We expected the rowdy stag party hoards and seedy streets. I wanted to snap at him that I am far from ignorant and my knowledge of prostitution is why I reject the lazy laissez-faire approach to commercial sexual abuse.
Instead, he huffed-off upstairs and I finally sought out the loo. I wondered if once the hangover hit whether they would think about how the women they paid to abuse came to be in brothels, and I wondered what expectations they held for the women and girls in their own families.
Do they think all women are disposable? Do they think all women exist to be paid to slake the sexual appetites of pissed-up British men, or are those at home somehow different? The words of men on Punternet demonstrate more eloquently than I can what sex tourists think of prostituted women. Ultimately musing on their motivations is pointless, all that matters is that these ordinary men pay to abuse vulnerable women because they can. As with many European capitals, from the late seventeenth century many people in the city of Amsterdam grew rich from the exploitation of enslaved trafficked people, today little seems to have changed.
In a swift move he jerked her head to face forward when she tried to move away from him. Suddenly I realised what I was seeing and went to try and follow them, within seconds they were lost in the throng. It was just a fleeting insight into the reality behind the pink neon windows and sanitised tours.
They treat me like dirt. They hurt me. From the magnificent and well-funded public services to exquisite art and architecture, Amsterdam has much to be proud of. Given this, it is baffling to see a horror of the city, namely the Red Light District, promoted as a kooky tourist attraction.
