Amsterdam’s Red Light District: Tales of a Late Night Amsterdam Live Sex Show
So sometime into the early evening of our first day in Amsterdam- I went with my boyfriend at the time- we took a little stroll around the immediate neighborhoods by our hotel and strolled right in the heart of the seedy part of town, Amsterdam’s Red Light District without even trying. It wasn’t the red lights that gave it away as you’d expect, but instead it was the total and complete bombardment of shady looking people creeping in and out of alleys adjacent to extreme hardcore porn shops and theatres, while trying to whisper (unsuccessfully) all of the hot products that they thought our particular look as tourists would foam at the mouth for. They all had non-discernable accents; not proper Dutch, I’m not sure what it was but we walked for what seemed like five minutes through a line of men on either side of our path muttering “ecstacy”, “blow” “mushrooms”, H for heroin and “Dots” for mesculin. Oh and of course the most popular one we were offered, “rock, rock, rock”, which of course was only to be expected as my hippy, flowery getup next to my boyfriends nice jeans and trendy but sophisticated gray collared shirt clearly identified us as the type to want to buy crack off some mumbling strung out slum kid in a back alley of the seedy Amsterdam’s Red Light District.
Anyway, we managed to successfully dodge the dealers and made it into the real exciting part of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. And this is where I found what I had been looking for. Windows upon windows upon windows on top of windows lined the street straight down and even though I was warned I still felt shocked that they really actually used a red light. Most of the windows were simply outlined with a bright red light and the prostitutes would stand in the middle behind a glass facing the passersby and performing such marketing techniques as dancing seductively, touching themselves a little bit discreetly over their clothes and showing off with practiced choose me choose me type of facial expressions. In many windows you could see into the room inside where a single twin bed was waiting. Once the woman obtained a customer she’d close her curtain flick off that red light and disappear for a bit. It was fascinating this other culture that is so foreign to the society I live in. I mean sure, I’ve seen my fair share of hookers, but the ones I’ve witnessed have nearly all been cracked out or doped up stumbling down the only major commercial road in small, usually wealthy towns where I grew up. And when spotting them they were often in handcuffs. But these girls were actually attractive and looked like every day down to earth wholesome girls that I wouldn’t be surprised finding myself friends with. It was so interesting to watch and my boyfriend had to keep stopping me from staring as I was truly mesmerized by this lifestyle and the girls and how they go to do this type of job.
But my boyfriend got over the scene rather quickly and he didn’t really find the area to be so pleasant to walk around in, said he found it a little depressing and pitiful so reluctantly I agreed to leave the area. But then, lo and behold right there in front of us as we were leaving Amsterdam’s Red Light District, was a big sign with a pink elephant on it and a list of show times and prices. My Amsterdam expert had specifically mentioned that there was an Amsterdam live sex show that was very popular that went under this same pink elephant name. I was dying to see it. My boyfriend did agree to this one because, come on a live sex show! As disturbing as it might be an Amsterdam live sex show is a crazy thing to have access to and well, we really needed to at least check it out.
Well. We checked it out alright. And it was definitely an experience . I’m glad I took part in it, but it was certainly nothing exciting or remarkable. One would expect an Amsterdam live sex show, especially one that featured a lesbian act at the end as they often did as a special for the night, to be either disgusting or erotic. But this Pink Elephant place representing the Amsterdam live sex show, I can assure you, was neither of the two. It was an extremely odd experience with a room setup theatre style (or actually I think it really was a theatre as the chairs and floor sloped down). We walked in and took seats halfway toward the back. The place was rather cold, there were not sexy decorations or music to get you in the mood, no sexy wait staff serving your drinks, the room and the people in it simply existed. And so, unfortunately did the Amsterdam live sex performers. Basically the structure of the show was that there were three different heterosexual couples and each had their turn to fornicate on a raised circular platform, which I’m guessing was cushioned. The platform revolve around while they did their deed, I’m guessing to show off very angle. I was expecting something slightly embarrassing at the least. Something crossing limits and similar to a porn video in other words first __ But the music was slow (and not in a sensual way, it sounded like snake charmer music and each couple followed suit in rhythm speed. There was no kissing or extensive playful fondling between any of the couples their acts were all cold, practices and clearly extremely boring for the performers. They all had blank stares during the whole process. And the only way you know that each set was over was that the lights dimmed and I think some sort of red curtain came down. Either way, it was bizarre.
And each couple maintained the same stoic vibe that the first two did, including the lesbian the end. My initial reaction was to critique the performers as doing a bad unentertaining job until the lesbians finished and the curtain when opened again exposed none other than the same two we saw first during our show. I realized then that each couple had to perform this gruesome activity over and over the same way for hours on end and then I felt bad for them
The onlookers like us were allowed to watch the show over and over if they so desired. Some people who were there prior to us stayed again. We, on the other hand got the hell out of there.
