Six years in the red-light district

Woman who was forced into Nuremberg brothel hell now is fighting against prostitution

Sandra Norak met a loverboy in high school who used psychological pressure to start her prostitution period. She was completely isolated from the outside world and deprived of self-esteem, but after several traumatizing years, the young woman managed to break out.

As she was in her early years as an adult, Sandra Norak was forced to prostitute for six years. Because of her toxic parental relationship, the loverboy was her only acquaintance. After all those traumatizing years, now she is a future lawyer who wants to fight against pimps and human traffickers.

Sandra Norak – her name is a pseudonym – started to chat online with the loverboy from Nuremberg area when she was in school.

The loverboy started to put psychological pressure on her to become a prostitute, as she believed she was in love with him, a feeling that was absent in her life. In an interview with inFranken.de, Sandra talks about her thousands of traumatizing hours with clients, living in a basement room and threats led to a mental breakdown.

After all that happened to her, she found a strong motivation to become a lawyer and help the women that are in the same situation.

Nuremberg Loverboy builds trust – and takes advantage of loneliness

Sandra Norak speaks up in an interview: “I grew up in a small town in Lower Bavaria. My parents’ house was characterized by border crossings and violence by my mother. I distanced myself from classmates and didn’t tell them anything about the conditions at home. Instead, I used online, I preferred chats as an escape from reality.

When I was 16, the recruitment process by my perpetrators began in the form of the so-called loverboy method, a form of human trafficking. I first met a woman on the Internet who finally met me at my later about 20 years older ‘Loverboy’. Both had been in the red-light district for a long time – the woman was a prostitute for him.”

Sandra Norak describes the common goal of the two mentioned before as recruiting a new prostitute in order to exploit her and make money.

The most popular target group is unstable women, since their acceptance to endure further violence is increased.

Prostitution was not even mentioned when they first got to know each-other, the loverboy trying to build up the trust and relationship. “. I told them about my problems at home and they knew that I wanted to get out of there. They did exploit.”

After some time passed, the man become Sandra’s closest relationship. He was so deep in building the relationship with her, at some point he even told that he felt in love with her over some deep conversation that they were having.

“We then met for the first time in my hometown. I had a weird gut feeling, but I was feeling very lonely, and I wanted to hold on to the idea that I’d found someone who loved me and cared about me, so I tried to push that gut feeling aside.”

Debt, extortion, psychological pressure: This is how the pimp scam works

She started to visit him regularly during weekends. Sandra is telling the story of the first time when he took her to a brothel.

The loverboy took her to have a “coffee” with his friends in Nuremberg at the brothel where them were operators and/or pimps. She was never thinking that she will start to be a sex-worker, as it was out of the question. I just went with him.

He slowly introduced me to the scene. At first, this environment was shocking for me, and I felt strange to be there, but when you see that every weekend and the people give you a family feeling, eventually it becomes normal in a way.”

As the time was passing, she was going with him more often to those brothels and the unexpected question came from his side, if she wants to work as a prostitute: “After all, you can earn a lot of money and it’s a normal job.”

As she refused, the loverboy tried another way to convince her, he started to say that he has debts and if he can’t pay them off, he will have problems and prostitution is the way to earn a lot of money quickly to help him.

His most used sentence was ‘If you really love me, you help me and go into prostitution.” “I would see by now that all the women there were going to work for their husbands and would help them.”

“He was also happy to accuse me of being responsible if something were to happen to him because he had to do dangerous business without my help to get money.”

Sandra also knew some of the people he was talking about, the men were from rocker groups. As she refused his proposal, the loverboy started to be distant and cold for a short time.

“I was worried about him and called him. He repeated the arguments on the phone. With such blackmail, after forming a strong emotional bond, is what traffickers often do and they know women will jump on it. They take advantage of women’s vulnerabilities and pre-trauma, as well as their ability to love deeply.”

In prostitution you lose your self-esteem completely

Sandra got in the prostitution field, and she was trained by another prostitute of her pimp.

