Marion Pluskota
Amsterdam, now the capital of the Netherlands, was founded in the twelfth century, and it grew rapidly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thanks to the development of its port and colonial ventures. The city suffered a decline from the mid-eighteenth century onwards but with industrialization picking up at the end of the nineteenth century, Amsterdam regained its status as an influential European city. In parallel with liberal legislation on certain drugs, Amsterdam also has a worldwide reputation regarding prostitution. The red-light district and the whole city to a certain extent appear in contemporary popular culture as the epitome of permissiveness and luxury. It has attracted international attention as indicated by the fact that millions of tourists visit the city every year. Amsterdam caters for international sex tourists, and in the global market and global imaginary, the city’s red-light district has acquired a reputation comparable to that of Thailand with its open and visible sex mer-chandizing. From a legal point of view, contemporary Amsterdam (and the Netherlands in general) is an interesting case study on legalized prostitution, showing the drawbacks and positive aspects of national and municipal efforts to control and supervise prostitution in a legal environment greatly influenced by globalization. The history and reputation of prostitution in Amsterdam ren-der it unique, and the abundant sources available make it possible to trace the evolution of this trade and its relations with the city, its citizens, and the official institutions which have governed urban spaces. Because of this long history and the different policies that have been implemented over the cen-turies, the links between prostitution and urban space can be studied much more effectively than in most other cases. From the micro-scale to global in-teractions, Amsterdam’s history of prostitution shows how location, migration, and the global market have influenced prostitutes’ work, whilst having a non-negligible impact on the city’s economy.1
1 Lotte van de Pol, The Burgher and the Whore: Prostitution in Early Modern Amsterdam (Oxford, 2011); Michaël Deinema and Manuel B. Aalbers, “A Global Red-Light City”, in Michael de Waard (ed.), Imagining Global Amsterdam: History, Culture, and Geography in a World City (Amsterdam, 2012), pp. 273–287.
Historiography and Sources
Despite its long history, the historiography on Amsterdam prostitution is im-balanced, as is shown by the fact that the Middle Ages and early modern pe-riod have been little researched. One history of prostitution in Amsterdam is the well-known book by Lotte van de Pol which gives interesting insights into the role of prostitution in the seventeenth and eighteenth century port economy of the city. However, no recent academic work has focused on the early modern period although various sources exist which could be used to study prostitution in the city in depth.2 Confessie boeken (sentencing records which include the testimonies of parties accused of crimes) and the other ju-dicial archives which were extensively used by van de Pol offer various details about prostitutes’ lives in the port city. These sources can be complemented with a study of the literature of the time. Indeed, both Dutch and international travellers wrote about the harbour district of Amsterdam and complimented (or wrote scathingly about) the entertainments available and the presence of prostitutes on the streets and in public houses.3 For example, Het Amster-damsch Hoerdom was published in 1681 and reprinted nine times. Translated into French and German, it was used as a template for London Jilt (1683). These works of fiction followed a literary trend which started at the end of the seven-teenth century and exploded in the eighseven-teenth century with a proliferation of novels featuring prostitutes as their main characters, and sometimes the books verged on pornography.4 Though the various adventures of the main protago-nists are fictitious, many authors seemed to have relied on their personal ex-periences when they described the places their characters inhabited, allowing for a more nuanced representation of seventeenth-century music houses and
2 van de Pol, The Burgher and the Whore; J.F. van Slobbe, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis en de bestrijding der prostitutie te Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 1937); Sijmons Diet, “Een noodzakelijk kwaad, maar voor wie? Prostitutie in de tweede helft van de negentiende eeuw”, in Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis (1980), pp. 65–110; Petra de Vries, Kuisheid voor mannen, vrijheid voor vrouwen (Amsterdam, 1997); Petra de Vries, “Josephine Butler and the Making of Femi-nism: International Abolitionism in the Netherlands (1870–1914)”, Women’s History Review, 17 (2008), pp. 257–277.
3 van de Pol, The Burgher and the Whore, pp. 9, 19; J.H. Bose, “Had de mensch met één vrouw niet connen leven…”, in Prostitutie in de literatuur van de zeventiende eeuw (Zutphen, 1985).
