I'm glad I don't live in Amsterdam (revisited)

Warning: The following content displays a sad view of how the world is accentuating the fact that it's a shit hole. Please pray to change the hearts of the corrupted and ignorant for the sake of the future of the pure.

Green light for visits to red-light district
Sun Apr 1, 2007 3:10 PM ET

By Alexandra Hudson

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Amsterdam's sex workers came to work early on Saturday to offer a free look at the city's famed red-light district.

Hundreds of wide-eyed visitors queued in the sunshine to enter the dimly-lit sex clubs and peep shows that draw thousands to the city and to snoop around prostitutes' neon-lit boudoirs.

"I think the open day is a great idea," said Love, an erotic dancer at Amsterdam's Banana Bar, who was on hand to answer questions and pose for photographs in fluorescent negligee.

"It is especially interesting for women. If they learn what we do here they will realize it is not a big deal if their husbands or boyfriends want to come here."

Organizers staged the open day to counter bad publicity surrounding the 800-year-old district after harrowing reports of forced prostitution, human trafficking and organized crime.

More than 30 brothels are fighting closure after officials revoked their licenses last year over suspected links to money laundering and drug dealing.

But tourism authorities say the district -- a warren of narrow alleys and canals lined with sex shops, brothels and neon signs - - is as big an attraction as Amsterdam's art museums and coffee shops, where marijuana is freely smoked and sold.

Every night visitors throng the streets, agog at scantily clad women sitting behind huge red-lit windows, and who sell their services for as little as 50 euros ($66.58).

"I am here because my wife was interested in coming along," said 63-year-old Evert Rijnders from Haarlem.

His wife Jos added: "This has been a chance to look behind the scenes, and some things have definitely surprised me."

Organizer Jacco Wanders displayed a typical prostitute's bedroom, usually concealed behind red velvet curtains and fitted with an emergency alarm bell in case a client turns violent.

He laughed as visitors posed in the tall street-facing window or bounced around on the mattress.

"This day is to help break down taboos around prostitution and to create more understanding and respect," he said.

The "open day" concludes with the unveiling of a statue to an unknown sex worker, intended to honor those employed in the industry world-wide, including those without the same protection found in the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal.

Amsterdam's window-prostitutes are self-employed tax payers, hiring their own windows at around 110 euros per night.

"People who work in the sex industry don't get enough respect," said Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who now runs the red-light district's information center.

"There are millions of them and many are in trouble. Some are abused by clients or pimps and it is important for them to know that they deserve respect."

(Additional reporting by Anna Mudeva)

The sex industry doesn't deserve any respect. My anger doesn't need to be put in words at this point. Not one bit. "(They) don't get enough respect" my ass. The prostitution made possible by this sex industry is the real reason why the PEOPLE who work, a/k/a prostitutes, don't get "enough" respect. They're putting themselves in a position to become exploited- not APPRECIATED. EXPLOITED. The flesh they reveal falls upon the eyes of ravaging hyenas, hungry for that animal urge of sexual satisfaction. It is not the fulfillment of something holy- a gift that man should cherish. It is instead mangled into something hideous, something barbaric. Something only worthy of....nothing. It isn't worthy of anything. Sex isn't bad. It's very good. My gosh, it's Holy. It's the profane acts which abuse it that make it "bad". It's the dire lack of chastity that ruins it all, darkens it with dirt of the devil. If people realised how precious chastity is, they'd be jealously guarding it, saving it for that precious moment of God-given matrimony.

Those women and men who are employed as prostitutes, I sincerely pity. Tears literally well up when I see a very, very beautiful individual carelessly throwing their self away. Allowing hungry, evil eyes to eat them up- and then get away with it. No. It's not just the ones looking for attention. It's also the ones who are way too confident in themselves to think that they can not fear for their very souls. So what if I'm a conservative Catholic saying this. At least I truly care; at least I would fight for the True dignity of others, when others would ignore me, ridicule me or even hate me for caring at all.


I can see myself saying this to some random person on the street and getting a wild look- "Yeah... FReak". Maybe I am a freak. In this subjective world, I may as well be one, but I know that I'm only a freak in the eye of those who behold me as such. If striving to be pure in heart, mind, body and soul is freakish, then so be it. All I want from people, someone, anyone, is to listen with an open ear, see beyond the freakish, conservative Catholic girl I appear to be, and realise the truth in my words, which has been sorely suppressed in the modern age and continues to fall on deaf ears.

Mary, Seat of Wisdom, Pure of Heart, pray for us.

Modern Day Martyr

It's a life of loneliness. You're either too good or too bad; not good enough, not bad enough. You're a minority amongst the majority and a majority of the minority. You have what others don't have. You are what others both loathe and fervently want. You are the rebel amongst rebels, yet you are of the only ones who strive for a true cause. You're not a common man. You are extraordinary. Yet in all your hidden greatness, you are small and insignificant. You're a walking contradiction- made possible by the One who made you. This is your cross. You are a martyr. With reason and faith you are armed against irrationality and hopelessness. Where there seems nothing, there is the greatest Thing of all. When all of reason is against you, it is Truth that is Reason enough.


Artless disclaimer: This is nothing profound. What can be profound if it's nothing new to the world? This is merely my frustration at how lost we all are when we're too sure about our place in the world- because we don't belong to it. How can we have a place if our home is not here?