Weekend in Amsterdam - how would you feel?

[cathkidstonrefusnik]

I wasn't sure where to post this - I'd like to have a range of views, so didn't post in feminism. I've name-changed.

Some background first...I work in a male-dominated environment where the view of women purely as sex objects amongst some of my co-workers (not all by any means) is not far below the surface.

It has improved in the year since I've been there, at least when I'm around, largely because I can, and do, challenge inappropriate behaviour - it's public sector, so there are strict policies, and my boss is very supportive, although somewhat unenlightened himself at times.

Anyway, in a few weeks' time, it's one of my co-worker's stag celebration, and a large party are going to Amsterdam. Now, unless I'm getting the wrong idea, this is bound to involve strip clubs, sex shows, possibly prostitutes, isn't it?

Although it's entirely up to them what they do (legally) in their own time, I must admit it gives me the creeps - I'm quite surprised by some of the ones who are going to, among them married men with young children.

Am I over-reacting? Is it at all possible the weekend will involve drinking and drugs without the sex element?

I haven't commented on it negatively in work, and what exactly the weekend involves hasn't been discussed in my presence.

You cannot stop it Freudian. You need to accept that. Rather than talking endlessly about how wrong it is, and I'm not disagreeing with you there necessarily, you need to turn your attention to making it safer, much safer.

This is the only rational answer. Anything else is just personal bias.

like I said, SF, I read the link...no need to recreate it just for me

I don't agree with legalised brothels. I think more resources should be put into punishing the johns, yes and not making it easier for them.

I don't want a brothel down my road. Do you ?

then you are right they are going for the cheap beer and that lots of young women just haning around trying to bait these poor men, horrible horrible women doing this then when they do not get what they want they make up horrible lies

What a ridiculous thing to say. I find it disgusting the way you have decided anyone saying the cheap alchohol in places like Prague is a major draw for stag dos is also saying men are victims in prostitution and the rest of the bilge in your sentence.

you should be ashamed of yourself to make posts like that. You sound disturbed

Just like I don't want a LDC on my high street, sex shops on my corner and a titty bar next door to my kids school

and neither am I a NIMBY...I don't want them anywhere and certainly not in "ghettoised" (sp ?) areas like the nine streets of Amsterdam

get ready for it, SF, because it'lll come to your high street, if you let it

be careful what you wish for

if you will excuse me for a while, I need to go sort out my kids

OP, I haven't read all the replies, but I think the issue is more complex than the "it's none of your business" what your male colleagues do at the weekends.

You mention that you are one of few women in a male-dominated environment. Well done for being there and sticking it out. I expect this is just one little gender dimension to your work that you are aware of, and possibly your male colleagues are not particularly conscious of. I know that this was the case for me when I started my first job - I was the first professional woman that was hired.

I can say that things got easier once more women were recruited. You may be able to play a part in that if you are asked to screen applications and even interview potential colleagues.

Meanwhile, it is probably best to imagine that a stag night for young dads is probably more about alcohol than prostitution, and try not to worry about it.

'I don't want a brothel down my road. Do you ?'

No. But I'd rather have a legalised safe brothel down my road than and underground one. Wouldn't you?

disturbed oh ok

must be as disturbed as all those women who hang about there hoping to get some business thinking that many are wanting to pay for sex too when all they are really there for is cheap beer really what has made them think that poor women are living in a fantasy world

From your link, youareallwrong

"I don't want them to get any pleasure," he told me. "I am paying for it and it is her job to give me pleasure. If she enjoys it I would feel cheated." I asked if he felt prostitutes were different to other women. "The fact that they're prepared to do that job where others won't, even when they're skint, means there's some capability inside them that permits them to do it and not be disgusted,"

Almost half said they ­believed that most women in prostitution are victims of pimps ("the pimp does the ­psychological raping of the woman," explained one). But they still continued to visit them.

The men knew, to some extent, about abuse and coercion in prostitution ? they weren't operating under the ­convenient illusion that women enter the trade because they love sex. More than half admitted that they either knew or believed that a majority of women in prostitution were lured, tricked or trafficked.

One man suspected that an African woman he had met was ­trafficked ­because "she was frightened and ­nervous. She told me she had been tricked. I had sex with her and she seemed fine with the sex. She asked me to help her, but I said there was little I could do. She might have been lying to me."

"Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead."

I'm only half way down the article but I think I'll stop there. This all looks a helluva lot like woman-hatred to me.

What a ridiculous thing to say. I find it disgusting the way you have decided anyone saying the cheap alchohol in places like Prague is a major draw for stag dos is also saying men are victims in prostitution and the rest of the bilge in your sentence.you should be ashamed of yourself to make posts like that. You sound disturbed

Catgirl I think the post to which you were referring was a poor attempt at sarcasm.

