Growing up in Pennsylvania, where there are still laws on the books where one cannot buy alcohol on Sunday, yet cutting my teeth in the original Sin City of the New World, I had no idea what to expect of Amsterdam. I had heard the stories and had seen the photos, but it really took seeing it with my own eyes to come to this truth; carnality can be banal.
I do not mean that pejoratively. I mean that in a city as beautiful and safe as Amsterdam, I thought there would be a bit of a dichotomy that I thought would be as palpable as the marijuana smoke that came from the “coffee” shops of a hushed retiscence to condone hedonism. There wasn’t. People knew what went on in the Red Light District and either enjoyed those delights or didn’t. And on either side of the divide, everyone was tolerant. Unlike Bourbon Street where the drunks spill over into almost every facet of New Orleans, Amsterdam was different. People could have fun but would be deeply shamed if they brought their party elsewhere.
The lesson I learned is that the Dutch are nothing if not pragmatic and like the truth in the rest of the world, that the government hates competition. The Dutch knew that if they did not fix a few of their problems, it would end up costing politicians their elections. When there was a heroin epidemic and the petty crime rate rose, they not only restricted the use of the drug but offered treatment for those that were addicted. There were not piles of state-sanctioned needles like there are in San Francisco with a seemingly skyrocketing crime rate. The Dutch then said that “natural” drugs like psychedelic mushrooms and marijuana, those that did not need to be processed, were alright for public consumption (and taxed accordingly,) but in certain designated places. The know human nature and allow people to pay for the privilidge of doing it legally and safely.
When it came to prostitution, the Dutch saw an opportunity to provide almost an air of respectability about it. While it was a pastime for this port town since its inception, with the Iron Curtain quickly receding, they decided to stem the major probability of Eastern organized crime taking control of the flesh trade by allowing the influx of working girls to join government-sanctioned brothels. These places finally become legal, licensed businesses with a cadre of indepedent contractors all taxed accordingly. The young women were provided safe working conditions, medical exams, and even daycare as they practiced the world’s oldest profession, while those in power could continue doing the second oldest. The governemnt then used the fullest extent of the law to go after those that tried muscling in on their new tax base. In essence, the government became the biggest pimp in the country.
While I did not use the services of the “coffee” shops, the “love” shows, nor the surgically enhanced young ladies beckoning to me from behind their protected, one-way glass doors, I could see in their eyes that this was just a job, like any other. They were all salespeople. Talking with some friends, some of the sex workers even found their jobs mundane, if not boring.
As someone that prizes personal freedom and responsibility, Amsterdam was a place that put my ideas into practice. One could enjoy themselves within the confines of certain rules with the consent of the other participating adults. I realized that it is when these forbidden desires are left for the shadows that those shadows end up creeping more and more into the light.
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