Stag doo in Amsterdam

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Is it me or would most other women feel unsettled about a shed loads of blokes getting rat arsed near the red light district?

Squirrel Yes indeed, I am well aware of this. I live in Cheltenham and when the Gold Cup races are on the town is flooded with strippers and escorts for the week. They stand out a mile. Presumably, I should move out of the town for the duration, in case I cannot control myself from availing myself of their facilities, or because my mates will subject me to peer pressure and I'm too weak to say no?

Thank you DrSeth - your reply to the lovely Squirrel is much more succinct and polite than mine would have been.

Yes I do trust my DH. He's been to Amsterdam with 'the lads' 3x in the twenty years we've been together. They did visit the odd strip club - not the most edifying way to spend an evening, but not illegal and not something that has ever bothered me.

He and his friends all treat their wives, mothers, sisters and daughters as they should be treated and I suspect now we're upteen years down the line and older and wiser we'd all feel somewhat differently about it.

I still no reason whatsoever to distrust a man purely because he's going to a place famous for it's red light district. Not everyone with a Y chromosome automatically defaults to raging pervert when they are out of sight of their partner.

As it happens, my DH also goes out regularly with 2 or 3 male friends in Brighton...God only knows what you can make of that Squirrels!

How can anyone respect a city whose economy is substantially based on sex and drugs tourism?

Got any reputable source for this claim?

Because if you know the city at all, you know that it's the head of a couple of very big banking groups, Shell have a hevy presence there etc. Only 1 in 10 people in Amsterdam work in tourism, that includes the non-sex side and the sex side. As for people who think that amsterdam/the NL is a huge drugs free-for-all, try living here.

Most of all it's a giant trading city.

If you want I can list the sources for that.

You're aware that actually prostitution is monitored, which means there's actually a good control on the worst excesses? Drugs can be tricker and there's a movement to shut down the 'brown cafes' mostly becuase in fact tourists can't handle themselves responsibly.

It's a little difficult not to respect amsterdam if you look at the reality of the whole city and not some unbackup claim. Im not madly keen on legalized prostitution, but a lot less keen on idiotic claims and the view that it's the city's fault if a stag do ends up in a brothel, instead of the men's.

Ava You let your husband go to Brighton, with other men? Third to London and Manchester as the gay centre of the UK? What are you THINKING? Clearly, they will not be able to resist the hoards of men who will try and get them to turn. Or maybe they are going to indulge their bisexual side? You're foolish to trust them to such an extent. Insist they stay home and not go. Oh, no, sorry, that would be controlling behaviour, wouldn't it.

I saw coach parties of retired folk strolling round the red light district when I went through for a nose. It is distinctly unsexy and a lot smaller than I imagined. Amsterdam has much more to it than that.

Actually one of the friends he goes with lives there and is most probably gay or bi.

Clearly I'm skating on very thin ice .

The Amsterdam RL district is tiny. Those girls must be working all hours God sends, in order to make their way through every group of stags passing through the city walls... 😴

As others have alluded to its not the place that makes a man cheat its the man. I have been on over twenty stag bashes over the years, it's always the guy with previous form for infidelity that ends up having a one night stand (paid for or otherwise). From my experience stag dos usually end up splintering into different groups as the night goes on, a few guys go back to the hotel early, a few guys want to go clubbing, and yes in Amsterdam a few guys went to see a show. Most of the group ended up spending several hours in a bar watching four back to back rugby/football games while shooting pool before wobbling back to the hotel via the kebab shop.

For the record as a student I had a summer job at a certain south coast seaside town pulling pints. This town was very popular with hen and stag bashes and it was the former group that always caused the most trouble. If they weren't harassing men for kisses (for themselves or for the bride) or demanding some bloke handover his boxer shorts as part of some dare card game they were happily sticking their hands down some strippers thong, rubbing him with baby oil or standing on tables getting their tits or arse out, again for a dare. Poor behaviour is not exclusive to one gender.

So really IABU? Im happy to accept that, just wanted to clarify.

I suppose I'm a little edgy because of all the negativity in the office.

