In Germany, Sex Workers Feed a Meter

The city of Bonn has begun collecting taxes from prostitutes with an automated pay station similar to a parking meter. Bonn is not the only city in Germany to charge such a tax, but it is the first to hit upon the idea of a ticket machine that prints out receipts for the nightly flat fee of 6 euros (currently about $8.65) for the privilege of streetwalking. The meter went into service over the weekend, and by Monday morning had collected $382 for the city’s coffers.

Prostitution is legal in Germany; the Reeperbahn in Hamburg is one of the largest red-light districts in Europe. Attempts are often made to regulate the industry, unionize the workers and tax the proceeds, but they are not always effective, given both the discretion and the unpredictability that are inherent in the business.

Street prostitution as practiced in Bonn, once the capital of West Germany and a town better known for sleepiness than sexiness, would be unfamiliar to many people outside Germany for its unusual degree of organization and institutionalization.

The women wait for customers on a stretch of the Immenburgstrasse in a largely industrial part of the city. In addition to the Siemens-built meter machine, which cost $11,575 including installation, the city has built special wooden garages nearby where customers can park their cars and have sex.

“They are called, in fairest and finest administrative High German, ‘performance areas,’ but I believe the Italian prime minister would say ‘bunga bunga,’ ” said Monika Frömbgen, a spokeswoman for the city. Still, she said, the serious issue that the meter was intended to address boils down to tax fairness.

“The women in the bordellos and the sauna clubs also pay the tax, and so should those working on the streets,” Ms. Frömbgen said.

The city estimates that it has 200 sex workers, of whom about 20 ply their trade on the street. The Bonn government spends $116,000 a year for a private security company to guard the area and to provide security for the sex workers.

Under the new meter system, street prostitutes must purchase the tickets to work between the hours of 8:15 p.m. and 6 a.m. Leaflets explaining the system, translated into several languages, are handed out to the prostitutes. After one warning, a sex worker caught working without a ticket would be fined up to $145.

Opinion was divided Wednesday on Bonn’s blocklong strip where the women cruise for customers.

“The other night I worked all night but didn’t get any work, but I still had to pay it,” said a young woman from Hungary who gave her name only as Monica and said she thought the new system “stinks.”

Vero, a middle-age woman who spoke Italian but no German, said the tax was “proper.”

“It’s like rent, food or all the other things everybody has to pay for,” said the woman, who declined to give her last name.

Franz-Reinhard Habbel, a spokesman for the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, said he expected other cities “to follow Bonn’s example.” The country’s 11,000 municipalities are struggling under a combined $11 billion in debt and are searching for new, “relatively simple” sources of income, he said.

Advocates for sex workers say the tax is unfair because prostitutes in Germany already pay income taxes. But the meter itself is not an issue, said Mechthild Eickel, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Alliance of Counseling Centers for Sex Workers. “An automat is no worse than a person,” she said.

Josh Ward contributed reporting from Bonn.

Ohio man had sex with inflatable raft, according to police

The police report claims that Tobergta “advised officers that he was doing it but only because he has a problem and that he needs help and please don’t send him to prison but send him somewhere to get help.”

Tobergta’s defense may not be completely insane; he was previously arrested in 2002 for having sex with a giant Halloween decorative pumpkin and had been arrested for at least four other similar offenses.

Tobergta is currently being held and is awaiting charges. His family claims he suffers from ADD.

I kind of feel bad for the guy. I can’t imagine anyone goes through life looking like he does and having sex with rafts in an alleyway completely deserves that fate. Tobergta’s grandmother told the Cincinnati Enquirer that their family was never able to get someone to care for him. Maybe inanimate plastic objects are the only thing that ever treated him well. Maybe he once got jerked off by the animatronic animals at the Country Bear Jamboree, his only consensual act of love. We just don’t know. I once thought a story about a man sticking his dick in a raft would be nothing but laughs. But now I see that I was wrong.

Zero Tolerance Launches Male Toy Line

Zero Tolerance has launched a new line of male sex toys, extending its film studio brand to the fast growing novelty market.

The first Zero Tolerance Toys include: Jack-Aide, a masturbation lubricant; Crossbones, an innovative line of cock rings; Glory Holes, unique masturbator sleeves complete with POV DVDs; Oral Sex Candy, water-based flavored oral sex spray; and Cock Cologne, which is described as penis freshener spray.

The line also is rolling out Foaming Masturbator Cleaner, a cleanser and sanitizer for Glory Holes; Fuck Forever, a de-sensitizing spray; and Boob Lube, a lubricant designed for mammary intercourse.

Glory Holes will be the first item of the line to be released, hitting shelves in the next week.

“It’s about time for an ultra-masculine, male targeted toy line," said sales representative Lucy Vonne D’Olimpio. "Everyone was so excited about our new take on male masturbation that we spent most of the last month guarding our samples from the buyers who wanted to take them.”

The ZT Toys brand is an extension of the award-winning Zero Tolerance studios that prides itself on producing high-quality films in the adult world. The company said the toy line was designed and produced with the same level of quality, and intended solely for men who want to perform better.

“We’re so confident that you will receive ultimate satisfaction from this line that we created the brand’s motto — 'Guaranteed To Get You Off Or We’ll Replace It,'" said Marcus West, marketing and sales director.

West added, “This brand is exciting to our ZT DVD consumer, primarily because it is innovative. There has been a void in the market for a product line such as ZT Toys that speaks directly to the ultra-masculine man who wants to basically ‘fuck better.' All aspects of this line from the packaging to the promotion speak to this consumer.”

The brand has created an intricate plan to successfully launch the product line and capture the market in the upcoming quarter.

“This Fall we will aggressively go after the male market with a number of promotional strategies," West said. “I am confident that ZT Toys will be a well-known and reputable brand in the industry and follow in the footsteps of its sister brand, Zero Tolerance Studios.”