Eine geteilte Wohnung: Raumproduktionen von Sexarbeitenden unweit der Potsdamer Straße in West-Berlin um 1980

Abstract

The article examines the spatial productions of sex workers in an apartment used for prostitution in West Berlin around 1980, apartment no. 407, near Potsdamer Straße. The apartment exemplifies the spatial practices of apartment prostitution — a typical form of sex work at the time alongside clubs, bars, hotels, and peep shows. Based on cultural philosopher Ewa Majewska’s concept of weak resistance, I examine its entanglements with the spatial strategies and practices of sex workers. I describe the spatial materialisation of the apartment and the reconstructed processes within it. The example shows how sex workers appropriated, designed, and collectively used spaces. These spaces question hegemonic architectural productions by eluding standardised classification: They are neither private nor public but open up spatial categories between and within overlapping categories. They resist patriarchal orders by organising collective care, mutual help, and protection. It thus becomes clear that these spaces were not only functional places of sexual services but also expressions of feminist spatial strategies and anti-hegemonic building culture. The shared apartment becomes legible as a place of everyday, resistant action — a practice that challenges normative notions of intimacy, work, and the public sphere, and opens up new perspectives on the spatial productions of marginalised people.