I recently completed a walking tour of Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District. I had done a tour in Singapore of their Geylang / Red Light District over five years ago, and it was very interesting to compare these two completely different approaches to legalized prostitution.
First, the commonalities. Both countries want to keep sex workers safe through legalization. Both countries want to regulate how prostitution happens rather than allowing it to be a complete free-for-all (that often results in danger and exploitation for the workers). And perhaps most importantly, both countries want tax revenues from this enterprise.
Here are the ten things I learned about Amsterdam’s approach from our tour guide:
- The biggest difference between the two countries’ approaches is that Singapore is protectionist whereas in Amsterdam, the worker’s autonomy and rights are tantamount. In Singapore, they are employees. In Amsterdam, they are freelancers, small business people. A worker isn’t required to accept any customers she doesn’t want. She doesn’t have to get tested if she doesn’t want. (That is not the case in Singapore where testing for disease is regular and mandatory). In Amsterdam, while prostitution is legal, being a pimp is against the law. Instead, the law acts to protect the workers and put choice into their hands.
- Workers rent the window-fronted rooms for between 80 euros and 150 euros per 11 hour shift (prices vary based on location and season). The landlord provides on premise security (at the touch of a button). Rooms are cleaned between shifts. Thankfully.
- Workers refuse 3 of every 5 potential customers on average, and they have the right to refuse them for any reason or no reason at all. Men who ask how much to go without a condom are usually refused even if they try to pretend they were joking about it. Just asking the question is a red flag, and the workers don’t want to deal with someone they see as dangerous and disrespectful.
- Pricing starts at 50 euros for 15 minutes and goes up from there. That price doesn’t include anything but actual sex acts. Touching costs extra. The most expensive price is for GFE or Girlfriend Experience (starting at 150 euros for 30 mins) in which the worker pretends she likes you, laughing at your jokes and acting enthusiastic about the act. Otherwise, expect bored but workmanlike performance between checking her cell phone. Like most workers, the women aren’t going to do a lot of extra work if they can avoid it. They will go to great lengths to get out of actually having sex if they can, which is fairly easy to do as they require all patrons to be washed prior to their services (this was the case in medieval Bruges’ brothels as well, a fact we learned in that Belgian city). Drunk customers can be fairly easy to fool. Obviously.
- A workers averages 7 clients for one 11 hour shift. That could mean there’s a lot of downtime, but it all depends on what those 7 clients pay for. Even if all 7 clients were just 50 euro basic customers and the worker was renting at the highest rate, she’d still net 200 euros for the 11 hour shift, but only 1 hr and 45 minutes actually spent with clients. That’s at the low end. Given the upward potential in profit for a low investment, it’s easy to see why some of these women enter the profession, even knowing that their youth will fade and that it’s a tough life. Two retired workers in their 70s had serviced over 350K patrons between them. Another worker in her 60s had moved on to specializing in servicing people with disabilities. Many of the workers give tours of the Red Light District during the week as a supplement to their flagging income.
- In Amsterdam, there are two groups organized by the workers to protect themselves and educate the public: PIC (Prostitution Information Center) provides accurate information for the workers to the press, and PROUD is a union of sorts where workers meet to discuss the laws and issues they face and to ensure they have support.
- A press article was trying to ascertain if workers were coerced to go into prostitution or had entered it of their own free will (even if it wasn’t their first choice of work). According to the police they interviewed, those police who responded felt that 50-90% of the women were coerced; however, 2/3 of the police declined to speculate. When workers themselves were polled, they said only 6-10% of workers were coerced into this line of work.
- Workers tend to cluster together by specialty: transsexuals, large body type, etc. This gives the customers a few options in their desired category. The most unexpected thing I saw was a woman wearing a pants suit with a blazer buttoned up. She definitely stood out!
- Kissing is 100% out of the question at any price. The workers consider it far too intimate. Pretty Woman was right.
- Sex shows involving a man and woman having sex only hire actual couples to perform. They don’t ask workers to pair up with someone they aren’t already in a relationship with for these shows.
That’s probably far more information than you ever thought you needed to know about prostitution, but there’s a reason they call it the world’s oldest profession. As long as there are women who don’t have other options through education or family support, there will be sex workers. And of course, some women prefer doing this type of work to other options they might have, so it’s best that they can be safe and have some choice.
There was an experiment with male prostitutes in Amsterdam’s Red Light District, but it was a failure and shut down after two hours due to the media circus and that it was driving away customers for the women. Plus, in general, women are not as likely to hire a male prostitute because as our tour guide pointed out, most women don’t have to pay for sex. All they have to do is look around and there are plenty of men willing to give them mediocre, indifferent sex for free. Well, he was being a little bit tongue in cheek, but he had a point.
There’s a lot of discussion now in Amsterdam about them trying to do away with the prostitution windows in the Red Light District. It is a residential area with families pushing strollers, restaurants, a Kindergarten, and so on. The Dutch don’t mind that in general as they see sex as an integral part of life, nothing to be ashamed about, but they don’t like all the tourists crowding the streets, especially when there are football matches and people are drinking. I’m going to guess it’s the Brits.
