STAGGERING over to a group of men in a pink-lit bar, a drunk British tourist yells: “Have you had a shag yet?”
It is not an unreasonable question given the venue is packed with blokes downing beers before they visit one of the 120 girls working on another floor of 11-storey Pascha, the world’s largest brothel.
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This is not in Thailand or Amsterdam, though.
Cologne, in Germany, is the host city for next year’s Euros football tournament and fast becoming Europe’s most popular red-light area.
One lad from Manchester, who wanted to remain anonymous, told us: “It’s great here. Everything I need in one-stop shop. Booze, girls and clubbing.”
But the party could soon be over, as new German chancellor Olaf Scholz is calling for legal restrictions on sex work, having declared it “morally wrong”.
He told the German Parliament that it is “unacceptable for men to purchase women”.
It is estimated that more than 1.2million men in the country buy sex EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Sex work was legalised there in 2002 by then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
The industry boomed under his predecessor Angela Merkel, who enacted the Prostitution Protection Act in July 2017, making it mandatory for sex workers to register and have regular health checks.
They are given official permits certifying their legality, which lists where they can work in Germany, and have to use condoms.
‘Brits cause the least problems’
The state also collects taxes from sex workers and the industry is believed to be worth around 14.5billion euros in annual revenues.
Just 33,000 sex workers are officially registered, yet it is thought there are more than 400,000 in the country, which has at least 3,000 brothels.
Anti-prostitution activists want Germany to adopt the Nordic model, where those who pay for sex are prosecuted and the workers offered help, rather than criminalised.
But for now, at the likes of super-brothel Pascha, business is booming.
The building towers over a nearby Lidl and boasts of being “a mini city”.
Women tout for clients and many of the visitors are British — and they are made very welcome.
“Brits here cause the least problems,” a security guard taking the five euro entry fee tells me.
“You tell them to stop, they stop. We always get more in when football is being played over here.”
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Inside, Pascha’s long, red-lit corridors are packed with scantily clad and topless women who sit outside their doors offering men a chance to bed them for a price.
A fee of 100 euros (£88) will get you sex, touching and oral sex.
Romanian working girls Erica and Laura offer our dashing photographer a threesome for 200 euros. He politely declines.
Erica says with a laugh: “We get Brits in every day. I’ve never had a British man with a small d***. They’re all huge. We love them.”
Across the street, at another mega-brothel, Das Bordell, bouncer Dimitri had less flattering things to say about British customers.
He jokes: “Often they pay the girls for everything but only end up touching and don’t have sex, because they are so drunk.
“We get more issues with other nationalities than the Brits. They’re just a lot louder than everyone else, but that is fine. They’re just drunk and having a good time.”
They are still happy to see British punters, despite an incident in March involving one drunk lad who was thrown out after allegedly attacking a girl and his mate retaliating by ploughing a car into the brothel’s glass doors.
Dimitri added: “But that isn’t normal for us here. Brits are normally great.”
Another option for sex tourists is the Eifeltor district, a short drive from the city centre, where women work out of old-fashioned static caravans which line a busy main road.
To show they are available to potential customers, girls sit in the lit windows.
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There is just enough space between each caravan to park a car, and sex with one of the women is 50 euros (£40). The caravans are a common sight across Germany.
On a Friday night there was a never-ending stream of punters pulling up, negotiating a price and going into the caravans for ten or 15 minutes before leaving.
While the country’s brothels are popular, escorts and practitioners specialising in bondage, domination, sadism and masochism also do a roaring trade.
Dusseldorf-based dominatrix Chloe Savage has been welcoming Brits into her dungeon for years, and they tell her they cannot get their needs met at home.
She worries about what criminalising sex work will mean for people wanting to experiment with BDSM.
She explained: “People come here to visit me and other practitioners because they know it is legal, and it is safe for them to explore their fantasies.
“I have some clients from England who fly over here specifically a few times a year because they feel safe and happy with my practices. They can’t do this back home.
“A lot of BDSM is mental, rather than physical sex, and lumping it in with other types of sex work isn’t fair. Many people who have a predilection for BDSM think that they are sick, but they’re not.
“Criminalising this would be unfair and reinforce this belief. BDSM practices are safe when done properly, in an environment like the one I practice in.”
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Chloe’s concerns are echoed by male escort Sascha, 51, from callboyz.net, who is regularly booked by English holidaymakers.
He told The Sun: “I was actually told by a British friend that I’d make a great escort, and now I have a lot of female clients from the UK.
“Escorting is different to the brothels people visit as it’s about creating a whole experience, which often starts with dinner or drinks and then moves into personal time. It’s not just booking a quickie.
“My British clients often book me as part of their holiday, and they tend to be more polite than other nationalities.
“They’re also very sophisticated, and many say hiring an escort is an empowering experience for them.”
Sascha tends to be booked by women aged between 35 and 60 and says he does it because he enjoys meeting interesting women and “interacting as equals”.
But he now faces the possibility of his job being outlawed, something he thinks will make it “harder to keep everyone safe”.
His pal, high-class escort Alba, believes it will make things more dangerous for women.
She says she does her job because she “loves sex”.
Alba explains she regularly works with people with disabilities who may struggle to find a partner in more conventional ways.
However, many former sex workers and researchers are hopeful the Nordic model will be implemented.
Sex industry abolitionist activist Elly Arrow believes it will protect women who have often been forced into sex work and who are abused by clients.
She told The Sun: “While we are a long way off this being made a law, the fact it is being discussed is a huge win for survivors of the industry and activists.
“I’m not speculating when I say fear of assault is something these women experience every day.
“While there are rules in place, in reality sex buyers can do whatever they want to a woman and face no consequences.
“Allowing women’s bodies to be for sale has created a harmful element to society.
“While people might be tolerant, no one wants to see it next door so it’s remaining hidden, which allows awful things to happen, even if it is legal.”
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