Drive-in 'sex boxes' for prostitution are a wild success in Switzerland | Hacker News Reader

Drive-in 'sex boxes' for prostitution are a wild success in Switzerland

yahoo.com

26 pointsgscott10 comments

> 52 percent of Zurich citizens voted in favor of the government setting aside $2 million to build drive-in structures, which are referred to as “sex boxes,” in a discreet area.

Interesting. Knowing nothing about Switzerland, I'm curious why some private business didn't jump in and do it themselves.

There are plenty of sex work concepts in Switzerland. The German countries cater to carnal desires very efficiently.

In this case this is just direct representation in action. Zurich folks wanted sex boxes and voted in sex boxes. Its just the low budget version of the elaborate accommodations that the private sector already offers.

> To operate the facilities each year, $800,000 is set aside for security and on-site social services.

I don't think you can trust a private company whose main goal is to make a profit to make social services and minimising negative effects for the area a priority.

Indeed. A private company can make money from negative effects equally as well as positive. They prove it by doing so all the time, everywhere, since forever.

And whatever effort private companies DO put into inhibiting negative effects, some part of that is only due to the competition from the public option which has no other incentive at all.

The locals want to hide prostitution and roll-back the "red light" districts. Already, prostitution is illegal in some areas of Zurich and prostitutes are required to have licenses. The move is to hide prostitution from being out in the open, something so-called "private-public partnerships" would be unlikely to accomplish. It would need local knowledge to explain if this is pretext for prohibition or a legitimate accommodation.

Just a note to Americans: prostitution is generally legal in Europe. Switzerland has a very high cost of living comparable to NYC or SF, but it has a male:female sex ratio similar to that of San Jose. Other places in Europe have relatively low costs of living like out of Prague, where prostitutes average 70€/hr. I would imagine prostitution in Zurich would be expected to average 250€/hr.

those look ridiculously low budget

prices in switzerland are much higher than the german neighbors for pretty much everything, including sex work, so for a city like Zurich which isn't super close to the border I can see how this is an alternative for many

given the elaborate themed sex work concepts available in those countries, I'm still surprised there is an appeal for this

any one know where they are in Zurich?

The offical Zurich city website explains the concept (in german - https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/strichplatz)

Depotweg 8048 Zürich https://goo.gl/maps/3v3BbAkEBb62

Hm thats quite a ways out for a pedestrian, and is more so for commuters.

Also unlike the other concepts, there is no Google Maps entry and no reviews, know any forum where people talk about this?

Like for the workers I wonder what personalities it is better for than the brothels or sauna clubs. Maybe they get to keep the whole commission? Or maybe they aren't good enough for the brothels or don't want to work a full shift?

What do you think?

Certainly looks like it's mostly FAR out of the way of where anyone would live. It's between the railway and the highway, between an insurer's head office and a factory, in between an area with some company depots.

They're trying to make the area south of the station a very expensive area, which is where the prostitution appears to be now (and hence the rents are "cheap" there).

So yes, I would say this is probably an attempt to move this activity out of where it is now, into an area where it definitely can't survive. I don't know, but I can't see this actually working. Why would these people move ? They sure as hell can't look for customers around that area.

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