Prostitution in Nightclubs in Border Areas of the Czech Republic

Spaces of prostitution first appeared in Czech Republic border areas when the country's borders were opened, and they are primarily aimed at a German-speaking clientele. They represent an excellent field for studying the social and spatial configurations associated with the sale of sexual services. They are also an occasion for reconsidering questions of how sociology can gain access to a "difficult" field and how to interview actors linked to the activity of prostitution. Analysis of the prostitution trajectories of women and customers in these border-area nightclubs brings to light the complex, multiform power relations that develop in them; it also reveals the great fantasy-generating potential of the social fact of prostitution. Prostitution on the borders of the Czech Republic seems interpretable as a confined space where fantasies and affirmations of identity become crystallized.