The Uncertain Fate of Amsterdam’s Red-Light District | Hacker News Reader

The Uncertain Fate of Amsterdam’s Red-Light District

newyorker.com

60 pointsdanso113 comments

I have been living in Amsterdam for about half a year. Met lots of locals. The red light district is not liked. It’s full of trashy people wanting to do drugs and have sex. Sure if you find those to be pleasures of life then be my guest, but the locals hate it: imagine having an entire neighborhood ruined by these kind of people, who let me tell you are not the most respectful kind.

But the real issue is that none of the girl prostitutes are locals. Not once I heard of a local Dutch girl doing this. And it’s also mostly lots of people that need he money. If the brothels were full of dutch-rich women then I’d be fine with it... but reality is that it’s not and it encourages poorer people to participate in the activity. And in a way it exploits these people even if it’s their choice.

Also let’s not forget the immortal rule: wherever there’s money, there’s corruption.

So unfortunately I don’t favor the red light district. Maybe if it was far from the center and if it was done in a way where you would be 100% sure where nobody was exploited, then yes. But reality is that nobody can know for sure that exploitation doesn’t happen.

But then there’s also the other side of the coin that if you make it illegal it will anyway happen in a worst manner... on the streets and with more exploitation.

So maybe having something organized and outside cultural city center seems like a good win-win situation.

I don't see why being "trashy" and into drugs+sex has to be relegated to a journey outside the city center. Pearl clutching moralists (not necessarily you) always have a strong voice at this table though. Being interested in these things is no better than raising useless generations of children who, on average, will eventually have MULTIPLE degenerates in the family line.

Some jobs are just simply for poor people. I'd rather solve that problem than isolate the effort to sex work.

The work involving sex doesn't make it significantly more exploitative than being so poor that you're willing to take short term gains and long term losses driving for Uber or something. At least you can come out profitable in sex work.

Let's also think of the service being provided here. Low economic status, ugly men can have their biological urges satisfied. What happens to incels if that goes away? This question is only going to become more important, given the trajectory of hypergamy.

As someone that lives in the US, neighborhoods, in my opinion, are ruined by moralists, even if they appear respectful. e.g. I can't legally walk around sipping a beer.

> The work involving sex doesn't make it significantly more exploitative than [...] driving for Uber

How many uber drivers were assaulted or killed in the last month? How many are coerced into driving for uber, and have their gains captured by third party? In which cities are there rings traficking slaves to drive uber cabs? What is the mean age of death for uber drivers?

I mean, please... do yourself a favour and research a bit before you make such ignorant claims.

Good question.

Are we talking about sex workers globally or in countries where it is legalized and centralized?

I'm comparing specifically to places like Hong Kong and Amsterdam that have this work legalized, which is the topic at hand. OP wants the red light district either moved or removed.

Prostitution is going to exist in some form. I think we agree there, so do you think moving it outside of the city center is going to improve the situation for these women? I feel like it would do the opposite.

What about those, that, as in TFA, say that they do it by choice, it's a job, and that the government/"concerned citizens" should leave them the duck alone?

There has been a recent rash of taxi driver suicides. It is being largely attributed to the rise of services like Uber. There are many articles about the dark side of the Gig Economy and how much workers feel exploited, don't have healthcare, etc.

I do gig work and I think it has potential to do good things for the world, but my views are in the minority. Most people see the Gig Economy as an evil force doing nothing but exploiting workers and that exploitation absolutely kills people at times.

There is substantial evidence that a large part of the danger involved in sex work comes from the fact that it is criminalized. This fact actively makes it harder for sex workers to operate safely.

Uber drivers do not have that problem.

I think something that needs to happen isn't just to legalize it, that's just a small first step, the more impactful one would be to moralize it, make it normal and acceptable, remove all stigma around it.

If you did the latter, you would change the market for it, and open up the door for non exploited workers in the field.

When others give you strange looks, when families disavow you, when people demonize you, shout you names, refuse you work in other fields, look at you with disdain and pity, etc.. It's no wonder the only people who still go through with getting in the field are exploited. Why would anyone do it otherwise? Making it legal doesn't change that.

And that goes for the customer base as well. The stigma is high, so who ends up being the target market? A bad crowd of people, that's what. The people who aren't affected by the stigma of seeking sex and drugs for money. And again, that doesn't change by making it legal.

