Yahoo News I went to Amsterdam in search of its disappearing seedy side – here’s what I found
It’s late on Friday afternoon and people are coming into the red-light district to let off steam. Some got a head start.
“She was a good sport, wasn’t she,” a woman from the north of England says to her male acquaintance, as they walk away all shifty smiles from a neon-lit door. Closing it behind them is a sex worker in a lime green thong and matching bra. She flashes me a smile as I walk by.
So far, so predictable. But Amsterdam’s red-light district is changing – or trying to.
Casa Rosso’s, which “presents non-stop live porno” on the other side of the canal, is the last peep show in town, and many of the window brothels have closed. You wonder what will become of the place when all the smut is gone. Because it is going. Amid lively debate, the municipality is trying to launder the neighbourhood’s reputation for iniquity.
Red lights out
City hall has long argued that the red-light district (and therefore, its sex workers) attracts the “wrong kind of tourist” to Amsterdam. Listening to groups of drunk British lads talk cheaply about the women in the windows, it’s hard to disagree. It has become a sort of erotic Disney World.
At night you can barely move for tracksuited gawkers down Oudezijds Achterburgwal, where pushers flog hard drugs. “Coke?” I’m asked every 20 seconds.
Understandably, the usually tolerant Dutch have had enough. Cue a ban on smoking weed in public, which was announced earlier this month. Street drinking is already prohibited. A marketing campaign, launching soon, will implore stag dos to stay away.
Then there’s the new licensing hours. From May, it’s (red) lights out for sex workers at 3am, and a 2am closing time for bars and clubs.
Another solution being championed by mayor Femke Halsema is to close the windows permanently and move the sex workers to a self-contained “erotic centre” in another part of town. The problem is, nobody wants it in their backyard — and the sex workers don’t want to go.
“We are really scared that they are going to create this sex hotel thing,” says Mila, a host at the Prostitute Information Centre (PIC), located opposite the Oude Kerk (old church). “It looks like a parking garage. It is really demotivating.”
The PIC is run by sex workers and advocates on behalf of those working in the industry, while providing a safe space for prostitutes to tell their story. It is decorated in the style of a bordello and is one of the host venues for the neighbourhood’s annual jazz festival. While I’m there a retired cop in wooden clogs stops by for a chat.
According to Mila, sex workers feel like they are being blamed for overtourism and pushed out of their neighbourhood.
“Sex workers have been here for 800 years, mass tourism is a new thing,” she says.
“Flights are so cheap. It’s never been easier to get here. There are so many people coming. Barcelona has this problem too.”
Already, 40 per cent of the windows have closed, says Mila. The rest will follow. Alleyways that once glowed red are now dark. Inside empty premises, dust gathers on the faux-leather stools where bare bums once perched. Roxanne has finally put out her red light.
Love it or hate it, there is something unique and fascinating about the red-light district. The energy of the place, the mild sense of danger, the air of forbidden excitement. There is a sinful sincerity to it, an honesty in the way it brazenly confronts taboos, and reminds us that in every mind is something crude.
A spokesperson for the mayor tells me that the erotic centre will improve the position of sex workers, reduce crime and “offer spaces for sex workers that are currently not able or willing to work legally”. But the plans seem unlikely to resolve the underlying issues, merely move them elsewhere.
Ultimately, this is about real estate, the gentrification of a neighbourhood, says Mila, who has a master’s degree in sociology and human rights, and until recently was a sex worker. Alongside her colleagues, she campaigns for prostitution to be decriminalised. Amnesty International supports decriminalisation, suggesting it is the best way to safeguard sex workers and reduce stigma.
Before I leave Mila, I wonder aloud why there are no male sex workers. She passes me a dated photograph of men gyrating behind the windows.
“Demand just wasn’t there,” she says, suggesting the stigma around women having casual, transactional sex could be a reason. “Plus, women need more time.” The average man, she adds, spends just seven minutes with a sex worker in the red-light district. We both laugh.
The ‘weed pass’
I leave the red-light district and head to De Dampkring, a cannabis coffeeshop with Hollywood connections. It’s where Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Matt Damon filmed a scene with Robbie Coltrane in Oceans Twelve. The place is buzzing and sympathetically lit, with psychedelic music playing. A man, who I presume to be the owner, helpfully finds me a seat at the bar. I look around. Not one person is on their phone. Everyone is in conversation.
I buy a hash joint at the weed counter, which comes with some friendly advice: “smoke it slowly”.
At the bar, I order a loose-leaf rooibos tea from the red-eyed tender and chat to a Keralan man called Richard sitting next to me. He tells me how he used to live in England but couldn’t make the sums work. “The wages were low, everything was expensive,” he says. “Nothing worked.” So, he moved to Amsterdam and now works in finance. “It is so easy here,” he says.
Like the red-light district, coffeeshops have become synonymous with the kind of low-budget tourism that Amsterdam wants to deter. They have a similarly narrow legal framework in which to operate, too; a sort of embassy status that allows them to sell within the premises a substance that is technically illegal out of it.
Despite their panto villain reputation, the good ones are safe spaces for interesting conversation. In them, I’ve met businessmen, students, pensioners, writers, musicians, people from all walks of life and corners of the world. People like Richard.
Dens of iniquity? Hardly. They won’t even let you wear a hat.
Amsterdam’s coffeeshops are also in the crosshairs as the city looks to clean up its act. The mayor recently tabled a vote on whether Amsterdam should introduce the so-called ‘weed pass’, which would bar non-residents from entering. Halsema lost but vowed to keep pushing.
According to Dirk Korf, professor in criminology at the University of Amsterdam, the weed pass probably would deter some ‘low budget’ tourists. But trials in other Dutch cities suggest it would lead to an explosion in street dealing.
“The disadvantages outweigh the advantages,” he tells me later, over Zoom. “There are no perfect solutions.”
Back in De Dampkring, Richard lights another joint. “They won’t do it,” he says, blowing smoke skywards, referring to the weed pass.
Perhaps he’s right. Who knows? It would certainly feel like something special had been lost if they did; something unique and magical in an increasingly homogenised world. He passes the joint and I look around me, taking it all in, because one day this might be gone too.
Getting there
Gavin travelled as a foot passenger on the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hoek Van Holland with Stena Line, nodding off in England and waking in the Netherlands. Stena’s rail and sail fares, which include train travel from London Liverpool Street, cost from £50 one-way.
Where to stay
Gavin stayed at Clink Noord, a hostel with private rooms in Shell’s former head office. It’s located in the up-and-coming Noord neighbourhood, a short (and free) ferry ride from Amsterdam Centraal, but seemingly a world away from the hectic centre. Doubles from £92.
