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Hookers and Hookahs in Holland
Prostitutes in shop windows, drive-through brothels, and
cannabis in coffeehouses--such are the wonders that attract mobs of yobs to the
Netherlands.
ABOVE: Within walking distance of this quiet
canalside neighborhood, you can window-shop for sex in Amsterdam's Red Light
District or buy marijuana in coffeehouses that have little in common with
Starbucks.
By
Durant Imboden
The Dutch
are known for pragmatism, tolerance, and trade. Put those three characteristics
together in today's freewheeling society, and you get a nation that attracts
thrill-seeking tourists with commercialized sex and soft drugs.
One fairly recent chapter in this story was written in October, 1999, when the Dutch
Parliament overturned a 1912 law against brothels. A news
report from the Associated Press explained the rationale behind Parliament's
move to legalize what already existed:
The new law is aimed at guaranteeing cleaner and safer
working conditions for the country's estimated 30,000 prostitutes and allowing
police to focus their crackdowns on the employment of illegal immigrants and
underaged girls. Prostitution is already legal in the Netherlands.
"This proposal overturns the ban on brothels and replaces it with a ban
on child prostitution and exploitation of involuntary prostitution,'' said an
official summary of the law. "It will enable municipalities to regulate
voluntary prostitution and the position of prostitutes will be improved.''
Although bordellos have been illegal, they have long been allowed to operate
in clearly defined areas such as the red light districts of Amsterdam and most
other major cities, as long as they follow strict standards for health and
fire safety.
And several years ago, Reuters reported that a Dutch brothel chain
"hoped to open a branch at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport...to cater
to stressed travelers." Local authorities were said to be receptive to the
idea, although the bordello--to be known as the Yum Yum Caviar Club--would have
to wait "until building work at the airport is completed and space in the
departures area becomes available."
(More recently, the brothel chain sued
airport officials for failing to greenlight the project.)
Window-shopping for sex in Amsterdam
 In
Travels
as a Brussels Scout, a highly readable book about the author's Grand Tour through today's European
Community, Nick Middleton describes an evening in Amsterdam's Red Light
District:
There were groups of young men, but also small
bands of middle-aged couples taking the evening air and mixed groups of
teenagers who giggled at the shop window displays.
The canal Oude Zijds Voorburgwal seemed to be
where Amsterdam's red light district began. The crowds lingered and cars cruised
slowly by, inching their way along the narrow towpaths on both sides of the
water that were lined with terraces of towering housefronts.
Some of these
buildings contained bars and coffe shops and clip joints with names like
'Banana,' but many were faced with door-shaped windows on to long thin rooms
about the size of my hotel room.
Above each window was a red striplight. Behind
the windows sat women, usually on tall stools. There were thin ones and fat
ones, blonde ones and black ones. Some were silicon-aided, Pamela Anderson
look-alikes, others had all the lumps, bumps, and curves they were born with,
while a few sported paunches. Most of them wore white bras and knickers which
glowed a luminous purple colour thanks to well-positioned ultraviolet tubes. It
was looking at kinky psychedelic goldfish.
Some of the women looked very bored, some were
combing their hair to pass the time, others were talking to older women who
might have been their mothers. Most, however, were making an effort to attract
customers.
If you caught their eye, they would smile alluringly, or worse still
tap on the glass and beckon you to come in, just as if she was your long-lost
frined inviting you for a coffee and a chat. These were real, live, laughing,
smiling, hair-combing sex professionals. They were adept at looking as if they
wanted it badly and wanted it with you. Now.
As an Englishman, I found it all a bit
embarrassing. It was bad enough looking at these female-shaped pieces of meat,
but when they saw you were watching and reacted accordingly and reacted
accordingly it was all a bit too much. I didn't know what to do with myself,
except to smile timidly and move on.
Middleton goes on to explain the Dutch government's rationale
for sanctioning prostitutes:
No one has ever managed to get rid of the world's
oldest profession, so why bother trying? Better to regulate it instead. There
were health considerations to think about, labour conditions, public order, and
of course another source of government revenue. Some said the love-ladies were
just getting another pimp.
Drive-through brothels
Rick Steves, the American guidebook author and TV travel host,
admits that he's never seen a prostitute in his home town but is fascinated by
the "drama of well-worn women in a male-dominated world humiliating lonely
men in grotty little rooms by charging them a day's wage for ten minutes of
sexual fun."
