Museum provides glimpse inside Amsterdam's prostitution scene

AN ENDLESS male parade is passing by, all of them some woman’s boyfriend, husband, brother or father. Most of the men wear dark casual clothes and very few look shabby.

All age groups and an ethnic mix are here. The old men have practised paternal smiles, turned up full volume as they return for a second look. A younger man in a puffa jacket, hood pulled up, licks his lips as if viewing tantalising cakes in a shop window. Another passer-by stares in angrily and spits in a gesture of disgust. Giggling teenage boys steal guilty glances while covertly snapping forbidden photos on their smartphones before running off into the gloom of a canal bridge.

Welcome to the other side of the glass, and what hundreds of scantily dressed women in one of the world’s best known red light districts see from their neon lit windows as they wait for customers in the heart of old Amsterdam’s De Wallen.

We are inside Red Light Secrets, claiming to be the first prostitution museum in the world, in which visitors are invited to look behind the windows and back out on to the street, through the eyes of some of the 900 women who make a living selling sex in the city. They work up to 11 hour shifts, earn on average €50 per client for a session that usually takes no longer than six minutes, and 10 minutes at most.

The going rate for renting a window and the workroom (peeskamer) which has a narrow low bed, a bidet, a wash basin and a cabinet of condoms, sex toys, etc, is €150 for a half day. Not surprisingly, some owners of these buildings are millionaires several times over.

The men who pass by on the other side of the window are part of a filmed installation, ‘The Confrontation’, that realistically shows what prostitutes go through every day and how society reacts to them. I watch from a high stool inside as the filmed men stop and stare, some sniggering, others salivating as they saunter past.

Housed in a centuries-old canal house in which prostitutes used to work until recently, those behind Red Light Secrets claim that it throws valuable light on the profession, revealing what goes on behind the closed curtains of the window brothels, while portraying sex workers as women who neither want to be stigmatised nor cast as victims.

Escort worker Ilonka Stakelborough, who heads an organised Dutch sex workers pressure group called the Geisha Institute, explains that most of the women earn less than an average office wage. She insists that they do this work voluntarily. “I am a trained psychologist but prefer to be a sex worker,” she announces.

The Dutch government legalised prostitution back in 2000 to make it easier to tax and regulate. Since then the municipality of Amsterdam has revoked the licences of some brothel (window prostitution) owners involved in criminal activities like money laundering and drug dealing. The number of windows has fallen from 500 to 350, with a goal of 290 within a year. And the legal age to work as a prostitute has been raised from 18 to 21.

Leader of the social democratic (Labour) group in Amsterdam City Council, Marjolein Moorman, was among the politicians and municipality employees invited to the official opening of Red Light Secrets.

Viewing a prostitute’s working room, and S&M chamber complete with cell, chains and restraints, she said legalisation has “helped in the fight to eradicate the pimps and human trafficking. It has not unfortunately removed them but there has been some improvement.

“The health and welfare of the women is better protected now by law. When a new girl appears in a window she is quickly noticed, there are checks and visits from police and social workers to ensure she is old enough and doing this of her own free will.”

Yet human trafficking remains at the heart of the Dutch debate over the ethics of prostitution. A film at the museum shows trafficked women from eastern Europe who were lured to the Netherlands, believing they were hired as dancers, and were then forced into prostitution and performing lewd acts in clubs.

The museum shows a film in which pretty women who happen to be prostitutes shop for clothes locally, go to nail studios and hairdressers in their spare time, order take away croissants and cappuccinos delivered to their windows.

It is a snapshot of a day in the life, except that visits from plumbers and cleaners usually take place when the windows close by law between 6am and 8am.

One exhibit features a wall of quotes from prostitutes, mostly sad ones about missing their loved ones far away. “I miss my family, I don’t know when I will speak to them again,” wrote Anna from Poland.

Anita from Romania tellingly reveals, “I can have sex with all men but I will never kiss one of them”.

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DUTCH BROTHELS

1 Do not take photographs or film.

2 Do not tap or spit on the window.

3 Be respectful toward the ladies.

4 Do not peek through cracks in the curtains.

5 Do not stand in front of the doors or windows.

6 Pay in advance and discuss what is and is not permitted.

7 No unprotected sex.

8 Be hygienic, clean and well groomed, not intoxicated.

9 When force or coercion is suspected, call the police.

10 Aggression is not tolerated, also not on the street.