4 See for example Anonym, D’Openhertige Juffrouw (Amsterdam, 1680), a sixteenth-century century “sex manual” republished regularly in the seventeenth century; Pietro Aretino, The School of Whoredom (London, 2003); Inger Leemans, Het woord is aan de onderkant (Nijme-gen, 2002); Gert Hekma and Herman Roodenburg, (eds), Soete minne en helsche boosheit, seksuele voorstelling in Nederland 1300–1850 (Nijmegen, 1988), pp. 109–144.
eighteenth-century brothels. Prostitutes and brothel scenes were also often painted by Dutch artists in the seventeenth century, despite the Calvinist influ-ence on artistic creation. Although the representations did not correspond to a realistic depiction of prostitution, elements in the paintings give information about the environment surrounding exchanges with prostitutes.5
The few studies on prostitution in early modern Amsterdam have focused on the representation of prostitutes but the relations between the authorities, inhabitants, and prostitutes have not been studied in depth (with the excep-tion of the work by van de Pol). This lack of a reflecexcep-tion on social control is somewhat counterbalanced by studies on prostitution in nineteenth-century Amsterdam. Indeed the moral and legal status of prostitutes changed after the French invasion of 1806. The French system of municipal regulation was put in place by French officials in garrison towns and to a certain extent also in Amsterdam during the French presence. However, the municipal authorities in Amsterdam were not keen on strictly regulating prostitutes and the French system was quickly abandoned, although other Dutch cities such as The Hague kept it in place. The existing historiography has tended to focus on the rela-tions between the municipality, the police, and prostitutes; indeed, despite the lack of official regulation, the police kept an eye on prostitutes.6 Petra de Vries has published various studies on the discrepancies between legal municipal systems and how they influenced the development of the abolitionist move-ment in the Netherlands. De Vries’ works also show how concerns about the white slave trade (linked with the abolitionist movement) led to the closure of Amsterdam’s brothels in 1897 and state-wide prohibition on brothel-keeping in 1911. Studies have shown that both officials and the population in general were not in favour of the harsh treatment of prostitutes and the authorities tended to apply the regulations loosely; the closure of brothels (Bordelenverbod) has been seen by historians as a measure to prevent trafficking without criminal-izing prostitutes.7 Research on the ban on brothels has shown how men and women adapted to this regulation and how certain places, such as cigar-shops, became façades for brothels.8
Contemporary Amsterdam is a particularly useful ground for anthropologists, sociologists, geographers, and researchers working in the fields of criminology
5 Lotte van de Pol, “Beeld en wekerlijkheid van de prostitutie in de zeventiende eeuw”, in Ibid.
6 Martin Bossenbroek and Jan Kompagnie, Het mysterie van de verdwenen bordelen (Amster-dam, 1998).
7 de Vries, Kuisheid voor mannen, vrijheid voor vrouwen; de Vries, “Josephine Butler and the Making of Feminism”; An Huitzing, Betaalde Liefde (Bergen, 1983), p. 57.
8 Bossenbroek and Kompagnie, Het mysterie van de verdewenen bordelen, pp. 302–303.
and law.9 Since the early debates in parliament on the legalization of prostitu-tion in the Netherlands, which was officially enacted in 2000, both the naprostitu-tional government and the city of Amsterdam have commissioned various research projects about the pros and cons of the legalization of prostitution and broth-els from human and economic perspectives.10 Contemporary research has often been based on interviews, and photographs, documentaries, films, and biographies have also been used to collect information on prostitution in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Official data has been collected by the city council, the government, and independent researchers, but it is still dif-ficult to analyse and compare certain findings, notably on human trafficking.
The number of women trafficked in the Netherlands is not definitively known, but the main issue with studies on trafficking relates to the various definitions and methodologies used to calculate the extent of trafficking; for example, cer-tain studies published before the legalization of prostitution in the Nether-lands considered most foreign women as having been trafficked even though they went to the Netherlands willingly.11 These discrepancies in definitions (trafficking can also involve local women) make it difficult for researchers to give a clear picture of the reality, all the more as the media have been known to relay misleading information.12
Indeed, some researchers have been interested in demystifying certain ideas that the media have reported about human trafficking, coercion in prostitu-tion, and pimping. The Dutch character known as the “loverboy”, for instance, came into being at the beginning of this century as the result of the unease
