The world’s oldest profession?

If you search for the world’s oldest profession, you usually want a history of buying sex: when it started, how many people, which law. The phrase sounds like a finding. It is a line from a story. What we can date is the contract. Money for a sexual act, and who was allowed to police it.

Germany has a dense legal spine, not a natural history. From a Prussian cabinet order in 1792 to Destatis in 2026. This piece follows that spine. It does not invent a scene that has always existed.

The phrase is younger than the word brothel

Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world. Lilith was her very-great-grandmamma, and that was before the days of Eve, as every one knows.

Rudyard Kipling, On the City Wall, 1888/89

Kipling did not write “oldest profession” as a thesis. He wrote a story set in Lahore. The formula spread in the 1890s as a paraphrase. The Oxford English Dictionary dates “oldest profession” as a euphemism for prostitution to 1922. Before that, “oldest profession” often meant farming. Historians do not accept the line as a finding.

The German word Bordell is older than the cliché. The DWDS records it in the fifteenth century, via Middle Dutch bordeel and Old French bordel, a plank hut. It pushed aside Middle High German vrouwenhūs. Prostitution, in the sense of offering sex for money, enters German in the first half of the eighteenth century. The noun Prostituierte is mid-nineteenth-century. The oldest-profession line is younger than all three.

What we do not know

Herodotus, in Histories 1.199, fifth century BCE, wrote that every Babylonian woman had to sit once in the temple of Aphrodite, called Mylitta there, and sleep with a stranger. The money, he wrote, became sacred. That is a Greek text about a foreign city, not a cuneiform tablet and not a dig.

Stephanie Budin argued in 2008 that sacred prostitution never existed as an institution in the ancient Near East or the Mediterranean. Other ancient historians dispute the details. The debate is not closed. Temple prostitutes as a fact do not survive it.

What we can date in the German-speaking lands are town houses. On 13 July and 2 August 1413 the Freiburg council resolved to set up a municipal brothel. Ingolstadt’s Frauenhaus is first securely attested in 1469 and lasted past 1562. The town collected rent and appointed a keeper. In the sixteenth century, Reformation and Counter-Reformation closed those houses. None of them outlasted the century. The purchase of sex did not end with the lock.

Timeline: who controls the purchase

The dates below are issued laws, recorded decisions or official counts. Where only a year is known, the day stays empty. Antiquity is not on this line. It does not carry a German statute.

1. 1413
   13 July and 2 August

   Freiburg council resolves to set up a municipal brothel.
2. 1469
   Ingolstadt Frauenhaus first securely attested. The town collects rent.
3. 15th c.
   The word Bordell is recorded in German.
4. 16th c.
   Municipal Frauenhäuser are closed. None survive the century.
5. 18th c.
   First half

   Prostitution in German means offering sex for money.
6. 1792
   2 February

   Prussian cabinet order against luring young women into brothels and against the spread of venereal disease. Registration, police permission, a clause that debts must not block leaving.
7. 1794
   General State Laws for the Prussian States treat commercial “unchastity” as a police matter.
8. 1835
   6 August

   Prussian sanitary-police rules. Doctors are to find sources of infection and report them to the police.
9. 1872
   1 January

   The Penal Code for the German Empire (issued 15 May 1871) applies across the Reich.
10. 1876
    26 February

    Amendment of section 361 no. 6. A woman under police supervision who breaks the rules is punishable, and so is anyone who sells sex without that supervision.
11. 1888
    1888/89

    Kipling publishes On the City Wall. The cliché begins here, not in Babylon.
12. 1918
    11 December

    Decree on combating venereal diseases, Council of People’s Deputies. Emergency law after the war.
13. 1927
    18 February

    Law on Combating Venereal Diseases issued, Reich Law Gazette 1927 I p. 61. In force 1 October 1927. Treatment duties. As Reich law it ends state brothel barracks.
14. 1939
    9 September

    Decree “Police treatment of prostitution” (Heydrich, acting for the Reich Interior Ministry, with the High Command of the Wehrmacht). Registration, medical supervision, preventive detention.
15. 1942
    23 March

    Himmler writes to Pohl that “women in brothels” should be supplied to industrious prisoners as an incentive. Federal Archives NS 19/2065.
16. 1942
    June

    First prisoner brothel at Mauthausen concentration camp. By 1945, ten camps. Forced sex labour. Research has named 174 women. That is not a full count.
17. 1953
    23 July

    Federal Republic Law on Combating Venereal Diseases, Federal Law Gazette I p. 700. Health offices may restrict bodily integrity and liberty. In practice: compulsory examinations, mainly of women. Leaves the books on 1 January 2001.
18. 1973
    7 June

    Bundestag passes the Fourth Criminal Law Reform Act. Issued 23 November 1973, Federal Law Gazette I p. 1725. Sexual offences are renamed “sexual self-determination.” General procuring drops out. Promoting prostitution and pimping stay. For the person selling, prostitution was already largely free of penalty. Civil law still treated the contract as immoral.
19. 1998
    4 June

    Sweden issues SFS 1998:408. In force 1 January 1999. Buying sexual services becomes a crime. Selling does not.
20. 1999
    28 October

    The Netherlands abolish the general ban on brothels (Bulletin of Acts 1999, 464). In force 1 October 2000. Licensing by municipality.
21. 2001
    1 January

    The Protection against Infection Act replaces the venereal-disease law. No more compulsory examination. Health offices offer voluntary, often anonymous tests.
22. 2001
    19 October

    Bundestag passes the Prostitution Act (SPD/Greens, FDP, PDS). The Bundesrat calls the mediation committee on 9 November 2001.
23. 2001
    20 December

