[travel] Amsterdam Red Light district tour

[mattbell]

I ws lucky enough to be able to attend the twice-weekly Red Light District tour and Q&A organized by the prostitution information center. It's ironic that I'd never pay for sex, but I'll eagerly pay 12 euros to have a former prostitute show me around a brothel and have her answer my questions. Anyway, here's what I learned:

- Almost all the prostitutes are foreign. However, thanks to the way the EU works now, it's very hard for a non-EU citizen to become a sex worker, so the vast majority of prostitutes come from Eastern Europe. This means that the once-substantial Asian prostitute population has more  or less disappeared.
- Most prostitutes are seasonal workers who come in the summer for a couple of months and then return to their home countries where the cost of living is much lower.
- Condoms are used for oral sex as well as vaginal sex.
- STD testing for prostitutes isn't mandatory or free. Privacy rights advocates successfully pushed for prostitutes to have as much autonomy and anonymity as possible.
- Prostitutes, like all self-employed people in Holland, must pay for their own health care. Given the nature of their job, it's quite expensive.
- The prostitutes' union failed because most prostitutes didn't want their names on record.
- The brothel we saw was very clean and modern, as well as beautifully decorated. Of course, we might have been seeing a spruced-up setup like the “typical Chinese family” I saw during my organized tour of China a few years back.
- The government of Holland, under pressure from the EU, is trying to gradually wind down the Red Light District. They've set a target of shrinking the number of windows from 500 to about 100. They're doing this by going after brothel owners for tax evasion on taxes prior to 2000, when prostitution was legal but brothels weren't. They're pushing to get rid of the more discreet private clubs as well.
- Pimping (the providing of security to prostitutes in exchange for a cut of the money) is illegal. However, prostitution is heavily taxed, and the taxes help pay for the heavy police presence in the Red Light District and the rapid-response panic alarm system that calls the police to misbehaving clients. In other words, the government is the biggest pimp of all. We'll assume for now that the government doesn't act in ways typical of street pimps.

Comments

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Fascinating stuff! Thanks for taking such detailed notes.

BTW, you remember the old British ladies who stripped for a charity calendar?

They later went on a world tour of brothels to see which country's brothels could be a model for brothel reform in Britain.


We'll assume for now that the government doesn't act in ways typical of street pimps.

Eh? As I understand it, the government gets rather violent if it thinks you're holding back money it thinks you owe.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the government gets rather violent if it thinks you're holding back money it thinks you owe.

Really? How often do average working stiffs get physically beaten for tax evasion? I thought the penalties for that sort of thing were more along the lines of fines and possibly imprisonment, all within the structure of a public legal system including rights to representation and appeal. No?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

How often do average working stiffs get physically beaten for tax evasion?

Not often, but that's because they pay up. What do you think happens if they don't?

[steuard.livejournal.com]

They're, er, taken to court? Where they have a chance to make their case before the public with the right to due process of law? If this is comparable to behavior typical of street pimps, then I've been way too hard on street pimps.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

And if you refuse to go to court, what happens then?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I thought the penalties for that sort of thing were more along the lines of fines and possibly imprisonment

What do you think happens if you refuse to pay the fine? Or resist imprisonment?

[steuard.livejournal.com]

What do you think happens if you refuse to pay the fine?

You get taken to court again, I'm pretty sure.

Or resist imprisonment?

Ok, so at this point you start being at risk of physical force. But it's clearly a last resort of the system, and it's awfully rare for it to go this far, and even then there are at least some limits on the types and degree of harm that agents of the government can subject you to. They're required to give you health care, for goodness sake. This is emphatically NOT the behavior of street pimps, and to suggest otherwise is to trivialize the enormously more serious abuse and suffering that their victims experience.

Could you honestly look a survivor of that life in the eye and say, "Yeah, I know exactly what you went through: I'm a survivor, too. I'm required to pay a different amount of taxes (to support a different collection of public services) than I would if my preferred candidates had broader support among the population at large."

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

This is the standard Libertarian way of looking at the world that crasch is putting forward. There's definitely something to it - you must admit that locking someone in a cage sounds like a much more inhumane thing once you describe it like that rather than using the term "jail".

On the other hand, this libertarian critique of government ignores the fact that modern democratic governments tend to be much better behaved than traditional users of violence, and they tend to put traditional users of violence out of business, which all-in-all seems like quite a good trade. (That's not to say that legal means can't be improved, but just that they're a huge improvement over the things that Liberatarians compare them to.)

[crasch.livejournal.com]

But it's clearly a last resort of the system, and it's awfully rare for it to go this far

Well, of course. Most people (and prostitutes) aren't stupid, and recognize when they're outgunned. Only the inordinately obdurate choose to fight. But that doesn't mean that the threat of violence isn't there.

even then there are at least some limits on the types and degree of harm that agents of the government can subject you to.

Really? What limits are those? My understanding is that police officers are authorized to use deadly force to carry out their mission.

In theory, they're not allowed to use torture, it's true, but as we have seen that's a selectively enforced restriction.

"Yeah, I know exactly what you went through: I'm a survivor, too. I'm required to pay a different amount of taxes (to support a different collection of public services) than I would if my preferred candidates had broader support among the population at large."


No, I don't think I've been through the same, because I roll over and don't choose to fight directly. You can bet that if I did though, I would suffer a fate as bad as any pimp's ho.

Of course, you appear to think the imposition of such violence is okay because a) a large percentage of the population got to vote for the pimps b) you think the services the pimps provide are justified c) I would get "due process" under laws (written and enforced by pimps whose salary depends on the taxes in question).

