DON’T SWITCH OFF THE RED LIGHTS!
Noooooooooooo:
The Red Light District is a neighborhood in Amsterdam where women sit, barely dressed, behind windows, while trying to persuade passersby to come inside to have some good ol’ fun. Most of these women are from Eastern Europe, and, contrary to prejudice, beautiful. They wear incredibly revealing clothes; their beautiful, long legs are spread out as if they want to welcome you… OK, sorry about that, what I mean to say is: it’s the prostitute district.
Sadly for those of us who like to look at beautiful women – and even sadder for those who actually want to use their services – Amsterdam has decided to clean up the neighborhood. This week, Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen said that prostitution and drugs shouldn’t be made illegal, but that he nonetheless wants to shut down the “shops” where prostitutes are sitting behind windows. This, of course, is exactly what made the Red Light District so famous.
Read my entire article at Pajamas Media.
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I think what your article does a good job pointing out, Michael, is the exploitative nature of the sex trade. To some extent it makes sense to say that prostitution will always exist, so it’s pointless (and potentially harmful) to legislate against it, but it also seems virtually impossible to regulate it so that it’s less harmful to women. Perhaps the only thing that helps is to remind men to think "how would you feel if you saw your sister or your daughter in that situation?"
Christine, partially perhaps, but that all has to be done on a different level than on a government-level. The Church should do that, families / parents should do that, etc., but the government… well, it’s none of the government’s business firstly, and secondly, the government can’t change people.
In a lot of German cities the workers are behind walls, in more touristy German cities they are out for display. German weekend newspapers run multiple pages of ads for escorts. In Germany, most sex workers weren’t German.
I completely agree with you there, Michael. I think that probably the best case scenario is to legalize it, regulate as much as possible to keep some standards, and simultaneously have a culture which steers as many people as possible away from it.
Christine: perhaps, on the other hand we now see in the Netherlands that such an approach isn’t working either. Of course, we don’t have the culture you describe in so far that the Dutch are becoming increasingly secular. On the other hand, prostitution remains a no-go zone.
On the other hand, I also heard many people defend visiting prostitutes by saying "whateve rmakes them happy"
Too bad.
One of my favorite part of the city plus sex museum and near by Argentinian restaurant.
And no , I never used the services behind the windows (trust me, I swear, too inhumane for my test, there is no personal sympathy involved, no feelings at all).
I love Amsterdam. I love the channels, the Dutch people speaking with resounding "rrrrrrr". Kempinski hotel, just next to the "red light" area, where I used to stay . And very light hearted liberal atmosphere of the city…
My three most favorable cities int the world-Prague, Amsterdam and New York
You’ve got a good taste sashal!