Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business (33 page)

Amsterdam’s main RLD is in the center of town and hard to miss. It is very much a
mixed-use
site offering a cornucopia of attractions—bars, marijuana cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, clothing stores, gambling arcades, and snack bars nestled among window-prostitution rooms, live sex shows, massage parlors, and shops selling adult videos and sex toys. This kind of RLD offers visitors the opportunity to “view other goods and services they may not have previously been aware that they wanted.”
¹³³
Many of those who discuss this RLD on client websites like to recount their participation in multiple pursuits, especially combining cannabis use and paid sex. Amsterdam does not offer “everything,” however; it has only one, small strip club (La Vie En Proost) and lacks German-style erotic bars, sauna clubs, and hotel-brothels.
¹³⁴

Figure 6.9b. The Wallen red-light district, window rooms on the left.

Figure 6.9c. The Wallen red-light district.

Red lights adorn the small canal bridges, and neon marquees advertise live sex shows and shops selling X-rated videos, lingerie, and sex toys. There are several stores named Red Light Souvenirs and Sex Shop, selling T-shirts, ashtrays, postcards, and other trinkets that present prostitution as an amusing curiosity. (No such shops exist in Singel or Ruysdaelkade.) During the day and night, one sees men, women, couples (some with children), and
tour groups. At night, the RLD is full of life and has a boisterous party atmosphere. The street scene is captured in
figure 6.9a
–
c
.

In the very heart of the RLD is the Oude Kerk, the oldest church in Amsterdam—a jarring juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane within a few yards of each other. The church is ringed by window-prostitution units, two bars, and two marijuana cafes including the Old Church Coffee Shop. A few feet away from the Oude Kerk is a statue of Belle, whose inscription reads, “Respect Sex Workers All Over the World” (see
figure 6.10
). A monument of this kind is perhaps unique to Amsterdam, and it is remarkable that Belle stands virtually on church property. Belle’s statue was sponsored by the nearby Prostitution Information Center (founded in 1994), which provides information on the RLD to tourists, clients, and sex workers. All of these features point to one conclusion: Amsterdam’s main RLD is thoroughly integrated into the local economy and culture, quite different from many other red-light areas that are hidden away and marginal to the cultural life of the city. The character of this red-light district was established well before legalization, as I mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. A study from the 1980s describes this RLD quite similarly to its current incarnation, although more street prostitution was observed at that time than today.
¹³⁵

The very existence of an ancient RLD in the heart of the city, surrounded by other amenities and tourist attractions, contributes to the seminormalization of the window version of prostitution. The gorgeous 16th- and 17th-century gable houses, adorned with fancy red lanterns and window decorations, and the red-lit canal bridges in the heart of this RLD cast an aesthetic “halo effect” on this type of sexual commerce, leavening some of the more seedy surroundings (litter, graffiti on some buildings, and rowdy people on the street). That this RLD is itself a major tourist attraction is also important. On every visit, I have seen numerous tour groups walking the streets, including groups of 10–20 students, elderly people, teenage girls, and foreign tourists. Tour guides provide information that may help at least some tourists see prostitution in a more legitimate light. No tours are conducted in the RLDs in Singel, Ruysdaelkade, Frankfurt, or Antwerp.

It can be argued that a multiple-use RLD is superior to a single-use area as far as the workers are concerned. The juxtaposition of sexual entertainment alongside conventional businesses offers amenities to workers that are hard to come by in areas where prostitution is the sole activity. Multiple use also expands the potential customer base, as visitors who enter the area for other reasons may find themselves buying sex opportunistically, when they happen to see a provider who they are drawn to. Mixed use also increases social control over disorderly or predatory persons, insofar as shopkeepers are present and willing to intervene in such situations. (I have witnessed local merchants reprimanding disorderly individuals on the street.) In isolated, single-use RLDs, social control is largely relegated to on-site security personnel, coworkers, or the police.

Figure 6.10. Statue of Belle in the Wallen. The plaque reads, “Respect Sex Workers All Over the World.” Oude Kerk appears in background.

Street prostitution (outside the few remaining
Tippelzones
) is scarce in Dutch cities, constituting only 1 percent of the total nationwide. I have been propositioned by one street worker in the Wallen, but this is quite unusual. Street prostitutes know that they are a fish out of water in a window-prostitution market and cannot compete with women who work behind the windows.