You are suggesting sex work is preferable to Uber? Have you ever been a sex worker? I am as libertarian as it comes, but that false dichotomy is ridiculous. Either get “exploited” by Uber or get a job where men stick their penises in you a dozen times a day.

But at least you aren’t being “exploited” by some filthy VC-funded capitalists right?

>or get a job where men stick their penises in you a dozen times a day.

How is that different from lifting boxes in some factory job, or whatever menial work?

I mean, I know the e.g. Christian answer.

What would the distinction be, however, without giving some special negative spiritual quality to having sex?

You phrased this question way better than I could.

This person has a valid, subjective opinion on taking penis in return for cash, but it's not necessarily the case for everyone.

Note that I'm not saying that being a sex slave is better than working a low tier job. I'm comparing peeing in a bottle, having every movement tracked/optimized and skipping meals to deliver Amazon packages vs true freelance sex work.

Perhaps you should not assume stuff. Not all prostitutes dislike their work; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346209

Now, an actual fact, I knew a guy, a licensed accountant, about 20 years ago who did the accounts of a working lady (ok, prostitute). He said she was pulling in about £80,000/year. He didn't say whether she liked her job so I can't help you there.

Did he say how many "sales" she had to make to earn that £80,000?

I've no more information than what I posted. I can pretty safely assume she wasn't a streetwalker (they don't make much, I do not envy them at all).

Ah, hollerith from TheRegister? If so, hail and well met.

I'm a different hollerith.

I have been living in Amsterdam for the last 25 years, here is a bit of background.

25 years ago the red light district was a no go area for except for people looking for sex or drugs. But in the recent decades that has slowly changed. At some point it became fashionable to live in the old city centre and in the red light district housing was cheap. As soon as those 'normal' people were living there they started to complain about all the noise and the shady figures that were hanging around. And the city government listened; now the policy is to make the Red Light district a normal neighbourhood for families and what not.

>> But the real issue is that none of the girl prostitutes are locals.

This has a simple reason: the red light district is all window prostitution, and as a local girl you wouldn't like to be standing there when your uncle or some friend happens to be passing by.

As soon as those 'normal' people were living there they started to complain about all the noise and the shady figures that were hanging around.

So it's like when Americans create a new suburb in the country, then get pissed off about the rooster crowing at 5am on their day off.

(Insert some joke here about cocks that somehow applies to both farms and red light districts.)

Edit: To be fair, some of the concerns outlined in the article seem completely fair and reasonable. The article indicates things have actually changed in ways that degrade the area and are worrisome.

To be fair, people might not know about the roosters when they move in. Maybe it's more like people buying a house next to an airport that's been there for 50 years, and then complaining about all the airplane noise.

I can well imagine there are people who moved to the red light district for cheap housing and a love of historic architecture who are genuinely surprised to find that there's so much sex, drugs and obnoxious tourist activity.

People tend to not really know what a neighborhood is really like until they've lived there for a bit. It's common for things to be different during the day versus nighttime or weekdays versus weekends and a lot of places change dramatically seasonally or have some very big annual event that impacts the entire area for days or weeks.

Sounds like gentrification to me.

It is, I live in the Red Light District for 34 years and have seen it all. This plan to get rid of the girls is a setup of the civil cervants and the church since around 2000. When I came living there in 1985 the neighborhood was rough, relative unsave because of dealers and junkies and there was a lot of crappy state housing. Round 2000 most of these problems were gone and the land/housing slowly started to become more valueable. A lot of parties with interest to gain a lot from that neighbourhood, with all their own reasons, started to plan for the removal of coffeeshops and the girls. The tourists coming for these coffeeshops were low key and hardly a problem for the authorities. The interested parties started 1012 project to buy out all the owners of the window bordellos, this failed due to finance problems caused by the expensive north/south metroline and the downfall of the economy in 2008. Then the parties had another plan, "Let's invite lower class uncivil drinking tourists through the tourist buro", then they can trash the neibourhood and make life difficult for the ladies behind the windows. Then the parties started to talk how little respect and danger these girls are getting from those tourists, now we have a reason to relocate these girls and make the money from those now high valued buildings and land. There are billions involved with this, don't let people fool you into thinking that there is a milligram of altruism.

