Can You Host?
A Love Letter to Luxembourg’s Housing Crisis
RECENTLY, I’ve been offered to hook up in two cars, one basement and —perhaps most creatively— a mall. The range of suggestions is impressive. I keep thinking of what leads someone to look at the back of their 2010 Renault Clio and think “What a nice place for intimacy”.
After being exposed to this level of innovation, it’s clear that creative hookup solutions are rarely a choice — they are a necessity. But as similar proposals become increasingly common, I have to wonder: is Luxembourg’s housing market disrupting our privacy to the point of pushing us into public spaces?
A far stretch, or is it?
To be clear: public sex is a preference for some. But alongside the more unconventional proposals – “you can come over at 10pm, my wife will be asleep by then” – hooking up in unconventional places seems to be turning into a survival tactic. In one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, with the highest average gross salary in the EU, a growing number of people simply cannot afford privacy.
Between 2015 and 2024, housing costs in Luxembourg rose by 62%. A one-bedroom in Luxembourg City now costs between €1,900 and €2,300 a month. A fifth of the population lives at risk of poverty – in the same country that leads the EU in pay. At 26.9, the average age at which Luxembourgers leave the parental home sits just above the EU average of 26.2. Co-living and shared flats, concepts that barely existed here a decade ago, have become the default for anyone seeking independence.
Privacy is increasingly a luxury, not a given. Hosting becomes an indicator of financial stability – a subtle measure of how well you’re adulting. Intimacy is now something you have to negotiate rather than assume.
Luxembourg’s Paradox: Confusing as always
To test these assumptions, I decided to carry out a survey: I checked 20 profiles on my local dating app and asked whether they could host. Only four couldn’t – and those were the ones with the unconventional venue proposals.
This complicates the narrative. Luxembourg, for all its housing pressure, doesn’t quite fit the stereotype of a place where everyone is crammed into their childhood bedroom or with nosy roommates keeping them from hosting the occasional hookup. On paper, Luxembourgers have more space per person than almost anywhere else in the EU – an average of 2.2 rooms per person, compared to the EU average of 1.6, tied with Malta for the highest on the continent. Only 7.4% of people here live in overcrowded homes, well below the EU average of 16.8%. This is a country where some people still have room to breathe – and, in theory, room to host the odd hookup.
Yet the cost of that space is the barrier. As housing costs soar, single-person households and co-housing have expanded, but at a price a significant portion of the population cannot afford. Hosting is possible, provided you are among those who can afford the entry fee.
It’s also true that not all “can’t host” situations are the same either. Some people are comfortable having someone over while their parents are home; others aren’t. Some aren’t in a position to openly disclose their sexuality to the people they live with. Privacy isn’t just about room for all kinds of fun activities, it’s also about safety. About whether the life you live can be seen.
Luxembourg’s lack of affordable housing isn’t going away. And as long as privacy is a privilege, the social currency of hosting remains in the deep pockets of a few.
A changing landscape of intimacy
Is Luxembourg’s housing market pushing people into public intimacy – or none at all? There is no clear answer.
And numbers do not tell the whole story. Unlike many European cities, Luxembourg lacks third spaces dedicated to intimacy. In Berlin, Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam, if you cannot host, you have alternative options: bathhouses, cruising bars, darkrooms, sex-positive clubs. Historically, queer communities relied on these spaces when the home wasn’t an option.
When hosting becomes the only option, intimacy becomes a quiet indicator of who has access to privacy, safety and independence.
The question is not whether Luxembourg’s housing market is making us involuntarily celibate. It is simpler, and harder, than that: what happens to our intimacy as privacy becomes a growing privilege, and there’s nowhere else to go?
illustrations Sirah Haris
