Sex in the city of Athens: The red-light districts have moved (video)

Hookers and transvestites would line up around Syngrou Avenue or at the backstreets of the National Theater at Omonoia.  They’d enter luxury cars and chide young rookies going on joy rides. Then, suddenly the pulsating streets around Panteio, began to empty. Shops shut down, and unemployment caused young men looking for paid thrills to diminish. Then there was all that bad press about HIV.

The pimps took their prostitutes from these red-light districts to greener pastures. But where did they go?

Galatsi 

The girls from downtown moved to Galatsi. At first they lined up at Patission Avenue, at the foot of Galatsi, but day by day, the line got longer as the women moved upward. These days it is possible to find paid sex even at Galatsiou Street.

Nea Erythrea and northern suburbs

Some pimps decided to go where the money is and tried taking a few girls to the leafy tree-lined northern suburbs. Their business sense paid off as men with full wallets responded to the girls’ calls from Kifissias Avenue and Nea Erythrea where the sex trade is thriving.

Southern suburbs

Strangely enough, the stunning young beauties at Poseidonos Avenue, Glyfada, don’t appear to have protection. Nor do the girls at Delta Falirou and Paleo Faliro near the Anglican cemetery. They appear to be there of their own free will. Young and fresh faces who have been dubbed – the “students” by the lewd men who frequent the area to leer or for something more.

For alternative tastes

Syngrou Avenue, known for its market of transvestites and transsexuals, has now moved to Kavalas Avenue where feathered sex-changed (wo)men in pumps hustle and haggle with clients. Strangely enough, the police are markedly absent from the commotion.

Nigerian girls in the streets of Athens –