Below The Beltway

Apparently, the Berlin sex industry hasn’t been benefiting from the World Cup:

BERLIN (Reuters) – The hordes of beer-swilling men who have descended on Germany for the World Cup are proving a disappointment for the host nation’s sex workers, preferring to party in public rather than spend time with prostitutes.

While some larger red-light establishments in host cities have seen their cash tills ringing, a lot of prostitutes say the anticipated boost for Germany’s liberal sex industry has failed to materialize.

“The pent-up sexual demand of horny fans from around the world which has been widely anticipated has not materialized at all,” said Karolina Leppert, president of Germany’s association for sexual service providers BSD.

“Business is pretty dead, even the regulars stay away because of all the crowds and the hype,” said Leppert, who has been working as a dominatrix in Berlin for eight years.

Whether this means there’s a corelation between drunk soccer fans and a diminished sex drive is unknown, but you can bet this wouldn’t happen if they were playing a real sport over there in Germany.

The article provided this interesting tidbit about labor relations in Germany:

In Germany, where it is legal and workers can join unions, get health insurance or a pension plan, expectations have been high that fans would visit prostitutes after a match

(…)

Surveys put the number of those working in full or part-time prostitution in Germany at 400,000. Many expected more women from abroad to head to Germany for the occasion.

Apparently even Germans have a problem with foreigners coming and taking away jobs.