Let’s see what you think:
- Is Amsterdam’s model for prostitution better than Singapore’s or do you think the government should require testing for disease and allow girls to be employees rather than freelance?
- Did you find any of these facts surprising?
- Do you see prostitution as a necessary evil in society or do you think it can be eliminated? If so, how?
- Would you criminalize prostitution or make it legal so it can be safer and more regulated? (Personally, I like the idea of making prostitution legal but making it illegal to hire one–the johns are the problem, not the workers).
Discuss.
My favorite post so far this year. This is a topic about which I’m passionate, but will try to keep this response short:
1. I absolutely think we should de-criminalize prostitution. Doing so makes sex workers, particularly women, safer. And if the Mormon Church or any other religious or political organization really cared about the well-being of humanity, they’d exert at least as much influence to legalize prostitution as they do when influencing legislation concerning liquor laws. When it comes to caring for the well-being of human beings, knowledge about how and why people suffer in this world should always trump faith (NOT knowledge) about what we think God might want us to be doing. We KNOW that legalizing prostitution helps women be safer (not safe all the time, not perfectly protected always, but safer). We have faith/believe/sort of suspect that (maybe) God’s not a fan of sex for money. Acting according to what we know will keep more women safe whereas “taking the moral high ground” (i.e. keeping prostitution illegal) will endanger them. If taking the so-called moral high ground causes people to be endangered, then it’s not the moral high ground.
2. Ideally, (and I know prostitution, even when it’s legalized, is far from ideal) I don’t see prostitution as a necessary evil. If there is full consent and both parties have a clear understanding of the nature of the transaction and each party leaves the transaction satisfied, then it’s simply a business transaction. For those who may object to the conflation of physical intimacy with business, or who may object to the commodification of flesh generally, I’d suggest that if you have a problem with the commodification of flesh, then you have a problem with the fundamental principles of capitalism as America practices it. Our system depends upon cheap unskilled labor, meaning that it commodifies and exploits flesh all of the time simply as part of its function. In fact it depends so much on cheap labor that we can’t even manufacture enough outrage over low wages to change any part of the system. If America has created a culture and an economy where, let’s say, a single mother has to choose between working at Denny’s and scraping by versus doing sex work and earning a lot more money doing that, then that’s a reflection of the system’s lack of morality and ethics, not the single mother’s.
3. Your line about sex being nothing to be ashamed about really resonates. The role of religion in associating sex with shame and sin is a large part of why sex workers in this country are put at such risk. That’s tragic, but not likely to change anytime soon.
This is my country you are talking about and I am VERY proud of how we have organized things around here! Condemning prostitution into illegalization will not make it go away. Lets make it safer and give women autonomy in their work. Good healthcare whenever they need it. Make them loyal taxpaying citizens 😉 This is not a new system in the Netherlands, it has been in place for over three decades! Just like SSM is already two decades legal here.The US is just starting to catch up with us Europeans……keep with the program, please 😉
I have always felt that being overly prudish like Americans have sometimes the tendency to be is hypocritical behavior when we take in account the high number of teenage pregnancies in the US. Sex will always be around, is a normal part of life. Let’s enjoy it and do it safe from STD’s and unwanted pregnancies.
There are other solutions to the problem of prostitution. One of the Nordic countries, either Finland or Norway, decriminalized the sale of sex, but made criminal the offering of money for sex. The idea was to cut off demand rather than supply, which evidence strongly shows is the better economic regulating mechanism. In addition, significant investment was provided to support and train women caught in prostitution to find more economically advantageous and less risky work elsewhere. The approach had been highly successful, and IMHO far more Christlike in approach that what we do in the U.S.
Fascinating discussion. Part of the complicated morality with this issue is that here in the U.S., prostitution has been relegated to the underworld, where it is inextricably linked to human trafficking, sexual violence, drugs, disease, homelessness, organized crime and many other societal problems. I wonder if legalizing it (where it is taxed and regulated, like in the Netherlands) or decriminalizing it (where only the johns, not the prostitutes, are breaking the law) could alleviate the social burden of some of these other problems as well.
Our history with gradually and selectively legalizing/regulating other traditional “moral vices” (alcohol, gambling, medicinal/recreational cannabis, same-sex marriage) is complicated and doesn’t really provide a workable road map for navigating the issue of prostitution in the U.S. Religious influences tend to make these issues more complicated, not less.
Two things I’ve learned reading Wheat and Tares. First, while some members go in for temple tourism other members prefer red light tourism. Second, Brother Sky is passionate about prostitution. Who could have known?
