After mobile phone apps that tell you about sex positions comes an app that will help Germans find sex workers. The Berlin-based Peppr app uses GPS to connect clients with sex workers in their immediate area.
The app was created by Austrian developer Pia Poppenreiter(her last name loosely translates to “screw-rider”) with the intention of saving the sex workers from having to walk the streets. Prostitution is legal in Germany.
Pia says she came up with the idea after seeing sex workers out on the streets during cold nights. “The story always sounds corny, but it’s true,” she told.
“On a late autumn day in Berlin, I was on my way with a friend to a bar on Oranienburger Strasse. It was cold – I had a skirt on myself – and I saw a sex worker on the street. I thought, “It’s crazy that there’s an app for everything, but not for that. Why do they have to stand there in the winter all day?” That thought never left me,” she further said. And that’s when she began working on the app and the result was Peppr.
Interestingly, to ensure that the sex workers don’t become part of a human trafficking network and that the app doesn’t get misued, Peppr interviews its advertisers (read sex workers) before signing them up. The app isn’t available for use by brothels. It will only be used to promote individuals and escort agencies.
The app supports not only female sex workers, but also male sex workers.
Right now, the app is active only in Berlin.