9 Phil Hubbard, “Afterword: Exiting Amsterdam’s Red Light District”, City, 16 (2012), pp. 195–201, 195.
10 See for example, Beke’s research and Anton van Wijk et al., Kwetsbaar beroep, onderzoek naar de prostitutiebranche in Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2010) which was commissioned by the government; available at: https://www.amsterdam.nl/projecten/project-1012/publicaties- project/externe-onderzoeken/kwetsbaar-beroep/; last accessed 7 July 2017; Marcel Buster, Straatprostitutie & vrouwennachtopvang in Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2007), which was commissioned by the Amsterdam municipality; Dirk J. Korf et al., Tippelen na de zone, straatprostitutie en verborgen prostitutie in Amsterdam (Amsterdam, 2005); Sasja Biesma et al., Verboden bordelen, evaluatie opheffing bordeelverbod: niet legale prostitutie (Gron-ingen, 2006).
11 For instance, Fanny Polania Molina and Marie-Louise Janssen, I Never Thought This Would Happen to Me (Rotterdam, 1998).
12 Frank Bovenkerk and Marion Van San, “Loverboys in the Amsterdam Red Light District:
A Realist Approach to the Study of a Moral Panic”, Crime, Media, Culture, 7 (2011), pp. 185–199; Marion Van San and Frank Bovenkerk, “Secret Seducers”, Crime, Law and Social Change, 60 1 (2013), pp. 67–80.
caused by young Dutch girls falling under the “spell” of young men (usually, but not always, a second or third generation child of immigrants) who would then force them into prostitution. However, such so-called “loverboy” practices are not in any way different from other pimping methods, nor have cases of forced prostitution increased over time.13 It should also be noted that researchers’ in-terviews with prostitutes and pimps have produced results that contradict the aims and missions of municipal projects.
Though contemporary prostitution in Amsterdam is well known, the main subject(s) of research have been the women working behind the windows, which is a specific type of prostitution, as well as women working in registered brothels and adult entertainment venues where live sex acts are performed.
These women are part of the legal area of prostitution and therefore are more accessible to the police, social workers, and researchers but unregistered prostitution is the fastest growing type in Amsterdam and research on these women remains difficult.14 Through registration with the Chamber of Com-merce (Kamer van Koophandel—KvK) women have been granted the status of independent workers and employees, and they are taxed; while women work-ing at licensed houses were compelled to register, a study carried out in 2005 showed that 70 per cent of the women working at licensed houses were not registered with the tax office.15 Moreover, these figures do not include women who worked with escort services or from home, as these forms of prostitution were not covered by the lifting of the ban on brothels in 2000. This issue is now covered by new legislation that was enacted in 2014 (see below). Although there are some figures on street prostitutes, women working as escorts and in-dependently outside the red-light areas, as well as former prostitutes, have not been the subject of academic research yet. It is unclear how women working without being registered and registered women working in the windows com-pare. The links between different working spaces deserve further analysis;16 for example, how do women move from one working space to another and how do they think of them? Changing work patterns and environments are most likely a career choice and the extent of prostitutes’ agency in this regard is dif-ficult to evaluate. The most recent report on prostitution in Amsterdam states
13 Bovenkerk and Van San, “Loverboys in the Amsterdam Red Light District”; Bovenkerk and Van San, “Secret Seducers”; and for the general public, H. Korterink, Echte mannen eten wel kaas (Amsterdam, 2010).
14 van Wijk et al., Kwetsbaar beroep, p. 213.
15 Helga Dekker et al., Evaluatie opheffing bordeelverbod: De sociale positie van prostituees, 2006 (Amsterdam, 2006), p. 30.
16 Note the exception of Lucie van Mens, Prostitutie in Bedrijf (Rotterdam, 1997).
that social mobility between working spaces can be quite high (for instance between brothel prostitution and window prostitution), but more academic research on this topic would be welcome,17 as would work on the issues of segregation by age, gender, and nationality, and further studies on prostitutes’
life-cycles in any given period should be encouraged.
What Defines Prostitution in Amsterdam?