    Prostitution Act issued, Federal Law Gazette I p. 3983. In force 1 January 2002. Section 1: an agreed fee creates a legally effective claim.
24. 2003
    27 June

    New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act receives royal assent. Main part in force 28 June 2003. Decriminalisation of adults. One line of contrast, not a model essay.
25. 2016
    13 April

    France, law 2016-444. Buying becomes punishable. Soliciting by sex workers is decriminalised.
26. 2016
    7 July

    Bundestag passes the Prostitutes Protection Act (CDU/CSU, SPD).
27. 2016
    21 October

    The Act is issued, Federal Law Gazette I p. 2372. Main parts in force 1 July 2017. Registration, a licence for the business, a condom rule.
28. 2017
    31 December

    Destatis runs the statistic for the first time. 6,959 valid registrations, 1,350 licences. The office writes that the administration is still being built.
29. 2026
    21 August

    Destatis press release 301. At the end of 2025, about 32,500 registered prostitutes and about 2,260 licences.

What the numbers count

Destatis counts valid registrations and licences on 31 December. Press releases round. The tables do not. People who did not register are missing, every year. Sex is not collected. The office writes that in every recent release.

• 31 December 2017: 6,959 registrations, 1,350 licences. Build-up year. Several Länder blank.
• 31 December 2018: 32,799 registrations, 1,600 licences.
• 31 December 2019: 40,369 registrations, 2,167 licences. Pre-pandemic high. Press releases later say 40,400 and 2,170.
• 31 December 2020: 24,940 registrations, 2,285 licences. Closures during the pandemic.
• 31 December 2021: 23,743 registrations, 2,286 licences. Low point of the series.
• 31 December 2022: 28,278 registrations, 2,314 licences. Plus 19.1 percent on the year, press release of 15 September 2023. Thuringia’s change of authority limits comparison.
• 31 December 2023: 30,636 registrations, 2,312 licences. Plus 8.3 percent, press release of 12 July 2024.
• 31 December 2024: 32,254 registrations, 2,253 licences. Plus 5.3 percent, press release 240 of 3 July 2025.
• 31 December 2025: 32,474 registrations, 2,255 licences. Plus 0.7 percent and plus 0.1 percent. Press release 301 of 21 August 2026 rounds to about 32,500 and about 2,260. Berlin’s activity figure is still 2024.

At the end of 2025, among those registered: 23,900 people (74 percent) aged 21 to 44, 7,600 (24 percent) 45 or older, 900 (3 percent) aged 18 to 20. German nationality 5,700 (18 percent), Romanian 11,300 (35 percent), Bulgarian 3,500 (11 percent), Spanish 2,900 (9 percent). Of the licences, 93 percent were establishments, “for example brothels,” 5 percent mediations, 2 percent vehicles and events together.

By Land, on 31 December 2025, the largest stocks sat in North Rhine-Westphalia (8,339), Bavaria (4,826), Baden-Württemberg (3,835) and Hesse (3,804). The figure follows the seat of the authority, not the place of work.

The 2001 bill (printed paper 14/5958) wrote “about 400,000 persons, predominantly women,” and “more than a million men a day.” No method was attached. In 2016, printed paper 18/8556 set the range at 150,000 to 700,000, called Hydra’s 400,000 a figure from the 1980s “not suitable for use,” and used 200,000 as a working base for the cost estimate. That is still an estimate. It is not a 2026 stock.

The Federal Criminal Police Office, in the 2024 national situation report on trafficking, counted 364 proceedings for sexual exploitation and 465 victims (449 female, 12 male). That is the recorded crime field. It is not the trade, and it is not a share of the 32,474.

The Robert Koch Institute, in Epidemiological Bulletin 26/2026, reported 3,152 confirmed new HIV diagnoses (as at 1 April 2026). There is no national HIV rate “of prostitutes in Germany” in that series. A local pilot in Landshut, 48 registered people, found acute notifiable STIs uncommon. That does not scale to the country.

What the law looks at today

If sexual acts have been performed for a previously agreed fee, this agreement establishes a legally effective claim.

Prostitution Act, section 1, in force 1 January 2002

The Prostitutes Protection Act adds the present frame. A sexual service is a sexual act on or in front of someone present, for payment. Registration is section 3. A licence for the business is section 12. The condom rule is section 32. Intercourse without a condom can cost the customer up to 50,000 euros. An establishment must post the rule and keep condoms available. A hotel outcall typically has no poster. The duty remains. There is already a piece on this site about escort versus the house.

The restricted right to give instructions applies to a house and to an agency. Nobody may prescribe whether, how or to what extent sexual services are provided. There is no claim on sex because you paid.

Three neighbouring dates, not a world map

Sweden, 1 January 1999: the purchase is a crime. The Netherlands, 1 October 2000: the general ban on brothels falls. France, 13 April 2016: the client is punishable, soliciting by the seller is not. Germany chose a different door in 2002 and 2017: a civil claim, then registration and a licence. Those are models, not a ranking.

What to settle before you pay

• Are you buying a sexual act, or an evening among guests?
• House or person: walk-in, or an appointment?
• Which statute applies here: a claim from 2002, registration from 2017, or a house rule that is only a house rule?
• Condoms: posted, or only your duty as a customer?
• Which number are you reading: Destatis registrations, a 1980s estimate, or a trafficking count?

Saturated Love does not list brothels and does not list escorts. Those doors are explained in the magazine. If you wanted guests, that is swinger clubs. If you wanted a show, that is strip clubs.

In short: “the oldest profession” is a line from 1888 or 1889. Buying sex is a dated contract. In Germany the claim has been valid since 1 January 2002. Registration has stood since 1 July 2017. Destatis counted 32,474 valid registrations at the end of 2025. That is an administrative stock, not the trade since Babel.