Ohlala, a new German-based app, nicknamed the “Uber for escorts”, wants to cut out the pimp from the sex industry by allowing customers to connect directly with escorts to arrange “paid dates.”
Generation Tinder might have triggered the dawn of the “dating apocalypse”, but the app called “Ohlala” is literally taking virtual wooing to the next level.
They’re Up For It. Are You?
Whether you want to compensate a woman for the pleasure of her company – or for pleasure, period, Ohlala brags that finding your date has never been so simple.
Pia Poppenreiter, a Berlin-based entrepreneur, launched the world’s first app for “paid dates” just a day before Amnesty International approved a policy to call for the global decriminalization of sex work.
How Does Ohlala Work?
Security-wise Ohlala scrutinizes escort’s profiles – which remain private until an explicit agreement is reached – via phone call.
Ohlala ensures that women are signing up voluntarily, according to Deutsche Welle.
Customers can sign up for free, yet no background checks are being carried out. Clients might be protected but workers are never going to be a hundred percent sure of who they are doing business with. However, what’s empowering, Ohlala argues, is that escorts can choose their clients, negotiate a price and work around their schedule – not the other way around. They’ve basically “flipped the booking process”.
Prostitution In The Age Of Technology
Whatever happens between client and escort Ohlala doesn’t take money for facilitating the transaction. It’s an “ethical choice,” as well as a question of “criminal liability” as although prostitution is legal in Germany since 2002, advancing or promoting it remains a criminal offense. Technology could be a game-changer.
News reports have argued that tech-solutions and such web apps can be used to help lift sex workers out of the criminal world and reduce some of the stigma surrounding paid sex.
A recent study titled “Prostitution 3.0” claims that governments should consider an entirely novel approach to prostitution reform.
It introduced the “new, Internet-enabled, indoor forms of prostitution” which according to the authors may be “healthier, less violent, and more rewarding than traditional street prostitution”.
What do you think of the app Ohlala and the future of prostitution? Share your views in the comments section below.
