>I don't think that prostitution will ever get destigmatized.
Fully de-stigmatized? Probably not in our life times, or ever. But the stigma has been on a sharp decline, at least in my parents generation and my generation, as far as I can tell.
>Men are usually wary of sexually promiscuous women, and women know that as well
While this is not entirely wrong, what is considered "sexually promiscuous" has shifted a lot in general. In the "somewhat woker"[0] parts of society you will get shamed for "slut shaming". Moreover, I find with a lot of people the idea that prostitutes are "sexually promiscuous" instead of just doing a job has greatly shifted towards recognizing it's a job and not "sluttiness". Even my late grandma, after watching a few documentaries about prostitution in German, changed her mind[1].
I think visiting a prostitute has a large stigma ("creep"/"perv", "cannot get laid if he does not pay money for it") but the actual prostitution a lot less so now.
>IIRC most prostitutes in Germany are foreign anyway, so even though the pay is high, most German women would prefer to do some other work :).
There is reportedly a sizable chunk of foreign prostitutes, but not a majority, as far as I am aware. With legalization and the internet, it is rather easy to set up your own one-person operation, and that happened/happens a lot, even for foreigners. No need to walk the streets or work in known brothels or red light districts. You can operate in relative anonymity as a one-person operation from some flat or go to customers, after advertising your services online[2]. This affords both the prostitute and their client some privacy.
Or you can work in the larger legal brothels, which then provide security (actual bouncers, not some pimps pretending to provide protection) and other amenities such as that they will advertise their establishment so you don't have to spend time doing that yourself. These legal brothels then charge a flat entrance fee to prostitutes (but do not take a cut of the pay; that would be illegal pimping).
The one prostitute I know socially[3], for example, is German and has rented a flat together with another prostitute (also German) one town over from where she lives (to avoid awkwardly running into clients on the street), where they would provide services to clients, usually alternating who gets to use the flat each day. This works out well for them, time-wise, she says. She also goes to regular clients (to their homes or hotels) after there was a certain level of reputation and trust was established. She says in this system they set up, there is no need for hired security (or a "pimp", not that pimps ever actually provided protection), seeing new clients only after vetting them (also vetting them with other prostitutes, who use online forums to do so; not so much the case in the US after SESTA/FOSTA), and only accepting electronic payments for new clients to leave a money trace the police could investigate if something goes bad and telling the clients as much (US sex workers cannot even get banking once it becomes known to the bank they are sex workers, or reasonably go to the police).
She isn't a high end escort either, by the way. She mentioned charging something like 100 bucks for half an hour as the base rate. I don't really have a frame of reference, but I believe this is neither particularly cheap nor particularly expensive.
[0] And by somewhat "woker" I do not mean the crowd who think antifa is great and tattoo their pronouns on their foreheads, but the section of society which believes e.g. in equal treatment of the genders, that allowing same sex marriage and adoption is not up for debate, or that we have to do something about climate change. I generally would call these people the "sane group", but that's just me.
[1] I remember the time at some family function, when the topic somehow got on legalization of prostitution (it had been already legal for years), my 80-something-at-the-time year old grandpa remarked that they are "sluts", and my grandma of roughly the same age, to everybody's amazement, remarked "Leave them alone! They are just doing a hard job to get by. I saw a lot about that on TV".
[3] On the flip side, this makes it easier to hide human trafficking, too, as trafficker rings can online advertise and rent normal apartments, too, of course.
And yeah, I was curious and/or nosy enough to ask her questions after she revealed what she does for a living, specially about the risks involved and how she mitigates them.
Correct.
>I don't think that prostitution will ever get destigmatized.
Fully de-stigmatized? Probably not in our life times, or ever. But the stigma has been on a sharp decline, at least in my parents generation and my generation, as far as I can tell.
>Men are usually wary of sexually promiscuous women, and women know that as well
While this is not entirely wrong, what is considered "sexually promiscuous" has shifted a lot in general. In the "somewhat woker"[0] parts of society you will get shamed for "slut shaming". Moreover, I find with a lot of people the idea that prostitutes are "sexually promiscuous" instead of just doing a job has greatly shifted towards recognizing it's a job and not "sluttiness". Even my late grandma, after watching a few documentaries about prostitution in German, changed her mind[1].
I think visiting a prostitute has a large stigma ("creep"/"perv", "cannot get laid if he does not pay money for it") but the actual prostitution a lot less so now.
>IIRC most prostitutes in Germany are foreign anyway, so even though the pay is high, most German women would prefer to do some other work :).
There is reportedly a sizable chunk of foreign prostitutes, but not a majority, as far as I am aware. With legalization and the internet, it is rather easy to set up your own one-person operation, and that happened/happens a lot, even for foreigners. No need to walk the streets or work in known brothels or red light districts. You can operate in relative anonymity as a one-person operation from some flat or go to customers, after advertising your services online[2]. This affords both the prostitute and their client some privacy.
Or you can work in the larger legal brothels, which then provide security (actual bouncers, not some pimps pretending to provide protection) and other amenities such as that they will advertise their establishment so you don't have to spend time doing that yourself. These legal brothels then charge a flat entrance fee to prostitutes (but do not take a cut of the pay; that would be illegal pimping).
The one prostitute I know socially[3], for example, is German and has rented a flat together with another prostitute (also German) one town over from where she lives (to avoid awkwardly running into clients on the street), where they would provide services to clients, usually alternating who gets to use the flat each day. This works out well for them, time-wise, she says. She also goes to regular clients (to their homes or hotels) after there was a certain level of reputation and trust was established. She says in this system they set up, there is no need for hired security (or a "pimp", not that pimps ever actually provided protection), seeing new clients only after vetting them (also vetting them with other prostitutes, who use online forums to do so; not so much the case in the US after SESTA/FOSTA), and only accepting electronic payments for new clients to leave a money trace the police could investigate if something goes bad and telling the clients as much (US sex workers cannot even get banking once it becomes known to the bank they are sex workers, or reasonably go to the police).
She isn't a high end escort either, by the way. She mentioned charging something like 100 bucks for half an hour as the base rate. I don't really have a frame of reference, but I believe this is neither particularly cheap nor particularly expensive.
[0] And by somewhat "woker" I do not mean the crowd who think antifa is great and tattoo their pronouns on their foreheads, but the section of society which believes e.g. in equal treatment of the genders, that allowing same sex marriage and adoption is not up for debate, or that we have to do something about climate change. I generally would call these people the "sane group", but that's just me.
[1] I remember the time at some family function, when the topic somehow got on legalization of prostitution (it had been already legal for years), my 80-something-at-the-time year old grandpa remarked that they are "sluts", and my grandma of roughly the same age, to everybody's amazement, remarked "Leave them alone! They are just doing a hard job to get by. I saw a lot about that on TV".
[3] On the flip side, this makes it easier to hide human trafficking, too, as trafficker rings can online advertise and rent normal apartments, too, of course.
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21106425
And yeah, I was curious and/or nosy enough to ask her questions after she revealed what she does for a living, specially about the risks involved and how she mitigates them.