Prostitution has never been a uniform, clearly defined business. Over time its definition has changed, influenced by external and internal factors. Prostitutes themselves differentiate between amateurs and professionals, and historically a hoer (whore) was a woman who had sexual intercourse outside of marriage but not for money.18 Fornication and adultery were considered degrading be-haviours and as such were frowned upon by the community. The exchange of money was not the main concern of the authorities in the early modern period;
however, it is under the terms hoer and hoererij that prostitutes can be found in the Amsterdam archives. Van de Pol noticed a semantic shift in the expres-sions used by the court and in prostitutes’ testimonies over the years. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, prostitution started to be considered a live-lihood distinct from immoral behaviour and adultery.19 The uniqueness of Amsterdam in comparison to other cities such as Paris or Florence was its strict Calvinist culture which forbade sexual relations between unmarried people;
prostitutes could therefore be arrested for having sexual encounters without being married but the exchange of money was not the decisive factor. As such, we can find them in the judicial archives but as the Amsterdam municipality had a very limited “police force”, restraining the growth of prostitution appears to have been very difficult.20
The term prostitute will be used in place of “whore” (hoer) and sex worker in this chapter, although all of them can be seen as being anachronistic. The term
“prostitute”, which was not in use in official regulations until the nineteenth century, refers to a more neutral term than “whore”, whereas the expression
“sex worker” reflects a postmodernist idea of prostitution as a form of labour to which rights and regulations can be applied. Contemporary sex workers,
17 van Wijk et al., Kwetsbaar beroep, p. 33.
18 van de Pol, The Burgher and the Whore, pp. 5–6.
19 Ibid., p. 6.
20 Available at: http://publications.nichibun.ac.jp/en/item/symp/2001-03-30/pub; last ac-essed 7 July 2017.
some of whom are union members, demand labour rights and defend their way of earning money. The notion of the “pressure group” is often associated with the expression “sex worker”; they consider themselves, as do the state or state authorities for example in the Netherlands, Germany, and Nevada where prostitution is legal, to be a particular group of workers. Such a characteriza-tion in the early modern period was more or less absent. Historically, while some prostitutes defended their right to work, there were no large national or international pressure groups as is the case today. Admittedly, the French sys-tem of regulation created a new category of workers based on the authorities’
perceptions of prostitution, but we do not know to what extent this change of attitude also applied to these women; did they consider themselves to be members of one specific group of workers or did they keep defining them-selves as seamstress, washerwomen, or milliners? The absence of the proof of a common reference between nineteenth-century prostitutes or of a pressure group led by prostitutes makes “sex worker” look like an anachronism when applied to periods before the end of the twentieth century.
The basic understanding of the prostitutional exchange since the nine-teenth century has involved the exchange of money for a sexual act and in this study that is taken up within the scope of such acts between men and women.
This demarcation unfortunately leaves aside men and transgender individuals working in the sex industry, as well as the people whose initial work contracts did not include sexual relations with a client, such as strippers and other per-formers.21 The sexual encounter is often preceded by an act of soliciting by which a person accosts someone in order to offer sexual services. While selling one’s body for sex has never been legally condemned in Amsterdam, soliciting has often been targeted by legislators, notably within the framework of “disor-derly behaviour”. This distinction is based on moral considerations; the act of soliciting is understood to be an interaction visible to the public and occurring in the public sphere. The sexual intercourse and the exchange of money that follow soliciting are deemed to be private matters that are usually kept out of the public eye.22 Because of this distinction, sexual exchanges for money cannot be supervised as effectively as the processes that occur before sexual intercourse and payment.
Definitions of prostitution also vary according to the location of the pros-titutes. In contemporary Amsterdam the working spaces of prostitution took
21 See for example Christine Harcourt and Basil Donovan, “The Many Faces of Sex Work”, Sexually Transmitted Infections, 81 (2005), pp. 201–206.
22 Joyce Outshoorn, “Policy Change in Prostitution in the Netherlands: From Legalization to Strict Control”, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 9 (2012), pp. 233–243, 234.
and still take multiple forms, from street work to private clubs and homes. The international reputation of Amsterdam for prostitution led to the diversifica-tion of entertainment venues open to both tourists and locals. Live sex shows, strip clubs, massage parlours, and theme nights in brothels cater for all types of customers. According to the woman’s status and her labour relations, she is more or less mobile in the city and can use one working space to solicit and another to have sexual intercourse. The working space often defines the type of prostitutional exchange offered, or in other words, the sexual services pro-vided. These range from a hand job to a full night with a “girlfriend experience”
which appends emotions to an otherwise impersonal sexual encounter.
which appends emotions to an otherwise impersonal sexual encounter.