A parking meter in Hannover, Germany. (from Wikicommons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cIn Germany, Sex Workers Feed a Meter\u201d is that kind of article. It would be hilarious, if it weren\u2019t true. I didn\u2019t read it in The Onion<\/em>, but in the New York Times<\/em>. Here\u2019s how the article begins:<\/p>\nThe city of Bonn has begun collecting taxes from prostitutes with an automated pay station similar to a parking meter, proving again that German efficiency knows few if any bounds.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s coffers.<\/p>\n
As you might have guessed, prostitution is legal in Germany:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are called, in fairest and finest administrative High German, \u2018performance areas,\u2019 but I believe the Italian prime minister would say \u2018bunga bunga,\u2019\u00a0\u201d said Monika Fr\u00f6mbgen, a spokeswoman for the city. Still, she said, the serious issue that the meter was intended to address boils down to tax fairness.<\/p>\n
So, for all of those who think the United States ought to be more like Europe, here\u2019s a new reason. Taxing prostitution might help us pay off our national debt. Of course for those of us who live in the past when it comes to ethics, we bemoan a system that further institutionalizes the degradation of women and the cheapening of sex.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you had given me the text of \u201cIn Germany, Sex Workers Feed a Meter\u201d and told me to guess the source, I would have said \u201cThe Onion.\u201d If you\u2019re not familiar with The Onion, it bills itself as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Finest News Source.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, it is America\u2019s finest news satire, with articles written as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9565],"tags":[6545,12483,12482],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-commentary","tag-germany","tag-parking-meter","tag-prostitutes"],"yoast_head":"\n
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