FS If you had anything about you, you would apologise for your unfounded remarks.

LeQ - that would be right up DHs street. I remember thinking ours might have common ground on the trainsim thread :)

I wish it was sooty but I think FS believes anyone saying cheap beer is a draw for stag do's in Prague doesn't think prostitution exists, thinks that prostitutes are liars and all men are lovely and lives in a fantasty world

I hope I am wrong for her sake :(

I think that's your Dragons Den moment LeQ :)

'Just like I don't want a LDC on my high street, sex shops on my corner and a titty bar next door to my kids school

and neither am I a NIMBY...I don't want them anywhere and certainly not in "ghettoised" (sp ?) areas like the nine streets of Amsterdam

get ready for it, SF, because it'lll come to your high street, if you let it

be careful what you wish for'

I know you don't want them anywhere, but the sex industry will not disappear. It will be there whether it's legal or not, visible or not.

I don't personally WANT LDC's, sex shops and titty bars on my high street, although I'm not fundamentally opposed to them if the women who work there personally CHOOSE to work there, and aren't co-erced or forced.

I'm just realistic.

SOME hatred, but also a lot of other reasons.

Reasons which are EQUALLY important.

Just because YOU pick and choose which ones you posted above does not mean I am afraid to admit there isn't women hatred going on.

As I have said, I think its very complex and not black and white.

There are men with social problems, full of self-loathing, abuse victims, men with no idea why they are doing it.

But yes, its ALL misogyny... rolls eyes

If you pick and choose then you are spectacularly missing other vital points in that article. Instead you just want to prove a certain point...

That is definitely blinkered.

There's only one there - Alex - whose reasons come across as more complex. Even so, just because he's had a difficult past doesn't give him the right to rent a woman's body to have sex on.

Most of these men knew the women were likely to be coerced and abused and carried on regardless.

can we not stop prostitution i am not sure. there was a time it was believed to keep women safer if there was this service less women would be raped but we now know this is not true, we are all aware that the penis will not explode or fall off should a man go without sex yet many will still harp on that it is the oldest business blah blah so there is obviously a need, supply and there will be a need because we have accepted that it goes on stop the supply what is really going to happen. Yes it will go underground but we tackle that until the supply get less, less customers because the supply is harder to get most importantly less women being exploited. For every women who likes working in the sex industry there are many more that are miserable, young women that desperately miss their family living in fear and shame.

what they are doing in sweden is trying to tackle the problem, they may not be getting completely right but it is a start like i said before look at amsterdam the most efficiently run red light district and there is still a huge number of women being trafficked, it is the nature of the business its the selling of young women

.I don't want them anywhere and certainly not in "ghettoised" (sp ?) areas like the nine streets of Amsterdam

My goodness AF, you've got your geography all mixed up....

"The nine streets"/negen straatjes are just about the most high-end exclusive boutique-filled streets between the canals. Lovely area to wander around.

www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/spotlight/the9streets

The Swedish laws haven't done anything that the internet isn't doing already. Street prostitution isn't as common now - people book prostitutes on the internet or find a brothel on the internet. That adds to the danger for the prostitutes and encourages trafficking.

However, in Amsterdam, it normalises prostitution. I have not met anyone who has been to Amsterdam without visiting - not going into a strip club/brothel, just going for a quick jaunt - the red light district. It has become a tourist attraction. How many of the posters who have been to Amsterdam have said "we went to museums and for a walk through the red light district but we never went in"?

Yes, suburbophobe I doubt there are too many women in shop windows there...I must admit I've never seen any anyway.

As I said: perfectly possible to stay in Amsterdam and avoid the Red light district completely.

cat i am not sure what you think i am saying but i am saying that i think it is bullshit that men jump on a plane and pay for a hotel becasue there is cheap beer on offer

it might be a highlight but there is much more going on than cheap beer, for some they are jsut part of the stag party dragged along but many are going for the cheap easy access to the sex industry where they can easily pay a young beautiful woman to dance, have sex with, suck them off whatever there are no prying eyes, if this was not the case the industry would not be thriving the way it is.

there are many other palces to visit where there are cool bars and cheap beer but this do not seem as polular to groups of men

How many of the posters who have been to Amsterdam have said "we went to museums and for a walk through the red light district but we never went in"?

I've been to Amsterdam numerous times and have been all over the place. A friend of mine visted with his wife a few years ago and never went near it. I believe they're revisiting this Easter and I doubt they'll go near it then either.