 In his memoir,
Rick
Steves' Postcards from Europe, Steves points out that "Prostitution is
everywhere in Europe. It always has been." As an example, he describes a
daytime visit with a Dutch friend to a drive-through brothel in the polder
country of tulips and windmills near Haarlem:
Hans then turns sharply, stopping at the gate
of a large, fenced-in parking lot. There's a circular drive lined with covered
bus-stop benches painted pink. From there a lane leads to what looks like a
twenty-stall drive-through car wash. The sign reads "Tippelzone. Geopend
van 21:00 tot 3:00."
The author's friend Hans explains:
"This is a drive-in red-light district.
Prostitutes. You say, 'Everything's so Dutch.' This is Dutch, too."
Steves continues wistfully:
I imagine a busy Saturday night with women
stationed at each pink bench, a bumper-to-bumper parade of shoppers, and cars
privately rocking in the drive-through stalls. I cling to memories of a time
when morning rush hour in Holland featured intersections clogged with
bikers--wooden shoes lashed to their handlebars--heading for the fields.
Although wooden shoes still keep some feet dry in the boggy fields, these days
a tourist will more likely see them used as flower pots nailed to souvenir
shop windowsills. That Dutch boy of my travel dreams is off smoking somewhere
with the Swiss Miss...or waiting for a 21:00 Tippel.
Coffee and cannabis
"Soft drugs" such as marijuana and hashish are
technically illegal in the Netherlands, but they're tolerated within certain
limits. Small-scale production and use aren't prosecuted, and
"coffeeshops" are allowed to sell cannabis as long as they're
discreet. Imagine your local Starbucks with a hashish counter in the back where
you can choose from a selection of your favorite leaves and smoke a joint with
your Frappucino.
Thanks to this relaxed policy toward grass, Amsterdam attracts
latter-day hippies from all over Europe (along with a fair-sized contingent from
the U.S. and Canada). In Travels
as a Brussels Scout, Nick Middleton describes being with a group of
British acquaintances who were in Amsterdam on a drug holiday:
The soft drug culture was all around us, although
most of the participants seemed to be foreigners. There was a fellow Englishman
who worked in my hotel who always looked at the list when I asked for my key and
said, "Mr.Middleton, yeah?"
"That's right," I would reply and he
would counter, "Sorry, I won't ask next time. I've got a pretty shit memory
and unfortunately I'm in the wrong place to get it back."
Rick Steves, too, has comments on the Amsterdam drug scene in
his Postcards
from Europe. He writes about a visit to the Grey Area Café, a
coffeeshop near the Ann Frank House:
Alone with the younger guy, I ask him about the
sign with a delivery boy on it.
"In Holland we have pot delivery
services," he explains, "like you have pizza delivery in America.
Older people take out or have it delivered."
Steves adds:
"This coffee shop would never be possible in
the United States," I say.
"I know," Peter, the bartender,
agrees. He shows me the snapshops of Woody Harrelson and Willy Nelson , each
in the obscure little coffee shop, and continues, "America's two most
famous pot smokers told me all about America."
Unfortunately, there's a dark side to drug policy
in the Netherlands, which is based on tolerance without legalization: Organized
crime reportedly is involved in the growing and distribution of marijuana, and
more dangerous drugs such as "ecstasy" are becoming increasingly
popular. For more on these problems, see David Downie's
"Going
Dutch" article in Salon.
Beyond sex and drugs
By now, you may be ready to assume that the Netherlands is a
Times Square with tulips, and that children and church groups should find
another holiday destination in Europe. Not at all: Sex and cannabis are only a
small part of the overall tourist scene, and you won't encounter much of either
unless you go looking for it.
More about the Netherlands
Rotterdam
europeforvisitors.com
Our in-depth
guide to Holland's second largest city includes a plethora of photos,
practical advice, and articles about things to see and do. We also provide
information about the
Rotterdam
Cruise Terminal. (Tip: If you're interested in modern architecture and
urban design, Rotterdam should be at the top of your "cities to visit in
Europe" list.)
Alkmaar Cheese Market
europeforvisitors.com
If the dairy auction action seems too touristy, vist the
world-famous organ in the Laurenskerk.
Keukenhof Gardens
europeforvisitors.com
The largest flower garden in Holland (and the world) has more than 6,000,000 bulbs, including
1,000 varieties of tulips alone.
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