The Red Light District

I recently celebrated the completion of my 100-page thesis with my spring break, the last of my undergraduate career. While my peers were partying all night in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Bermuda, I escaped with my roommate to the charm of the Low Countries. My trip to the Netherlands and Belgium was relaxing but busy—I visited Amsterdam, Brussels, and Bruges, in addition to a few other cities. I did many clichéd touristy things. I saw works by Van Gogh, Van Eyck, and Vermeer (two of my favorite paintings are his: "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Milkmaid"). I rode a bike along a canal through the Belgian countryside, passing cows, sheep, and windmills. I ate plenty of pancakes, waffles, Belgian chocolates, and Flemish fries.

 

Of course, if I were going to do all the things tourists do, I couldn’t visit Amsterdam without going to the Red Light District. The Netherlands is famous for its laissez-faire policies. There are “coffee shops” throughout the country where you can get a joint with your cup of coffee. Amsterdam’s Red Light District is the most notorious symbol of freedom-loving Holland. To locals, the Red Light District is just another industry. My guidebook calls the women "entrepreneurs," and they belong to a union and are loosely regulated by the government.

 

Despite warnings from other people, I visited the Red Light District at night, when the neon lights were shining and all the drug-sellers and sleazy men were out. I’m not sure what I expected, but part of me was disappointed. I had imagined everyone to be dressed as in Moulin Rouge, but was surprised to find that most were attractive young women wearing little more than bikinis. My roommate and I walked through trying to be as non-touristy as possible, and although we did not dare take any pictures, we sure didn’t blend in well with the scene.

 

The most amusing part of the night was when we walked past a sex show, only to have a bouncer yell at us, “Come on, girls, this will be educational!” I couldn’t help but laugh. This is the very same rhetoric used by the organizers of the Female Sexuality seminar and the Female Orgasms workshop at Harvard. (The syllabus of FemSex includes visits to strip clubs and porn viewing nights.) I wonder if they’d organize a trip to Amsterdam’s Red Light District for "educational purposes"if they could?

 

I left the Red Light District with a sense of sadness, and I have to say I felt sorry for the women there. It’s the most egregious display of the commercialization of sex, and no matter how much money these women are making, it can't make up for their lost dignity. If I could go into every shop and give them all the money in the world to stop, I would. I wish I had another way to convince them to give up that lifestyle.

Oh, I also saw a shirt in Belgium with the line “Vows are spoken to be broken.”  How sad!

Needless to say, I prefer flower gardens and museums to the other "traditional" Amsterdam attractions.

 

Comments

[Natalia]

I find ironic that in the old days to which we now refer to as ‘patriarchal and oppressive’, women who practiced prostitution were usually believed by most to be victims of evil, cruel and manipulative men who must have abused them somehow; women were thought to be too dignified to prostitute themselves willingly. All efforts were made to remove women from the influence of such men, not to give more men access to them...
Now that we are all liberated, women who turn themselves (or have been turned) into sexual merchandizes are no longer victims but are glorified as ‘entrepreneurs’ and men who treat them like expendable pieces of meat are no longer abusers but players...

There is the concept of choice that tends to cloud the whole issue. According to some, if women ‘choose’ to become prostitutes, the rest of us should only applaud... But abuse, degradation and dehumanization are objective evils, and do not disappear simply because somebody ‘chooses’ to be subjected to them... We could conveniently eliminate all concept of abuse that way; anyone who is treated as less than a human being can simply ‘choose it’ then develop ‘a taste for it’, and everyone will have a clear conscience...

To anyone interested in the actual workings of the sex industries (and able to read French as his works are not yet translated), I suggest books by Richard Poulin. He describes the real face of prostitution and the porn industry in excruciating details, and has probably gathered all the data and studies available on the subject. It is a very difficult read but I recommend it to anyone who wants to arm themselves against the current propaganda.

[Emily]

I'm surprised you bothered to go- you knew you'd dislike it, and you went, and you disliked it!

My boyfriend went to Spain, and refused to see the bullfighting while he was there. EVERYONE kept telling him he HAD to go. People were quite shrill about it. But he knew there was no context in which he would relish watching an animal be tortured to death, so why go just 'cuz it was 'the done thing'.

[Adam]

Its a good thing that you didn't try to take any pictures while in the red light district, because if you had, you probably would have lost your camera.

I have always found it supremely ironic that the prostitutes in Amsterdam are organized into a union...that is just hilarious. I'm pretty certain that it is the same way in Berlin.

[Meghan Grizzle]

Emily, you'll probably find it funny that when I went to Madrid in 8th grade with my mother, we went to a bullfight. I was nearly distraught after one or two rounds of bullfighting. We left early because it was so sad to watch.

Needless to say, I did not go to a bullfight the next time I was in Spain, after my freshman year of college.

I suppose it is just the tourist and traveler in me that caused me to do these activities. I felt like I wouldn't understand the culture if I didn't at least take a peek. Do you think that's wrong? I was wondering myself if me going through the Red Light District could be perceived as an endorsement of it, but in the end, I just wanted to see what all the hullabaloo was about so I could better comprehend it.

[Emily]

Megan, I don't mean to say I think you were wrong to go- it's a free country- and Holland's very free, LOL! I guess I'm just surprised that you'd *want* to, as someone who has written on this blog about her distate for prostitution. And that's not a judgement- I share your distaste. But I guess it WOULD kind of seem like a vague endorsement to countenance turning up for a squiz. I do see your point though, in seeking to understand things we don't agree with. So I guess, good on you for going. I think it would have sent me into a depression for days.