To not want to go to the red light district

[Filletsteak]

Going to Amsterdam next week with my partner. We've both said we have no interest in going to the red light district. Told friends this and they laughed and said we were being daft as it's a tourist attraction. Also they said it's pretty unavoidable, is this true?

I personally don't see prostitutes stood in windows as an attraction I need to tick off. Am I being silly? Surely there's plenty in Amsterdam to see and do that doesn't include that. Just don't understand why it's seen as socially acceptable to visit?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

To the contrary it was suggested that I was the odd one for NOT wanting to go. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

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 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 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'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.

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 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.

Exactly @Totallymessed. Haunting.

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.

I wouldn't go.
The majority of those women will be trafficked, they aren't bloody zoo animals.

I went to Amsterdam with my husband and grown up children. We went to the museums, had a canal trip, went to the zoo and botanic gardens.
If we went through the red light district I didn't notice.
The botanic gardens was the highlight for my family.

Prostituted and likely trafficked women are not tourist attractions to be gawped at FFS.

The red lights district is not Sex Disneyland. It's dehumanising and exploitative and shouldn't be legal IMO.

Yes, I agree what an odd comment. I have never been anywhere on holiday where whether prostitution was legal or not was a consideration and I would naturally avoid any seedy districts.

I used to hate having to walk past Spearmint Rhinos and the like on my way to work, that was bad enough, the sort of men that were hanging around them.

I missed it & was very disappointed, there’s blue lights too.

Will you eat cake?

Yeah I love the botanic gardens there

Yeah...It's very much not like a row of pubs, it's women semi naked in full windows gyrating with a red light 😬. Grim IMO.

A canal trip is lush and so are the museums (would recommend the Rijks) and botanical gardens! Anne Frank's house is also a must see (although obviously very sad). If you're there on the weekend go the market (I've forgotten it's name but easily googlable I'm sure).

If you want a good pub go to Hill Street Blues, my old favourite haunt.

Awesome tips thank you everyone!

@Filletsteak

You could jump on a hop on hop off bus and enjoy a tour while the others are going down the streets you're not keen to see. There are boats as well.

I think that the bus tours are always a good option when visiting a city for just a short break.

https://www.citysightseeingamsterdam.nl/

The Resistance museum is good, too. And I enjoyed the Tropenmuseum just because most of my knowledge of colonial history is focussed on the British Empire rather than other countries' empires, and the VOC was huge.