Her first client saw that she was inexperienced and didn’t want it but ignored it. This is a world that is not so easy to get out of.

Sandra Norak writes down her experiences for the public on her blog. “When you start to ‘work’ as a prostitute, you usually already have little self-esteem, in prostitution you lose your self-esteem completely – you are humiliated, degraded, used, and treated as a doormat by clients.

You feel more and more worthless, you always believe less about earning a living and help because you’re just something on the very fringes of society.

After all, I was a full-time prostitute and lived with him. Then it completely degenerated. You are threatened with consequences if you say what you really saw and what the real circumstances are. You remain silent or tell stories – and become more and more inaccessible to others in the ‘normal’ world: It there is a process of isolation from the ‘normal’ world.”

Mental breakdown causes “problems” – solution of pimp begins

Sandra Norak dropped out of school a year before she graduated from high school and at some point, she only owned things that were needed for prostitution. For about two years, she lived in the basement of a brothel, where her pimp used to come and collect “his” money.

“My money, of course, but he called it his. He thought I was his, so my money was his. That’s how he saw it and practiced it for a very long time.”

In most cases it is not possible to simply say goodbye to your pimp and leave with your money, as you are threatened. She was a prostitute in a legal brothel, human trafficking also take place in legal brothels.

“Only through a mental breakdown did the gradual solution started by my pimp because my condition caused ‘problems’, was conspicuous to outsiders and a ‘quiet exploitation’ with little risk of prosecution, like in previous years, was less and less possible.”

Sandra started to think of how to break away from the situation her pimp put her in, dropped out of school and a year-long gap in her CV, but she was stuck in the brothel. She was feeling ashamed and afraid to seek for help, as she started doing this ‘voluntarily’. “It was damn difficult to get out I did my high school diploma and completed my law studies so that I could also provide legal help to those affected.”

Today Norak is a qualified lawyer: “Already have underground in legal brothels”

Sandra Norak writes about their motivation: “Then I will take action against you, you pimps and human traffickers out there.”

The 32-year-old also gives lectures and discussion groups at schools. “Education about the dangers of prostitution and prevention are very important to me. Contrary to what our society often argues, prostitution is not a profession like any other.”

Norak also founded the organization for those affected, ‘Ge-STAC’: “I’m not alone, we are many people affected by human trafficking and exploitation. We want to show that and improve the situation for those affected.”

She also advocates a legal model like the Nordic model: “Here, prostitutes are decriminalized, while clients, pimps, brothel operators and generally those who profit from the prostitution of others are criminalized. There are exit aids and education in society.”

“A counter-argument is often that everything takes place underground. But we already have this underground. Sexual assault and rape as well as human trafficking and procuring also take place in legal brothels, but criminal prosecution in this legal environment is so difficult that only very few perpetrators are convicted.”

We wrote a lot of articles about loverboys

Over the years, we covered the loverboy topic on our sites. Click on the links below to read the related articles!

Who is a loverboy? What is the loverboy method about? Read our explanation article here: The Loverboy Method

Two men and a teenager were arrested in Wuppertal, because they forced several women into postitution, by using the loverboy method: Men forced several women to prostitution

A 21 year old man lured sex workers in Saarbrücken, using this method and later kidnapped them: Gang kidnapped a prostitute from a strip club, now arrested

A mother wrote a blog, where she covered her daughter’s story. She was seduced by a loverboy and later forced to work as prostitute. Here are the details: Loverboy Seduces Young Girl and Turns Her into a Prostitute

A gang of human traffickers were arrested in Vienna, by the cooperation of law enforcement in different countries: Loverboy gang brought to justice in Vienna

A 37 year old loverboy forced a 19 year old schoolgirl to work as prostitute and stole her 80,000 Euros: Loverboy in Düsseldorf sentenced to prison

An international gang used the loverboy method to lure unsecure women: International Loverboy Gang Busted by Law Enforcement in Vienna

Discuss the loverboy method in Sex Vienna Forum! You can find the related thread here: Loverboy method