AllAmsterdam

In the oldest part of Amsterdam you will stand face to face with the most hated and most beloved part of town. The Red Light District. Its name derrived from the red lights used by prostitutes, behind glass, to attract customers. Today this part of town is so crowded you wonder if sodom and chomorra is a socially accepted lifestyle. But nowadays this district offers more, for a wider audience.

Today you can also find, besides oldschool prostitution, pornographic live-shows. No, these shows are not only attended by 'dirty old men', for some reason it's fully accepted for anyone, male or woman, married or single, with friends or just with your partner, to confront yourself with the, usually, closed scene of sex-addicts and sex-workers. A quite famous (or infamous) sex-theater was Casa Rosso. As for now it's unfortunately closed.

After, or before seeing such a show you may want to fight your way through thousants of tourists towards one of the many bars or coffeeshops to become one of the many drunk and drugged, just to feel more related with your environment. Besides the canals, this area is a true labyrinth of small medieval alleys, where you face prostitutes behind windows on your left and right side all the time.

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People often think everything is allowed in Amsterdam. This is only partly true, a lot of things have been legalised, but not everything. Prostitution was legalised, especially for taking it out of the criminal scene. The idea was that if prostitution is no longer a crime, the local police can have more control over it, preventing many problems with forced prostitution, etc... As far as I see it, this approach isn't really working yet. Prostitution is still dominated by the criminal scene and police definitely don't have much control over it.
So during your stay in the Red Light District you may have your own opinion about these girls. Whatever you do, you should always treat them with enough respect. And without feeling sorry for them too quickly (people that respect themselves dislike to be felt sorry for), you must also be aware that not all prostitutes do this work because they like it. Sexual enslavement of girls is still a serious political topic in the Netherlands, even after prostitution was legalised.

Therefore my advice is: enjoy your stay, but try to not do things you may feel guilty about later.

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