KLC: Yup, you learn something new every day! Actually, I teach a course on Las Vegas and one of the things we discuss is the criminalization of poverty and the enhanced risks associated with being economically disadvantaged in this country. Obviously, in a course about Las Vegas, sex work figures prominently in that discussion, but I’d suggest that the larger issue is that the choices that are faced the poor/financially stressed are much more likely to be either criminalized or to be deemed morally inferior/undesirable. Freedom of choice in this country is very much informed (or not) by what economic class one inhabits.
Great post, fascinating read.
Prostitution should be legalized with lots of regulations. Utah has to be one of the strictest states with plenty of conservatism about the issue, and yet I hear about prostitution all the time. A brothel operating out of someone’s house was shut down in Herriman (a fairly conservative city in Salt Lake county) last year. A state lawmaker from St. George (LDS guy with seemingly perfect family) was also busted for hiring a prostitute in Salt Lake during a trip for work.
You should look at prostitution in Nevada as well, at least in the sparsely populated counties where it is fully legal. I also find it fascinating that prostitution is legal in Turkey (a Muslim country, although very secular in many parts). I spent a summer in Turkey but never really looked into it.
Wait, wasn’t prostitution legal in UT at one point? I think they called it “polygamy.”
Payment was food to eat and a place to live.
Well played, Lois.
Lois, Go read “The Polygamous Wives Writing club”. For some polygamous women they technically god a place to live (but they had to keep it up since their husbands live elsewhere most all the time) and they didn’t have enough to eat.
On a less serous note, I am not sure if Hawkgrrrl is saying she has a thing for ” woman wearing a pants suit with a blazer buttoned up.” 🙂
It looks like you got your tour just in time. CNN is reporting that Amsterdam is banning those tours.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/amsterdam-ban-red-light-district-tours/index.html
I guess I needed a smiley emoji for all of the down voters. So make that three things I learned from reading Wheat and Tares.
My thoughts about visiting the Red Light District in Amsterdam. I was a bit apprehensive because I did not know what to expect. It was a surreal experience. The area did not seem to be seedy or unclean. The cobblestone streets were clean and the whole place looked like any other part of Amsterdam, except that there were a plethora of windows with red lights outlining the trim of each window. In each window was a woman of various sizes, shapes, etc. As if you were window shopping in the mall past a variety of department stores. Almost without exception, the women were on their cell phones. A few were filing their nails or putting on their makeup. Dress varied from little to a lot. It literally seemed so matter of fact. You’d walk around one corner and there would be sidewalk cafes, etc., near the canals, and yet around the next corner was a row of red light windows. I never felt like I was in danger or that I better get out of the area. I hope this doesn’t sound too naïve, but it was my first time in Amsterdam (which by the way if a beautiful place to visit). The summary of my visit was that I was surprised. Surprised of how matter of fact it was, yet clean, and unassuming. If you visit Amsterdam and don’t take the time to visit that area, you’re missing an important part of Amsterdam’s economy and way of life.
Somewhere in this post, I’m sure, is an analogy for U.S. health care.
I spent a summer in grad school in Amsterdam. The red light district is built like a horseshoe, filled in, so avoiding it is hard if you’re on one side and the place you want to go to is on the other. You’d otherwise have to walk all the way around. And then there’s lots of non-prostitution attractions in there–the oldest and arguably most historic church in the area, e.g. So where I was pretty sure I’d steer clear of the red light district when I arrived, I ended up cutting through there with some regularity. What amazed me most was the non-nonchalance of prostitutes themselves. No sexy poses or the like for the most part. Just mostly dressed women sitting in a window eating a sandwich or knitting a scarf, waiting for business.
That said, the panhandlers, who in Amsterdam are already the most aggressive I’ve seen in Europe, were doubly pushy in the red light district. Maybe they thought you were so embarrassed to be in there that you’d give them money to make them go away. What I know for sure is that most of them spoke English better than I, and given that I was living on loans at the time, likely had more disposable cash than I did.
The purchase of drugs should be legalized too, but the sale – unless though a licensed, regulated store – should remain illegal. There are lots of parallels here with prostitution and it would solve a lot of problems.
It’s worth noting that there are roughly 6,250 cases of human trafficking in the Netherlands per year. A report found that most of the women working in a city-backed brothel were Bulgarian nationals, unlikely to have volunteered their way over. Other studies have reported a link between legalized prostitution and increased human trafficking.
Also, I wonder how many of the people in favor of legalized prostitution are also in favor of eliminating the minimum wage. Much of the logic (people will do it if necessary to survive, regardless of legality, and the black market is shadier) seems to apply to that as well.
I have long thought that some stripe of decriminalization as in Amsterdam would be a good thing, but I haven’t really thought more about it than that.
On my mission, I served a stint in Brussels. When we took the tram into the center of town, our car ran right through the red light district. Of course, we averted our eyes when making the trip. In Mons, Belgium, the LDS church (and our abode) were located near the the train station. About a block away was the town brothel. In the morning, the women would be out sunbathing. As we road out to tract, they would wave and we would wave back. We always wanted to be friendly. In Belgium, prostitution must have been legal also. I assume it still is.