On a Sunday afternoon earlier this summer, hundreds of Turkish men disappeared down a short alleyway just a five-minute walk from the Istanbul Modern art museum. Some flicked prayer beads around their fingers. The younger ones arrived in small groups, flashing nervous grins and smoothing their hair down with spit. Minors were refused entry. Minors who could afford a lira bribe were not. Sunday, the last day of rest before the workweek, always brought her particularly brisk business.
Now, the alleyway leading to Kadem is lined with plumbing and appliance shops, all of which are closed on Sunday. For most of the day, the only commerce on the street consisted of a man hawking peeled cucumbers from a wooden cart at one end and a shoe shiner with bloodshot eyes and a raspy voice at the other.
Midafternoon, a man trudged by with another cart, this one bearing bananas. He emerged from prison two days earlier, after a three-month stint for failing to pay alimony to his ex-wife. Saturday he visited relatives, and Sunday found him sitting on the sidewalk outside Kadem, pulling on cigarettes and contemplating a little diversion. Twenty lira goes to the house, the rest to the woman.
A little tenderness β kissing, caressing, honeyed words β costs 15 to 20 lira extra, which strikes Yenten as unjust. They just have sex and throw you out. Sitting next to him on the curb were two cousins, recent high-school graduates, who live on the fringes of Istanbul. The blond one was 18, short and stout, with a pimply face. His handsome, green-eyed cousin visits Kadem Street regularly, although he has a serious girlfriend whom he meets late at night in a park near his house. They kiss, but sex before marriage is out of the question.
Nor can you tell her you visit brothels. View all New York Times newsletters. Her son, an engineer, closed her properties. Jafar, a mustachioed man who identified himself as a brothel guard, said the government has essentially stopped granting sex licenses. Yasemin, a sex worker with full lips and blue eyes, arrived at Kadem Street eight years ago, after nearly three decades in brothels in other parts of Turkey.