Conversely, I would argue that the government is worse than a pimp. To wit, the government:

* claims 15% - 45% of your income, depending on yrou tax bracket.
* can seize your house/car/boat without charging you with a crime (eminent domain, asset forfeiture)
* can force you to kill other people (draft)
* can imprison and/or kill you for smoking/consuming unapproved drugs
* can eavesdrop on all of your phone and email communications
* Until 2003, could imprison/kill you for having sex with unapproved orifices
* in many states, can imprison and/or kill you for carrying a gun
* In most states, can imprison/kill you for having sex for money
* spend trillions to kill and maim millions of people overseas
* can imprison/kill you for providing unapproved medical, stock, tax services (as well as a host of other jobs requiring state-sponsored licenses)

By comparison, the misery caused by pimps is small potatoes. And the prostitutes are free to leave the profession at any time. There is no escape from government pimps.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that police officers are authorized to use deadly force to carry out their mission.

I'm pretty sure they aren't, not unless you seem poised to attack them first. Killing unarmed tax evaders who simply refuse to cooperate when arrested would not be deemed acceptable in any court, much less in the press.

Throughout your comments here, you seem to treat imprisonment and killing as almost interchangeable options for the government. They are not. Gandhi liberated all of India from the British empire because they are not (at least for some governments, notably including democracies with a free press). Furthermore, they can't force you to kill other people: even if you can't qualify for conscientious objector status, the penalty for refusing the draft is just imprisonment. So let's keep the "threat of death" side of all this where it belongs: as a response to violence or threatened violence, not as a response to more mundane lawbreaking.

My point through all of this is not to argue about exactly what form of government we should have or to convince you that a libertarian ideal isn't the right way to go. It's simply to point out that comparing our admittedly imperfect legal system to the street justice meted out by pimps is ridiculous. Yes, there are valid points of comparison, but equating the two isn't going to convince many non-libertarians that your arguments are worth listening to.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure they aren't, not unless you seem poised to attack them first

Well, of course, as I noted before, if you accede to their demands, they probably won't kill you. But that's like saying that the prostitute who doesn't fight back probably won't get killed by the pimp.

Throughout your comments here, you seem to treat imprisonment and killing as almost interchangeable options for the government.

Suppose the local pimp came to your door, and demanded you pay him money. What would happen? If you refused to open the door, he'd break down the door. If you drew a gun to defend yourself, he'd kill you. You'd call that murder, right?

But when the police do the exact same thing, we call it "law enforcement".

Why do we tolerate the police's behavior and not the pimps? Because, like the prostitute, we've been indoctrinated that only the government can protect us, that they deserve our money, and they are justified in imprisoning and/or killing us if we refuse to pay.


they can't force you to kill other people

Technically, that's true. However, they will kill you if a) you refuse to kill for them and b) you fight back against imprisonment. If threatening someone with death if they don't do something isn't "force", what is?

Throughout your comments here, you seem to treat imprisonment and killing as almost interchangeable options for the government. They are not.


Granted. Dead ho's don't turn tricks; dead citizens don't pay taxes. Therefore, governments try not to kill you if you act up, choosing less drastic means of enforcement at first. And as you noted, if they kill too many people, the public tends to get grumpy and difficult to control. But, that the government doesn't _choose_ to kill you if they can help it, doesn't meant that the threat of death doesn't underly their demands. Why are you so reluctant to admit this fact?

Gandhi didn't just appeal to Britain's moral sentiment. Implicit in his protests was the threat of violent uprising from more radical Indian factions, and a costly campaign of suppression if the British had continued to try to rule.

Yes, there are valid points of comparison, but equating the two isn't going to convince many non-libertarians that your arguments are worth listening to.

Probably true. And I'm not trying to persuade to be a libertarian. All I'm trying to do is to get you to recognize that the threat of death underlies all government law enforcement.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I fear I don't have time for a lot more of this, so I'll say my piece and leave you the last word if you'd like it.

Why do we tolerate the police's behavior and not the pimps?

Because unlike a pimp, the police have at least some limits on their actions. And where a pimp is both first and final authority in enforcing his own whim, the police and courts are required to follow due process of law. We all presumably disagree with some or even many of those laws and there's no question that the government sometimes falls tragically short of its own standards, but it's still worlds better than what you can expect from a pimp.

All I'm trying to do is to get you to recognize that the threat of death underlies all government law enforcement.

And I adamantly disagree: the threat of imprisonment and confiscation of property underlies most government law enforcement, while the threat of death is almost solely reserved as a reaction to violence. If you opt to resist imprisonment or loss of property with violence or the threat of violence, you've fundamentally changed the game.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Well, the government is more predictable and measured in its responses to nonpayment, and tends to provide better social services. It also generally won't get drunk and beat you up just for the hell of it. The US government does do a lot of awful things, but I would take its social system over just about any organized crime syndicate I know of.

I should say that I do appreciate the work you and the others at TSI are doing into enabling the development of a wider and more competitive range of government options. Competition is good for the consumer.

I have noticed that a lot of Libertarians I know tend to have a "provocative statement to stimulate debate, followed by a semi-abstract principles-oriented argument" approach to trying to get their ideas across. To be honest, I haven't seen it work very often. Ditto for atheists who expose contradictions and hypocrisies within religions in an effort to try to convince religious people that religion is stupid. I'm thinking the best approach in both cases may be to try to provide people a positive vision of a more compelling alternative to the system they're familiar with. What do you think?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that form of argumentation doesn't very often. I would note that it didn't start out as an attempt at suasion--it was initially intended to be a somewhat tongue in cheek aside (should've had a smiley, I guess). A positive vision might work better--do you have an example of what you had in mind?

[rhiannonstone.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! Did you see enough women to be able to tell what kind of variety there is in looks? Haircolor, body shapes/sizes, etc? And did you see or hear about male sex workers?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

My post just after this one covers that, actually.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

Your first bullet point looks like it was cut off in mid-word...

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Fixed, thanks.