There are a few massage parlors in the RLD but no other brothels. These parlors offer erotic massage but lack the club atmosphere of a brothel with a bar and lounge where clients and providers may socialize prior to retiring to a room for sex. Massage parlor prices are higher than in the windows, but the time allotted is somewhat longer and includes massage, so the atmosphere is more relaxed and less rushed than the window experience is. The main parlors are Thai Massage and Love Club 21. After knocking on the door at Love Club, I was presented with a printed menu of services: nonsexual massage for
€
60; erotic massage and hand job,
€
75; erotic massage and sex for half an hour,
€
90; and erotic massage and sex for one hour,
€
125. Customers choose a masseuse from a group of women sitting in the parlor, but the parties do not socialize in the parlor. Thai Massage is different. The manager who opened its door told me that they offer massage and hand jobs only, and she does not allow customers to enter the building until they pay. She told me that there is “no reason” to allow a man to view the women first “since they don’t give sex.”
¹³⁶

Amsterdam currently has about 400 window-prostitution rooms. Almost all of its red-lit windows are small, single rooms on the first or second floor. The rooms vary somewhat in size and amenities, but all have sinks, chairs, closets, and beds. Negotiations take place while the man stands outside the window: if he decides to partake and enters the room, the woman closes a thick red curtain over the window and door. Some rooms are shrouded with black lights, accenting the woman’s fluorescent attire to pique the interest of passersby. As in Antwerp, the women vary in their attire, age, attractiveness, and behavior. Almost all dress in skimpy outfits: bikinis, lingerie, thongs, translucent mesh tops, and so on. Most of them are female, but there is a small transgender cluster in one part of the Wallen. Unlike Frankfurt’s hotel-brothels, where many women live for weeks at a time, in the Netherlands it is
illegal for a window worker to stay in her room all day. Instead, the workers rent rooms for an eight-hour shift.

Window prostitution has the advantage of allowing the workers to set their own rules; window owners do not dictate how they should dress or behave. Window workers also make the most money in the Netherlands because of high turnover compared to escorts and brothel workers. They charge a standard
€
50 for about 15 minutes of manual, oral, or vaginal sex, and extras or more time will raise the price. (Window rooms in Amsterdam currently rent for
€
100–
€
150 per eight-hour shift.) A 2006 study estimated that the average gross income for window workers was
€
1,460 ($2,044) per week, compared to
€
760 ($1,064) for brothel workers and
€
528 ($740) for those working in massage parlors.
¹³⁷
The higher income for window workers is part of the reason why 88 percent of them report being “satisfied” (of which 36 percent are “very satisfied”) with their work, according to a recent survey.
¹³⁸
Their job satisfaction may also be due to the relatively limited number of hours they work: 10 percent work three to four hours per day; 56 percent, five to six hours; and 34 percent, seven to eight hours. Half of them work every day, a third work a few times per week, and a sixth work once a week or a few times a month. Almost all the window workers interviewed in the survey worked in the windows exclusively: just 3 percent supplemented window work with club work, 12 percent engaged in escort work when not at their window, and none worked on the street.
¹³⁹

Almost all of Amsterdam’s window rooms are single occupancy, separating workers from each other. Some rooms are connected to a bathroom and kitchen shared by several workers, but the women spend most of their time by themselves in front of the windows. This situation contrasts sharply with brothels, where workers can enjoy a party atmosphere and regular social contact with other providers, staff, and customers.

To break the monotony, most window workers “perform” in some way—drawing on their own distinctive repertoire to beckon passersby and typically displaying the same body language day after day. The women knock on their windows, dance to music, assume suggestive poses, flash private parts, and smile, wink, throw kisses, and call out to individual men. Only a few seem totally disengaged from the outside world: they read magazines, stare into space, sit catatonically, or chat on the phone. The sexiest women tend to attract groups of gawkers, while others perform seductively to get more than a passing look. The women focus their attention on specific men near their windows but also occasionally address the men in general, such as the time I saw two women lean out of their doors and yell, “Let’s get some
action going!” and “I’m horny.” My observations are consistent with those of another researcher, who described “plenty of women hunting for men who seemed to be disinterested in them. The men’s attention had to be drawn by tapping on windows, exuberantly twisting breasts and other body parts, and shouting out phrases like, ‘Hey, loverboy’ or ‘One minute, one minute, come inside.’”
¹⁴⁰
At least some workers take pleasure in this game, as one stated: “There was a kind of power play in the whole transaction that I enjoyed. I lured the men in and I controlled most of what happened once they were inside.”
¹⁴¹

Some window workers are aggressive in their efforts to snare a customer. In one narrow alley near the Old Church, I have seen men being grabbed and pulled by working women. Some will block passage with a stick, literally “hooking” and forcing the man to speak to her and insisting that he come inside. Some get agitated if a man stands and stares for too long or walks by their window repeatedly, and these women have been observed telling a man to move on or shining a laser beam at his face. Several times, I have heard women accusing lingering voyeurs of “using” them for their “masturbation fantasies” rather than paying them for their services. This is one reason why photos and video-recording are frowned on, and anyone seen doing so is subjected to a verbal tirade and may even have the equipment confiscated. The women do not want a tangible image of them that might be used for someone’s private pleasure, shared with friends, or posted on the Internet—with the risk of being seen by family members or friends who are not aware the individual is selling sex. I have witnessed several altercations after photos or videos were taken. Once, a woman came out of her room and sprayed something from a plastic bottle at a man, and another time, as a group of Japanese tourists was taking photos with their cell phones, a woman stormed out of her room and called them “perverts.”