> imagine having an entire neighborhood ruined by these kind of people

So, just like multiple neighborhoods in any big urban city? Except that it's at least somewhat regulated/under legal protection?

Exactly. There will always be people doing drugs and paying for sex. I think Amsterdam is in a unique position to try and come up with ways to make this all work. It's definitely new ground, and won't be an easy task to say the least!

Most major cities in Holland have a red light district. The Hague has two, Rotterdam one.

Most major cities have one. The only difference tends to be how obvious it is to visitors. E.g. walk around Soho in London and pay attention, and you see hints of it all over the place; they're just not sitting in the windows.

> Maybe if it was far from the center and if it was done in a way where you would be 100% sure where nobody was exploited, then yes

All kinds of low and high paying jobs are exploitative and hardly anybody cares. But as soon as some degree of sex is involved, everyone is suddenly peculiarly interested exploitation. Why is sex treated so differently?

Probably a few reasons, it often involves very vulnerable people, people who were coerced, people who were tricked (we have student jobs for you, hand over your passport though), etc. People are similarly uncomfortable with migrant manual laborers in the ME who are also coerced and tricked, though many do it knowingly because the alternative is worse. Initially trafficked sex workers tend younger than initially indentured migrant manual laborers, so they can be taken advantage of easier.

I'd like to hear viewpoints that represent sex workers as having agency, rather than pets or wards to be told what they need.

Why don't we listen to sex workers themselves, when they tell us what policy changes they want? If sex workers say sex work should be criminalized, that would hold some weight for me. If they're exploited, I'd like to hear what they think would actually help them.

It's one of those situations where it's inconvenient to listen to the people affected, because they tend to say things politicians don't want to hear.

E.g. when Norway criminalized buying sex, the prostitutes own organizations were against it and argued it'd push a lot of the sex trade underground and make the women less safe. They were totally ignored, and they continue to be ignored when they repeatedly warn that they're unable to report violence and crimes safely, in part because it makes police aware that they're prostitutes, and by extension that there will be people visiting them that are likely to break the law, and that their landlords are potentially breaking the law (if they're aware of the prostitution; which they will be soon enough if the police takes an interest).

If they were listening and disagreeing, that would be one thing, but there's a staggering amount of moralising from politicians that do not even try to talk to the people they claim they want to protect. And that makes me think that their motives are more to do with getting activities they don't like out of sight than about helping the people involved to get out of it.

How much worse is it than people who are trafficked in to work as housekeepers, lawn service, construction, etc...? The primary problem is the dubious legal situation the prostitutes find themselves in which enables even worse exploitation.

Do you think being raped is worse than being mugged? If so, then there's your answer to why people care more about human trafficking for sex than for manual labor.

> Initially trafficked sex workers tend younger than initially indentured migrant manual laborers, so they can be taken advantage of easier.

But this isn't the same thing. You're talking about human trafficking, not sex work as a whole.

If Nike trafficked a bunch of kids to set up a sweat shop in North America, we'd be upset not because shoes were being made on our continent, but because of the trafficking and exploitation of underage workers.

Analogously, if some scumbag trafficked a bunch of women to work as prostitutes, we should be upset because of the trafficking and the coercion and strong-arming you describe, not because of the sex they engaged in.

So voluntary sex work should be perfectly fine, but it's not, and most discussions surrounding sex work seem to classify it as inherently exploitative, which simply boggles my mind.

Yes two things trafficked people and people who can give consent knowingly and willingly consenting to entering this sector legally (as is possible be in NL). There is grey area where people under economic duress are taken advantage of and will ‘consent’ even if it’s unpalatable to them, if they had alternatives.

> There is grey area where people under economic duress are taken advantage of and will ‘consent’ even if it’s unpalatable to them, if they had alternatives.

I don't see how this is any different than taking any other menial, low paying job because you have to make ends meet. No one really wants to clean public toilets or work at Wendy's.

Because it is intimate, and so it is far harder to ignore, and at the same time it also has a long history, ironically, of being one of the few avenues of financial independence that has always been open to women in particular even when they've been shut out of other options, and as such it has a long history of being a challenge to social control and order.

I have a different theory. I think women dont want sex workers around because its competition.

I wonder if I would have ever got married had there been a regular prostitution place to go to.

