Give this plan the red light
In these woke days of pulling one’s punches, or rather pausing one’s punches, while you decide what your moral position is, I wondered what the politically correct stance is over plans by the Amsterdam council to relocate the city’s prostitutes.
Apparently the legendary and ancient practice of red light district prostitutes sitting in windows to beckon customers inside has attracted too many drunk and rowdy tourists.
The council says that, in order to protect and keep the prostitutes and inner-city residents safe, they have come up with a couple of innovative ideas to relocate the ladies and men of the night. What’s the world coming to? I mean, is there nothing sacred?
Sorry to think in cliche´ s but, apart from the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh museum, tourists go to Amsterdam for three things – to ride bikes, smoke dope legally in cafes, and to take a walk on the wild side of the red district.
The two choices the council has come up with are a) a sex hotel or b) an erotic centre, the latter sounding decidedly un-erotic. But that’s the language of councils. If this were local city councils trying to relocate prostitutes from one edifice to another, they would call it an erotic ‘‘hub’’.
The Amsterdam erotic centre would not only offer sex; clients and tourists lured to the approved area could also visit beauty, hair and tanning salons.
Why not have your nether regions waxed before a pleasure-of-the-flesh sesh, and while you’re at it, offer up a tanned bod and coiffured head to the prostitute. After all, nothing’s too good for the workers.
Amsterdam’s green mayor, Femke Halsema, acknowledges that sex work is normal and therefore shouldn’t be banished or herded into the outskirts of the city, where it would be difficult to supervise.
The sex complex could also include a bed and breakfast for prostitutes, a sex theatre, and cafes. And the hotel would have indoor windows from behind which, I presume, the sex worker could safely show off their wares and talents. I do hope, in the interests of health and safety, that the windows have anti-drool coatings to keep them clear from the sudden escape of bodily fluids.
Ican’t think of a better example of partypooping. Instead of relocating the prostitutes and taking all the fun out of having a naughty experience, surely it is the intoxicated tourists the council should be concentrating on. Perhaps grossly intoxicated tourists running amok in the red light district should be treated like European soccer hooligans, who have to surrender their passports.
Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and the prostitutes have a historic right to keep their spot and sit behind windows in the red light district. Their street theatre is the eighth wonder of the world, up there with the Great Wall of China, the Colosseum, and the Taj Mahal.
Surely tourists would feel short-changed if they had to visit prostitutes behind indoor windows in a controlled area where they were being encouraged to have their tickets clipped for add-on experiences of grooming and meals.
Is it too much to ask to see the prostitutes in their natural habitat, rather than have the sanitised municipal-minded version served up cold and clinical?
There is something broken deep down in the thinking of this do-gooder scheme. If it goes ahead and the sex centre and hotel becomes a reality, tourist numbers will drop and other things will droop.
Talk about a recipe for erectile dysfunction.