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.