It's a line that is crossed, using your body for money has never ever been seen as something normal. Even accepting the reality of life complexities, broken marriages, loneliness, etc sex as a products is never praised.

The only argument so far is "I should be free to use my body as I will". But probably only a minuscule amount of sex "workers" have the material and emotional comfort to choose that.

So basically when other industries are often exploitative, it's probably a few orders better than prostitution, leverage a bit less immature or broke people.

Using your body for money isn’t normal? Using your body for money is the dominant form of labor. Manual work, factory work, mining, domestic labor, even most service jobs (you cook, you clean, you carry dishes). Undoubtedly sex work makes some people uncomfortable but it’s not because it involves the body.

Fair point but beside terminology (my bad) there's some abuse about the actual use. Your hands are made to lift and operate. If I'd make a parallel with prostitution it would be to be paid to chew rocks.

Just a guess: because sex has a long history of generating babies as a byproduct.

Because sex outside of marriage undermines marriage, which is a fundamental societal institution, and the broad availability of sex for pay means it's easier for sex outside of marriage to happen.

If you read about the amounts of orphans in cities even 1 century ago, I'm guessing the babies aspect does have something to do with it.

You are so wrong about the red light district. I am Dutch and live in Amsterdam almost my entire life. The red light district is not shady at all. Plenty of hipster bars within and around the zone. Hardly any dealers walking around anymore these days. Red-light district is both popular by locals and tourists. It's the safest city center neighborhood. The place never really was a shady place. Not even in the 17th century. It's a place of obscure trade. Sometimes a bit too much for outsiders. The available sex and drugs in the red light zone is not linked to criminal activity. It is heavily regulated with many different institutions watching over it. No Dutch girls working behind the glass? Again you are so wrong. Yes the mayority are Romanian and Bulgarian. But the private clubs are mostly Dutch girls.

so... it is okay as long as people can't see it?

> wherever there’s money, there’s corruption

... I guess I should stop working in IT

I actually disagree strongly with the trend of moving to non-urban red light districts. My neighborhood is incredibly safe for everyone at all hours because of the density of legal sex workers, most of which will call police when they see a disturbance. It is also relatively resistant to corruption, because interactions between the police, the workers and the establishments are overheard.

There's an excellent claim that most domestic abuse per capita happens in suburbs in contrast to most reported abuse. I would look for better counter evidence before moving the fence.

> it exploits these people even if it’s their choice.

This is a talking point used by people who try to criminalize sex work, and it flies completely in the face of what sex workers' advocacy groups around the world actually say. No, you're not equating sex work with sex trafficking in your comment, but you're adopting wholesale the language of people who do.

> But the real issue is that none of the girl prostitutes are locals. Not once I heard of a local Dutch girl doing this. And it’s also mostly lots of people that need he money. If the brothels were full of dutch-rich women then I’d be fine with it.

Why is it a problem when foreigners engage in sex work to make money, but not a problem when "Dutch-rich" people engage in sex work to make money?

You're talking about unionized workers in a highly regulated industry doing very lucrative labor. It's very hard to make the argument that they're being exploited, any more than laborers in any other industry are being exploited.

Because most of the foreign sex workers are trafficked in and forced to do the work.

> Because most of the foreign sex workers are trafficked in and forced to do the work.

Citation needed, especially since they're unionized and very vocally and visibly fighting these measures.

The thing that struck me about the red light district when I visited Amsterdam and walked through it one night was just how sad and small and tawdry it was. It has this almost mythic reputation, but there's not a whole lot to it.

Take a walk around Oude kerk on sunday morning and there will be plenty of dutch to be heard. Those ladies are also no teenagers

Very mildly put!

All true. There are other realities worth considering too - one being that if sex workers are driven from Amsterdam, that they'll simply go elsewhere. Ostend and Bremerhaven are both served by ferries from the UK. What might the financial impact of the NIMBYism be on the Netherlands?

How dare people try to get ahead in ways I find repellent. They clearly must be coerced into doing it, so let's coerce them into not doing it.

It attracts trashy people and tweakers! They should abuse prescription drugs and wear the respectable fashion and be mannerly like upper class people such as myself.

Mote, meet beam. I'm sure we can whip the sinners into virtue and establish the true city on the hill.

We may not like the criminal underworld, but the cure is worse than the disease.

