GROSS: i do believe most of the people who the Department of Blackmail and Homosexuality went after were prostitutes since the division, though we interpreted, did not actually want to follow, like, the class that is middle. While the presumption, too, i believe, had been that prostitutes who generate income in the intercourse trade had been also ready to generate income through blackmailing the social people these were – who have been having to pay them to possess intercourse.
But that results in, like, an entire other chapter when you look at the tale, that was that there clearly was plenty of prostitution, male prostitutes, in homosexual Berlin at that time. Therefore let’s simply address, first, how prostitutes had been mostly the individuals who had been prosecuted, if i realize properly, when you look at the blackmail area of the Department of Blackmail and Homosexuality?
BEACHY: Yeah, that is absolutely accurate. Specially by the start of 20th century, here appeared to be something such as a scourge of blackmail. It absolutely was just like a plague, and there have been a lot of instances that there was clearly, really increasingly, some sort of a formal campaign against it. When these instances would arrive at test, the blackmailers, the male prostitutes, tended to get much more substantial sentences than their victims, regardless of if their victims had been additionally convicted underneath the statute that is anti-sodomy. So that the blackmail ended up being considered, definitely, the worst criminal activity.
GROSS: just what exactly ended up being the accepted host to prostitutes in homosexual Berlin?
BEACHY: You know, to start with, possibly it is vital to attempt to account fully for this male prostitution. Continue reading “Between World Wars, Gay Heritage Flourished In Berlin”