To not want to go to the red light district

It is quite possible to visit Amsterdam and not see the red light district, though some of this seediness is evident from a very casual walk round central areas of the city. It is one of my favourite European cities. The people are nice, the bars are great. The food is good and I love the galleries.

Exactly @Totallymessed. Haunting.

I think this is the most important (by far) post on the thread, in among the gross posts about how normalised it is and the insistence that while people may not want to see it, it's not - god forbid- because they are a prude.

A young woman crying in a window where she is on display for passing men to pick out and fuck. Absolutely disgusting. And if that makes me a prude, I'm proud to be one.

I’ve been to Amsterdam loads of times, I’ve been to the red light district & to a sex show (least sexy thing I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life), but equally it’s just one fairly small area of the city and there’s absolutely loads to do and see and you could very easily not even know it’s there.

I've been to Amsterdam twice and I couldn't actually tell you where the red light district is. I went for the food (excellent!) and the art galleries, and the lovely scenery.

We decided to walk through early evening just to see what it's like.

It was very clean and felt safe and appear to be looked after.

Of course you don't have to go but we just felt we'd look whilst there.

I was there on a Sunday morning in March, I saw two prostitutes in windows, both looked like fairly normal middle-aged women. The canals and architecture are worth seeing, lots of willies in shops etc. Generally bit of a non-event.
Used to live in Amsterdam btw, visiting old haunts, not just prurience.

We went for Vermeer at DD's request.

If you avoid the red light district, you also avoid most of the stag groups, drunk at 9am and pretty repulsive.

I had no problem whatsoever using a VISA card last month and I barely used cash.
I did go to the Oude Kerke which is on the fringe of the RLD and is beautiful.

Go to Amsterdam almost monthly as my sister lives there. Its avoidable but also very often unnoticeable. I can't recognise most of these descriptions.

Some girls are trafficked. Some people care others don't. Seeing girls in windows selling themselves is not everyone's idea of a tourist attraction.

Avoid if it's not for you.

Was thinking the same thing! There are semi naked women sitting or standing in huge shop front type windows, not like any kind of pub I've ever been to.

I found it a very sad and depressing area to be honest and completely understand why someone might want to avoid it.

Just don't understand why it's seen as socially acceptable to visit?

Because you don't have to approve of sex work to visit it, any more than you have to approve of (for example) the historic abuses dished out by the Catholic Church to go to Rome and have a look round the Vatican. Personally, when I visit a city I want to get a sense of what it's like as a whole and a feel for the different areas. And in Amsterdam that (to me) means the red light district just as as much as it means the canals and the Rijksmuseum.

Lots of European cities have a red light district of sorts and most of them (as in Amsterdam) are not 'just' a red light district. Most of them also have a lot of night life and so on - late night bars and restaurants, music venues etc. For example, until relatively recently, Soho was London's main red light district but at the same time was full of bars, all-night cafes, jazz clubs, comedy venues etc. If you wanted to hear live jazz at Ronnie Scott's or get a cocktail after hours or a Chinese meal in a restaurant at 3am or a decent coffee at 5am to wake you up after your all-nighter, you'd head to Soho and you wouldn't think twice about walking past brothels and strip clubs or getting dinner in a restaurant next to a strip club. Pigalle in Paris is a red light district, but it's also home to the Moulin-Rouge and and right next to Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur. It's 'socially acceptable' to visit them because they're simply part of the fabric and life of the city.

Ultimately, you don't have to go if you don't want to, and I wouldn't say it's 'unavoidable'. YANBU not to want to go if you prefer not to. But YABU to start suggesting that it's odd, or should be socially unacceptable, for other people to go.

A friend who has lived there for a couple of decades said years ago, he was sitting in a cafe window drinking coffee - and watched a queue of men go in one by one, and about every 5 minutes, one would leave. He commented that whatever she was doing was clearly very efficient, but he'd not seen anything so seedy. (Although the main point of the story was that a colleague was in the line.)

On my sils hen trip, sil and her family all wanted to go to the red light district. I did not. I was accused of being judgemental but I didn't judge anyone... I just didn't think it was safe for us to go. If you agree or don't agree that's fine but they all went nuts at me and when I ended up speaking to my hubby who told me not to go, then my bil went ape shit at them for wanting to go... we then all fell out over this but surprise surprise they never mentioned the reason.. they didn't have the courage to tell the pils that their precious dil wanted to go and hang in the red light district 🤣🤣🤣🤣 sil loves to bad mouth and start hurtful rumours about others but keeps her red light district story close to her!!! There's no right or wrong op. If you don't want to go, don't.. it's hardly going to keep you up at night as a missed opportunity of a life time 🤣

Wow. I think that’s what I do find disturbing, and that really puts me off the idea of visiting. The idea of sex as something you can buy being so normalised that no one has any problem with it being on display in the centre of day to day commerce and children waving etc. Obviously it’s equally prevalent here, and I don’t think our current approach works, but at least we haven’t made an official declaration as a society that there’s nothing wrong with it.

We went to Amsterdam and wandered down a street by mistake. It was really sad. Young girls, completely dead behind the eyes gyrating in windows, wearing very little. I've never found anything less sexy.

Definitely not amusing and I'm not a prude by a long way.

I used to live there - it's absolutely avoidable. There are plenty of other places to go.

If you do end up there just don't go down the side streets. The main area is mainly clearly Dutch women who are hopefully there by choice. The side streets are full of African or Eastern European women that I don't believe chose to be there.

I only realised I was in the RLD when a man called asking if I wanted to see a live sex show. It was 10am on a beautiful spring morning and I was a woman on my own, so I cannot imagine why anyone would have thought I wanted to. I got some nice photos of the roof line reflected in the canal though.

We lived there for a few years. It’s seen as very normal / people go about their business . My beauticians was in the area and our favourite restaurant. The women are doing their jobs- I think it depends on how you see it.

Yeah absolutely you can see them in the windows- but no one stares and you don’t take photos. You respect them. Saying they my little boys used to wave and the girls were great with them! For people in Amsterdam it’s just normal life.

I mean, why is it odd?

It's legal, but it's not compulsory!

It’s easily avoided, and even if you didn’t, it’s probably not what you think. You can walk through it without realising.

Could you get the Pocket Rough Guide to Amsterdam to browse in the days before you go?

You could note things you would really like and choose one of those on the evening when people are heading off to the streets you don't want to see?

https://shop.roughguides.com/book/pocket-rough-guide-amsterdam/9781789195460

It's been many years since I went - it was a school trip though obviously the red light district wasn't in the actual agenda - but you could definitely see women and girls in the widows years ago. It felt very uncomfortable.