"And it’s also mostly lots of people that need he money. "

Are you implying that people is working for the money and not just for the sake of it?

Might shock you but some prostitutes do enjoy their work. I guess it's the higher paid, non-streetwalkers though.

edit: "[...] she stated that she enjoyed her job as a prostitute [...]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Coghlan#After_the_trial

How did they ruin the neighborhood? They ARE the neighborhood, and have been for hundreds of years. You seem to be arguing that something is ok if one doesn't do it for the money? Lots of people do things for money, are they being exploited as well? Your argument seems to be, there might be corruption, and there are no locals.

So basically, maybe it's better than make it illegal, as long as it's Not In My Back Yard ?

Sounds right to me. I'm not sure what it's like in Amsterdam, but most cities in America have zoning laws to regulate what types of businesses can be located in a specific place.

Difference between 'regulate' and 'prevent' certain types of businesses, I guess.

Do any cities have laws which state certain areas are ok for prostitutes to work in? I'd guess not

Well, it is just displacing the problem. It does not solve anything, just hide it. Beside, wasn't the red light district precisely that, a zoning ?

Its location in effectively the city center is unfortunate. I absolutely love Amsterdam and recently spent 10 lazy days there but tried hard to avoid getting within a kilometer of Amsterdam Centraal. Reminds me of Times Square but with a lot more bros.

> And in a way it exploits these people even if it’s their choice.

How, exactly?

Your position is that they’d be better off with a different job, but presumably we’re talking about adults there by choice.

How is voluntary prostitution more exploitative than, say, a construction worker? ...or even third shift at a grocery store?

I mean, if your point is Marxist all labor for pay is “exploitation”, okay — but otherwise, I don’t see how adults choosing a profession exploits them.

This argument tends to come from the exact opposite viewpoint of Marxists. Part of the issue is that prostitution is often "in your face exploitative" (I'm not suggesting it always is), and because it often is, a lot of people are very insistent on making it into a moral issue where it can't be anything but exploitative, because the alternative if you allow yourself to accept prostitution as "just another profession" among many that can also be dangerous, exploitative, uncomfortable, and so on, is to accept that "normal" occupations can also be exploitative, and that's surprisingly hard to swallow for a lot of people even if you don't go anywhere near all the way to a Marxist "all labor is exploitation" line.

> Not once I heard of a local Dutch girl doing this.

How is this relevant? I mean in what manner would nationality change your opinion on this topic?

I read them to mean that the fact that no Dutch girl is doing it is indicative of exploitation. Dutch people generally have lots of opportunities that many other nationalities don't.

It's impossible to look at someone and tell with certainty that they are being exploited, but it's easy to look at a group of people and notice if any of them are from the local privileged peoples, and if most of them are from poorer regions.

> it is indicative of exploitation

In rich countries a lot of low paying jobs are performed by foreigners coming from poorer countries. I'm sure almost nobody enjoys any of those jobs but they do them because they need the money and have little choice.

And by the nature of these low paying jobs they only attract people with no other options, foreigners dreaming about a better life, completely unaware of the risks. This opens the door to abuse. I'm certain that plenty of locals (whatever country we're talking about) would do this job if it payed really well.

It's not true. Plenty of Dutch girls behind those windows. I live in Amsterdam almost my entire life

You will find dutch girls in private clubs and escort services

Places with legal sex work have higher rates of human trafficking

> Criminalization of prostitution in Sweden resulted in the shrinking of the prostitution market and the decline of human trafficking inflows. Cross-country comparisons of Sweden with Denmark (where prostitution is decriminalized) and Germany (expanded legalization of prostitution) are consistent with the quantitative analysis, showing that trafficking inflows decreased with criminalization and increased with legalization.

https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...

Human trafficking exists in many industries where employing local labour is the exception; it could be that the tolerance of sex work and its unlikelihood of hiring locally sourced labour makes it attractive to human trafficking.

> Places with legal sex work have higher rates of human trafficking

Places with legal sex work have higher reported rates of human trafficking. This is not a surprise; one of the biggest arguments consistently made in favor of decriminalizing sex work is that it will make it easier to catch human trafficking, and make it easier for trafficking victims to come forward without the risk of being charged for a crime.'

Even the article you quote, if you take the time to read it all the way, doesn't draw the conclusion that the higher reported rates of human trafficking mean that sex work should be criminalized.

