Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
A bit wary about getting into cars: protecting prostitutes in Europe. | 35 comments (35 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Prostitution (none / 1)
The best model I've seen is the Amsterdam model, where sex-for-sale is seen as part of the continuum of "X-for-sale."  Nothing moralistic, all flavours are catered for, with police on bicycles, dodgiest (most dangerous fantasies) most selectively and carefully policed....  Yet they say there are prostitutes behind the station...who will do sex without condoms...

Sex as necessity...the end of which is a goal (yes!) of the ongoing feminist revolution.  Sex as self-control, individual choice--no nannies for adults unless asked for--and within the widest possible system of choices and benefits for ALL modes of living...

The english are repressed...no doubt about it.  Sex to be hidden, puritans....No!  T'is easy to say no, but the id will have its way, and if you refuse to accept sexuality in all its glorious confusion, then death and decay; silence, fear, and furtive guilt....not a healthy recipe...  Better to be honest.

Good diary, Sassafras.  Good summary of the situation, keeping the eyes open, but laying out the facts-on-the-ground.  Thanks!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Wed Dec 13th, 2006 at 07:53:39 PM EST
Amsterdam model (4.00 / 4)
When I was an exchange student in England we took a weekend trip to Amsterdam, and I have to say I found the Amsterdam model simply sad. As I walked around the red-light district with three other friends those women stripped to their undies in the display windows were absolutely not enticing and, above all, a sad sight.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:17:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Amsterdam model (4.00 / 3)
Yes, but not dangerous.  How you feel about it is not the issue.  The protection of prostitutes is, and for the word "prostitute" you can substitute any word you like for women and men who offer sexual stimulation (of varying kinds) in exchange for money.

What I see is that where a moral opprobrium is placed on an activity, that activity immediately becomes more dangerous.  After all, there is absolutely no need whatsoever for anyone to wander around Amsterdam's red light district.  It is clearly marked on the city maps, so those who don't like that kind of thing can avoid it, and it is nowhere near the concertgebau...

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 05:10:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Prostitution (4.00 / 5)
Behind the seemingly relaxed Amsterdam model there is also a lot of violence, exploitation and human trafficking. Unfortunately full legalisation (done a few years ago) has so far not brought the industry out of the grey zone.

Those girls behind the Central Station are the heroin/crack addicts you hear about elsewhere. Amsterdam also has a Cologne/Hamburg like site for street hookers, with wooden walls, alarms etc. (a prominent alderman of the Amsterdam social-dems was brought down a few years ago because he was spotted there). Right now they're renovating the area, so the prostitutes will likely move elsewhere.

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 03:39:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Prostitution (none / 0)
I heard they have the same system in other dutch towns (Haarlem?)  Do they have the same problems?  I think Amsterdam's key problem is that it is the only (as far as I know) (semi-)legally socially liberal town in the whole of Europe, so it gets an unnatural amount of traffic (of all kinds) for its size.  Hords of english, germans, russians, men from all over flocking to a few streets...

I don't know what the numbers are...is the number of non-dutch using (and abusing) the system high?

I read a report once, by two UK policemen who went to Amsterdam and reported back on differences in the system.  They were very impressed by the dutch system, where the arresting officers don't book the person in, and the booking officer doesn't take them to the cells...breaking the emotional chain.  I can't remember if it was in that report that they talked of the way the police deal with organised crime.  I think you would have to compare the Amsterdam (and dutch?) system with how organised crime acts (and is dealt with) in other european towns...I don't know.

But it's still the best system I've seen.  In Italy...the african women with their chairs, one every five hundred yards along country lanes...  First time I saw a woman standing by the road in the middle of nowhere, I thought her car must have broken down; then I thought, hold on, there's no car...  I was slowing down, but she was just standing there...and round the bend...another....then another....

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

by rg (leopold dot lepster at google mail dot com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:06:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Prostitution (4.00 / 4)
Other Dutch cities largely have the same system as Amsterdam, though Amsterdam is by far the largest town for prostitution. I don't know what the percentages of foreign clients are, my guess is that it's pretty high in the red district but not so big outside of it. On the side of Amsterdam where I used to live (west part of the city centre) I'd say almost all the clients were Dutch (and men between 40 and 60).

I'm a bit behind the times on the issue, it seems, I found out through a google search that the city government has been getting tough on criminality in the sector, withdrawing the permits for 20% of the locations because of ties to criminality last November 30th as part of its first of three 'screenings'. This kind of shows how big the problem was.

Organised crime is probably big in every major European city. Here in Berlin there's a lot of Turkish and Russian mafia. In Amsterdam there's a big local underworld, as well as Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Israeli mafia. (This is what I get from the buzz, more or less, I have my finger on the pulse of the underworld and all that jazz, you know, by which I mean to say that I don't know).

by nanne (zwaerdenmaecker@gmail.com) on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:51:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Prostitution (4.00 / 4)
I'd agree about the combination of sex and shame helping to push prostitution to the margins.

But interestingly, one claim I've seen several times (including here) is that the legalisation of prostitution makes clients more confident, more socially accepted and therefore more aggressively demanding of sex workers.

Shame as the prostitute's protector?  Who would have thought?

by Sassafras on Thu Dec 14th, 2006 at 04:44:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

A bit wary about getting into cars: protecting prostitutes in Europe. | 35 comments (35 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: