The management of sex and drugs in Amsterdam’s historic and famous, or rather infamous, red-light district is a very serious affair with manuals full of rules and regulations for the operators.
The red-light district is known worldwide for its windows – panes of glass behind which sit women in their underwear (or less) selling sex to passing pedestrians.
Window prostitution started way back in the fifties when this blue-collar, working docks part of Amsterdam was a good place for this sort of work.
The tight alleys and cobblestone streets of De Wallen, as this area is known, was a perfect place for a passer-by to slip in unnoticed and indulge in a short act of GDP-boosting.
At least, that’s how Yvette Luhrs explained it to me. Yvette is one of the women in those windows and after years of trying different types of sex work has settled on the windows as one of her preferences.
Yvette prefers working in De Wallen as she says she has control over the type of person she may want to allow in the door. Source: SBS Dateline
Yvette prefers working here as she says she has control over the type of person she may want to allow in the door; she can see and scope their demeanour, behaviour and character first.
She also likes the social setting: lots of people around and a highly-regulated system for the brothel in which she works.
De Wallen brothels are compelled to check her passport every time she works, to maintain security cameras and brothel licences.
This area is full of police and a passing trade of punters who aren’t necessarily out thinking they are going to visit a brothel – and these are things Yvette values in her workspace; they make her feel safe and like she is a part of a community.
This is all-important because the Mayor of Amsterdam says she wants to close these windows and instead set up an erotic tower somewhere outside the magically beautiful De Wallen with its canals and tottering 16th century townhouses.
The main reason, says Mayor Femke Halsema, is because thousands of drunk, mainly foreign, tourists are creating sickening mayhem around De Wallen and Dutch authorities would much prefer it if tourists came to Amsterdam for the wonderful art, architecture and food for which the city deserves more recognition.
Many De Wallen residents, such as Olav Ulrich, are leading the campaign to close the windows which in their view would reduce or possibly stop drunk tourists urinating in their mailboxes or vomiting on their doorsteps.
I can completely see their point. Cheap European air fares have led to more than one city’s fair share of drunken hooligans and mighty mischief.
But Yvette and many of those in De Wallen don’t see themselves as the problem. They say greater control over tourist behaviour is needed instead of ending a tradition they believe helps keep many sex workers safe.
In many ways this fight over the future of Amsterdam’s red-light district is about the negative impacts of Europe’s mass tourism on the Continent’s many idiosyncrasies that make Europe such a fascinating place.
What is sustainable and desirable in a post-Covid-19 world when, hopefully, tourism returns? These are not straightforward questions and there are no easy answers.