I believe the implication is that many of the women employed were coerced or trafficked; it not being an industry that employs locals makes that a reasonable suspicion.

It's not just a concern for sex work; manufacturing, seasonal trades and agriculture attract human trafficking, for instance.

The implications of human trafficking - it seems more likely that the industry is partaking in human trafficking if they need to source the women from out of state, since they can't find enough local women willing to engage in it.

Most of the time they are exploiting Eastern Europeans from poor countries. Many times they are trafficked by mafia types and have their passports/documents taken away.

Definitely not most of the time. In Amsterdam, window prostitutes need to be registered with the municipality, chamber of commerce, tax authorities, and with the window operator they operate at. Minimum age is 21. This operator needs a license, which requires a municipality approved plan of operation.

National police authorities do extensive research concerning prostitution because it touches key issues of organised crime, in particular illegal prostitution, human trafficking, violence, money laundering etc. The amount of problems they find with window prostitution are relatively small, because they're licensed and under supervision of various authorities. The amount of human trafficking, taking away of passports etc you describe, doesn't happen much at all in the red light district.

It does happen, but not in window prostitution (which has fixed, licensed addresses, which are supervised). Rather it happens in the shadow, i.e. various somewhat secret and temporary networks which offer prostitution services at constantly changing addresses, with front men running the operations. Almost all cases where police finds out about human trafficking, violence, money laundering, underage prostitution etc, is from this underground sector.

I'm not saying the red light district is paradise or that I'd want me or my friends to work there. But it's not really where most of the problems are. When people speak about issues in the Netherlands with respect to prostitution, it's either NIMBYism in the red light district, or the issues with illegal underground prostitution outside of the red light district. People seem to conflate the two in this thread.

You’re correct. I did some searching and most of the articles were about Dutch teens being trafficked to other places in Europe as opposed to the opposite happening.

The places that keep getting caught with actual human trafficking are hotels, usually not cheap ones, in central locations (so they can cater to "visiting" businesspeople) and they tend to not even change (meaning they catch someone imprisoning and prostituting an underage girl in Hotel X, and then 3 months later they catch another one in exactly the same spot). To me this implies that there's significant police cooperation with the abuse, otherwise why wouldn't they just go by every evening until it stops? And of course, it's the same people in the same space, so definitely the Hotel owners know and cooperate.

So in a way this supports the idea of the red light district: make it legal in a well-defined, licensed space to protect the workers. Because you can't eliminate it and the ways they get exploited in the shadows are pretty bad.

The red-light district is for sure a tourist attraction, for people who are dumbfounded and awestruck to people going on drug fuelled benders.

I am the former, I've been through the red light district at night and there are a few bro's but generally it was decent.

The tourism culture seems to actively promote seedy/druggy stuff though.. Maybe if it wasn't being pushed it would be better?

One of my favourite authors is Chris Hedges. I was surprised to discover he is against decriminalisation of sex work. His arguments actually won me over.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-real-face-of-prostitut...

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/prostitution-being-raped-f...

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-underbelly-of-the-sex-...

> One of my favourite authors is Chris Hedges. I was surprised to discover he is against decriminalisation of sex work. His arguments actually won me over.

Why do you value his arguments more than the arguments of the overwhelming majority of sex workers, who soundly reject the claims that he makes as both inaccurate and downright offensive?

I read his books and they’re based on his investigation plus the testimony of a number of sex workers.

I'm was unclear on something - is Chris Hedges saying that sex workers should be themselves charged with a criminal offense, or that only pimps should be?

Those blog posts make it out that sex work is a crime against the sex workers; i.e., it is prostitutes that are the victims. If that is indeed the case then prostitutes should be able to go freely to the police for protection, without fear of prosecution, since they are the victims. So that makes it unclear to me what it means that Hedges is against decriminalization.

> Those blog posts make it out that sex work is a crime against the sex workers; i.e., it is prostitutes that are the victims. If that is indeed the case then prostitutes should be able to go freely to the police for protection, without fear of prosecution, since they are the victims. So that makes it unclear to me what it means that Hedges is against decriminalization.

He's of a school of thought that sex workers are victims, but since most sex workers do sex work voluntarily, it means that he views sex workers as victims of their own harmful actions. The implication (whether or not he states it directly) is that sex workers need to be saved from their own harmful actions (ie, the work they do voluntarily) because otherwise they will harm themselves.

