Amsterdams red light district

If you’re looking for opportunities to indulge in pay-for-play while visiting Amsterdam, you’ll find there’s a myriad of ways to indulge your appetites. All are fully legal, with the exception of street prostitution. You’ll find a variety of flavors of each type. Of all these available venues, the most convenient and private is the escort service — you’ll never have to leave the privacy of your home or hotel room, and an escort service can be among the least expensive of the choices available, some offer very reasonable rates. Besides the escort agencies, there are three red light districts, elaborate sex clubs with bars, saunas, jacuzzi, and dance floors employing twenty or more women, privehuizen (private houses) that are sometimes no larger than private homes where a small number of prostitutes wait for clients, parenclubs (adult clubs), who offer extensive facilities catering to the swinger crowd, and a few establishments which call themselves erotic cafes. There are also, lately, scores of Asian massage parlours scattered around town.

Red Light District – Window Girls

Located in the oldest district of Amsterdam, the main area, known as de Wallen, is quite probably the best known red light district in the world. The Amsterdam red light district is also one of the major tourist attractions in Amsterdam. On most nights of the week, 52 weeks a year, you’ll find milling throngs gawking at the few hundred women who may be working on any given day or night. It can become quite crowded at times.

Picture this: You hit the red light district amidst the adult shops, the crowds, and the smell of hash wafting from the coffee shops and get your first glance at the window girls. You are in awe, and then you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume and diversity on display. Size, age, color, ethnic background, etc. It can be intimidating. You may feel shy about standing on a busy sidewalk negotiating for sex.

The women who choose this type of work, sell their services in €50 allotments (and occasionally €30), for periods of time roughly of 15-20 minutes duration. They’re in the business of providing quickies. She’ll slip a condom on you as quickly as possible, and provide oral sex to get you ready for the final step: sex in one position of your choice. You’ll be headed back out onto the street to the milling crowds in no time at all. Anything more than this basic “suck and fuck” will have a price, so it’s important to discuss anything you want to do before you actually are in the room with her. If you want to have her fully naked, have her massage you, massage her, provide a striptease, or anything else other than the basic act described above, you have to ask to see if she’ll do it, and how much she’ll charge for it, and agree to a price. She may be fully naked, and allow this and that as part of the basic price, but if you have specific things in mind, it’s safe never to assume.

Facilities within the tiny rooms are next to non-existent. Washing up before and after takes place in a sink, the foam mattress is usually just wide enough to be considered a narrow single, and the covering over the mattress, where her days work takes place, is simply a towel which isn’t often changed between customers — in fact, it may still be warm from the previous client. For some though, the strolling about, the window shopping, the nature of the entire transaction is all part of the enjoyment. While the women on display in the windows are quite often lovely, the experience with them can be variable — it can get very busy and this can sometimes take a toll on everyone involved. But make no mistake, these ladies can also provide a fantastic experience, and be quite charming about it. Another great possibility if you are more fond of your privacy is to order one of the beautiful Amsterdam escorts at your hotel.

For the client, if you’re seeking more than 15-20 minutes, be prepared to spend significantly more amounts of money. €200 for an hour with a window girl is more than you’d spend in many clubs, private houses, or even with many escort girls from the better escort services. You may spend that much in half the time, if you have requests for multiple positions, full nudity, etc. There are two other much smaller red light areas in other parts of town, the Singelgebied, a short walk away from de Wallen, and de Ruysdaelkade, located on the other side of town, somewhat near the Rijksmuseum — it’s easily reached by tram.

In 2008, the then mayor of Amsterdam announced that he intended to close half of the cities prostitution windows, along with two of the best known sex theaters and several coffeeshops. This was billed as an attempt to fight the infiltration of, and suspected ownership of the affected establishments by elements of organized crime — though the city has expended vast resources they have repeatedly failed to prove such ownership. The closing of a number of window locations proceeded as announced. The results were that the Dutch owner of a sizable number of windows became much wealthier when his window properties were purchased by the city, and that those windows were remodeled at some additional huge expense by the city into ateliers for students of fashion, or display spaces for established designers — an effort to bring diversity of businesses into the area. These efforts were unequivocally unsuccessful and many of the ateliers soon went empty due to lack of interest. To the world press, television, and even in its entry in Wikipedia, most of them originating in places where prostitution is a criminal offense and otherwise abhorred by the average person whose thinking is conditioned by such sources, the open practice of prostitution in a place like de Wallen can only be presented as negative — victims, victimizers, organized criminals and exploiters. The open contradiction to these negative views that is presented by acquaintance with the neighborhood of de Wallen is ignored. Self-serving local politicians also exploited the recent bout of negative publicity for their own political purposes.

Despite the evening crowds and the sometime raucous atmosphere, de Wallen is a special place in the world, it remains relatively clean and safe. Sure, on occasion something criminal happens, but where doesn’t it? The funny little fact that in de Wallen, such occurrences are very, very, rare is conveniently overlooked. The closest thing to criminal activity you, as a visitor, might experience are pickpockets and an occasional offer of illicit drugs from dealers on the streets — annoyances that you’ll find, and often in much greater numbers, in most other cities in the world.