What is a "Puff"?

[Neurosynth]

Since now seems to be the time for these kinds of questions.

I see references to places called "Puffs" What kind of place is that?

[Hessen Bub]

Puff = brothel. Could be anything from a Laufhaus to a FKK club.

HB

[Member #4364]

It's street slang for a brothel; mostly not the high class of them.

[Neurosynth]

Thanks all!

[Eeyore]

It seems like regional dialect. I heard the term used extensively in Bavaria and Schwabia, but don't recall it being said once in Hamburg where people would say "laufhaus" or "bordell" to describe what was a "puff" in Munich or Stuttgart.

[BionicMan]

A Finnish guy I once met, called the brothel "puffa house", so the term is geographically broader.

[Eeyore]

A Finnish guy I once met, called the brothel "puffa house", so the term is geographically broader.Well, I don't know Finnish or what they call brothels in Finland, but I'd be careful how I use the term outside of Southern Germany. In some dialects of English,"puffa" is slang for gay or "poofer". If one is straight and looking for a brothel, asking direction for a "puffa house" might cause one to end up in an undesirable place.

[SwingerLover]

There is no such word as "Puffa" in the German language.

Puff (pronounced "pooff", but with a short syllable like "look") means brothel, bordello, hoor-house; whatever the quality and regardless of the region. The term is used in Hamburg and Berlin as commonly as in Hesse, Bavaria or Stuttgart. A Laufhaus (a walk-house, lope-house) is always a Puff, but of course not every Puff is a Laufhaus. Usually the term Puff is used in a more demeaning manner than brothel or bordello.