While it's dressed in secular rhetoric, at its core, it's a very Puritanical, moralistic argument that ultimately is used to justify people taking steps to "save" sex workers from their "wrongful (harmful) actions".

Unsurprisingly, sex workers do not like him or his work.

He’s against the Nordic model, he doesn’t wants to punish the sex workers, maybe their clients.

I wish Seattle had a Red-Light district, so that I could avoid it. Instead, there are homeless and drug-addicted people everywhere, in need of help.

When I went through the red light district in 2008, I didn't find it anywhere near as sketchy as half of San Francisco.

The only disappointment that I had is that Dutch weed isn't anywhere as good as Californian weed.

That being said: If I were Dutch, I wouldn't want to raise a family within biking distance of the red light district. It's practically across the street from a major train station. Dutch children have a lot of independence, and I wouldn't want an 8, 12, or 16 year old stumbling into the red light district by accident.

Everyone is cool from afar with sexwork until a meth head is jerking it on their doorstep. "Like, wouldn't you rather have it be regulated and legal?"

Everyone is cool from afar with homeless until they're sleeping in their own doorway. "Like, why are you trying to get rid of all of these poor homeless people?"

"What's the big deal, maaaaan?" they ask, "Why do you have a problem with it?"

But the second the problem comes to their own doorstep they call the cops.

It's one of the most delicious hypocrisies of the internet. People get to bitch about people dealing with all of the negative aspects of any problem while self-righteously pretending to be open and accepting from thousands of miles away.

I live in the Red Light District and I’m very happy that the problem on my doorstep isn’t prostitution or hard drugs. These things exist in my neighbourhood but they seem to be fairly well managed without huge irreparable harm [1], as opposed to the 25,000 tourists who walk past my front door, put cigarette butts through my letterbox, vomit on my door handle and convert every decent local shop into a Nutella store or shitty boring overpriced bar.

So yeah, I’m cool with legalised prostitution and quasi legal drugs [2].

1. Mainly because I’m on first name terms with some of the girls who work behind the windows or who are part of the cleaning crews and who live locally - and who I see at the supermarket.

2. I had a disastrous furniture delivery that was rescued by two of the street dealers who helped me get stuff through the upstairs window when the delivery guy left when he ran over time. Sweet guys, as far as that profession goes.

They could operate more like marijuana sales do here in California. You have to get a license and the number of licenses in an area is limited, so there isn’t a “district”. Advertising is restricted. Most dispensaries are just bland unmarked buildings in inexpensive office or warehouse areas.

It just seems possible to avoid both black markets and “vice districts”.

That's how Switzerland does it. Prostitution is legal, regulated, and hookers charge value added tax like every other business.

Amsterdam's problem, from the article, seems to be tourism, not sex. The city is being overwhelmed by visitors.

If you look at the red light district in Amsterdam (or for that matter, Antwerp or Brussels) they're tiny. It's one street, maybe 300-400 meters and then more subtle places for 100m around that.

A "district" these places are very much not.

>Everyone is cool from afar with homeless until they're sleeping in their own doorway.

I'm cool with this. I consider it a part and parcel of living in the city center. I want homelessness to be on display rather than hidden away because it's a permanent reminder of how much society has failed its most vulnerable members.

Right - because say, there's obviously no nuance required between "rough sleepers are still people" and "let's add spikes to the building entrance so we don't have to look at rough sleepers in the morning".

It's really just a bunch of hippie hypocrites, slurring their "maaaaan" and pretending everything is alright until they call the cops, and you're certainly not projecting your own view about the world, making spurious connections between sex work and horrible drug abuse to avoid putting forward any real argument besides internet outrage.

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. Consider the quality difference between this comment and one like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346620.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Right - because say, there's obviously no nuance required between "rough sleepers are still people" and "let's add spikes to the building entrance so we don't have to look at rough sleepers in the morning".

Every single person, without exception, you included, would be really pissed off with and do everything to get rid of a rough sleeper sleeping on under their window.

Instead of adding spikes, they will call the police. They would add spikes, but the police are free.

I know this, you know this, I know that you know this, and you know that I know that you know this.

But because it is "others" getting rid of bums, people get to scoff online.

