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mattbellI 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.
- 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.