"Puts back on upbeat smile and disposes of snarky email!"

My post was on wrong thread....sorry!!!

AvaLeStrange
Years ago an ex actually went to amsterdam with his mate for a few days, amazingly i didn't throw a fit little old naive me.
I know exactly what they got up too, they were stoned and drunk for the entire few days i was gutted i couldn't get the time off myself!
though knowingly my luck i would have been sick to my stomach!

Chances are they will all drink and smoke to much that they proberly would be physically unable to do the deed

It is a stag do I am sure this will take preferance.

But you just need to set boundaries bef9re he goes. Is window shopping allowed? Strip club etc.

Kali by the time DH went on his stag it was his 3rd trip to Amsterdam.

I must admit I did LMAO and initially think he was taking the piss when he said they were going to Anne Frank's house, but it was the Sunday morning so I guess they were feeling the need to slow down by then!

Well there is only so much you can smoke and drink

Bother. I missed what Squirrel wrote before it got zapped?

Pan Yes, I'd made similar comments previously that I've seen equally poor behaviour by women on hen nights. And I bet their husbands/boyfriends would be appalled if they knew. That's irrelevant to this thread though, because it's about men, and what hideous, untrustworthy things we are, and that anyone who goes to Amsterdam is a sex tourist. Apparently even if you KNOW a man who has been or would go there, you are encouraging the sex trade and must have no respect for women if you wouldn't disown them immediately.

Seth, what bout the men who actually live there? Presumably they are permanently going to the red light district either to buy or even sell?

You could expand the red light district through the canal circles. With nice red LED light supplied by Philips ofc.

Once Yes indeed. Any man who lives there must, inevitably, by certain people's reckoning, either avail themselves of the red light district or have a very poor view of women.

As per my posting of 09.31, I have managed to live in Cheltenham for 42 years and managed not to sleep with any escorts or visited a strip club during one week of the year. My will power would no doubt be affected if I was, like a man who lived in Amsterdam, surrounded by it on every street corner (coz the red light district takes up 95% of the city, doesn't it....)

slightly chopped quote from the French Lieutenant's Woman (someone actually put all the dialogue on the net!) :

"At a time when the male population of London was one and a quarter million the prostitutes were receiving clients at a rate of two million per week."

• Two million?
• Yeah.
• Well, if we take away a third for children and old men... ..that means that, outside of marriage.....your Victorian gentleman could look forward to 2 1/4 fucks a week!

Amsterdam, the new Victorian England

StillDrSethHazlittMD yes completely agree with you, i have seen some sights when women are on hen nights!

The red light district is not 'tiny'. It is across several streets, and is actually unavoidable if you want to see the oldest and, in my opinion, most beautiful part of the city. As well as all the window girls there are also lots and lots of sex shops and strip clubs etc.

Many of the women are still pimped, and indeed trafficked. And yet it is a tourist hot spot which I find very odd, groups of tourists staring at the girls as they stand there half naked and looking bored. They are indeed like meat on a slab.

My issue is how will women ever be seen as truly equal when gazing at them in this way is an attraction?

I have read a lot about the issues as I spend a lot of time there for work. Yes, the women are not in danger because the trade is quite public. But men are still profiting from the trade.

On every plane I have ever been on to or from Amsterdam there are always groups of lads. I am sure some of them are only going to watch Ajax or go to the museums.
But surely the lure of Amsterdam for many is the 'naughtiness' of the drugs and sex which are easy and cheap to obtain.

the drugs and sex which are easy and cheap to obtain

how much does it cost for a spliff and sex with a prostitute?

Spliff is not much more than a few pints. No idea for prostitute. Much debated with work colleagues, but not beyond many people or it wouldn't thrive as it does, surely?

I called an ex-colleague who's recently returned from Amsterdam; apparently a ready-prepared joint is about 4 euros and a quickie with a prostitute comes in at anything from 20 to 50 euros. And yes, sorry about this, but he was on a stag do

Yep the last hen do I Went on the bride to be ( wearing very little) kept asking sitting on random men's knees asking them to buy her drinks.

It was excruciating.

The couple are now divorced.