Like I said, it is one of the most deliciously hypocritical things about the internet. It causes my heart to race from excitement whenever I see someone do it.

Please don't feed flamewars on HN. Perhaps you didn't mean to start one, though your comment upthread was needlessly provocative—but this just takes things further into hell. We're trying to go the other way.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I don't call the police when someone's sleeping rough by the dumpsters at the entry to my garage.

Everyone needs to sleep, for fuck's sakes. If they aren't being violent, or damaging property, this isn't a police issue.

If there was a social number I could call, that would get that person housed, I'd do that. But there isn't.

I think homeowners and people with families (and probably a bunch of other people) would not want a strange homeless person camping in their yard. That's totally reasonable.

Then maybe they should pay for social services, instead of pushing their problems to someone else's porch.

Also, I'm not sure the set of people that this sub-thread has been railing against (Hipsters who smoke weed, and are hypocrites for tolerating the homeless, while pushing them around) has much intersection with the demographic you described!

> Then maybe they should pay for social services

I think people pay an extraordinary amount of their income in taxes, so yeah this is happening.

> Also, I'm not sure the set of people that this sub-thread has been railing against (Hipsters who smoke weed, and are hypocrites for tolerating the homeless, while pushing them around) has much intersection with the demographic you described!

Maybe, but I certainly wouldn't blame anyone (even a weed smoking hipster) for not wanting a stranger encamped by their front door.

> Then maybe they should pay for social services

You mean like San Francisco does? They spend $241 million per year on the homeless. And yet, their homeless problem is the worst it's ever been.

You can't just throw money at social problems and hope they go away.

> Everyone is cool from afar with sexwork until a meth head is jerking it on their doorstep. "Like, wouldn't you rather have it be regulated and legal?"

Sex work does not mean idiots should be idiots. Sex work works just fine in many places and does not make the area super shady if done well.

Jerking of in somebody's doorstep is still punishable under disturbing the peace laws, Erregung öffentlichen Ergernisses in German, surely there's a Dutch analog

> Everyone is cool from afar with sexwork until a meth head is jerking it on their doorstep

You are confusing or conflating sex work with drug use.

> Everyone is cool from afar with homeless until they're sleeping in their own doorway

I would be ok with that; you don't speak for me.

> self-righteously

Yeah, sure. None of your post reflects on your self-centredness.

We've asked you repeatedly to stop posting in the flamewar style to HN. If you keep doing it we are going to have to ban you.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21345919 and marked it off-topic.

What if a homeless person takes a shit in your door step right in the broad daylight (actual thing that happened at my place of work several years ago). Cool with that as well?

Public restrooms are a problem in many areas. Take San Francisco. People piss and shit on the streets, you would think its because they have no couth, I almost ended up shitting on the street because no one lets you use their toilet without buying something and the friggin lines were too long.

I still dont understand why folks dont let tiny houses and allocate certain parking lots to let the homeless use for sleeping at night. Its not like you can pretend they arent there and make them disappear

Because I guess some significant proportion of the homeless are mentally ill and their behaviour and hygiene can be bad.

I was in a large tube station in london a few months ago and there was an overwhelming stench. The women working there were holding their noses. I was gagging. I asked where the smell was coming from, assuming it was a sewage problem. "From him" one repied, pointing to a guy limping away. He was quite a distance down the corridor, yet reeking the place out.

I think cases like those (due to severe illness) have to be handled by government or at least collectively. I don't think it's something individuals can take on.

'normal' people who've fallen on hard times, well that's entirely another matter. There but for the grace of god go any one of us.

Shitting in the bushes or behind a dumpster because you simply have to go and there's no restroom within reach is an act of necessity. Many of us have found ourselves so disposed. Shitting on someone's doorstep is not something anyone needs to do, ever.

Find me a bush on market street in the finance district.

Although I am somewhat tempted to see exactly how far you will bend over backwards to justify people shitting in doorways in broad daylight, I will resist the temptation and move on. Take care.

:) i agree its not normal behavior but the homeless have been dehumanized enough they arent quite normal. Add a bit of mental issues and no public poopers... its simple to understand

Quite possibly not, but if there aren't toilets, or if the people have literally no inside place to sleep, or if they're homeless due to mental illness, a turd on your doorstep is a symptom of a bigger problem. Agree or disagree?

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