeah, it gets cold out there.
What’s a prostitute?
Her small voice was loud enough that some of them heard it. One of them smiled. One looked angry.
I said the first thing that came to mind: They do it for money. They love men for money.
That sentence won’t leave my head. It’s been there for days. They love men for money. How sad that is. For both of them. The women. The men. How does a girl end up in a situation like that? How broken down does a guy’s life have to be to spend his paycheck on it? Is everyone just resigned to this? Does anyone actually want it?
I don’t believe any of them dreamed about this as kids. I don’t believe they were in school thinking: yeah, that’s my future. Forty years old, dealing with divorced guys, whatever they’re carrying. Some girl’s only option. Some guy’s routine Tuesday.
The oldest profession. Supposed to have some kind of dignity, I guess. Something time-honored. But I don’t think there’s much dignity on either end. Just the places you end up when the other doors close.