Amsterdam's Addiction To Lust

It will either make me mad or proud. Anticipating my upcoming trip to Amsterdam, I knew what made it most famous. Although this was not the reason for my flight to the city, it was something I was curious to see with my own eyes. I have always thought I was quite a progressive person - happily able to speak about sex with ease and interest. I adore lingerie and feeling sexy, fascinated with sexual identities and the portrayal of sex in art. Amsterdam being unashamed in its sexual nature, I believed I might actually enjoy the red-tinted side of the city. That walking up and down the streets with women free to work in an industry mostly illegal - that this act of legalisation would ensure their safety and ethical treatment.

I was not proud. Watching women in their twenties stand by the window of a blood-filled room, unengaged and uninterested in anything other than their mobile phones. Truthfully, it was depressing. My idea of the infamous Red Light District consisted of women wearing little other than feathers and glitter. Dancing in the windows or posing provocatively, doing something. A man in his youth knocks on the door to be greeted by a beautiful woman. How much? No introductions, no pleasantries. A simple question and a simple answer - one far lower than I suspected, making the entire situation even more upsetting. Here are these gorgeous young women in tiny leotards charging practically nothing for their bodies. A teenage boy pees in the street after receiving his service while his friends film him and laugh. It was not respectful, it was not sexy. It was a cheap exchange of something that should be intimate.

Stepping into the sex museum, I was unsure what to expect. Perhaps, the history of sex depiction in literature, of pornography or prostitution legalisation. Amsterdam's sex culture in the past and the present day. Instead, I was instantly greeted by two mechanical dolls simulating a man's orgasm. Nobody looked at this, or heard this, and put a hand on their chin uttering, Yes, yes. Very interesting. Rather, spectators attempted to contain their laughter and faces of horror. Making our way through the museum, many walls were covered with photographs of people having sex. Men and women, men and men, women and women, a bit of everything. Vaginal penetrative sex, anal penetrative sex, oral sex. It was all there, it seemed endless and impossible to escape. At one point, I could not look at any more. It felt unnatural to view these images surrounded by strangers in the daytime. Past the staircase, there were paintings displayed to the ceiling. Amongst the explicit and graphic art was a painting of a man, toned and tanned, wearing only a pair of blue jeans. He was looking down as the angle emphasised his bulging crotch. The artwork was sexual, yes. But, unlike those surrounding, it was sexy.

In the 1962 incomplete film ‘Something's Got To Give’, actress Marilyn Monroe was directed to emerge from a swimming pool in a beige bikini - as to appear almost nude. It was Monroe's idea to enter the water wearing the bikini and leave it wearing nothing other than her skin. The scene was extraordinary because it was rare. Unlike cinema in the twenty-first century where a teenager, not even of legal age to engage in their own sexual interactions, can watch actors have sex on the big screen. A recent multiple award-winning movie ‘Poor Things’, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, had such frequent explicit scenes that I could not enjoy the story. It makes me wonder how different the film could have been if it had been directed by a woman.

There was something almost comedic about the attitude towards sex in Amsterdam. Restaurants would have miniature statues of penises in the window and gift shops would have breasts and bottoms and more penises on keychains, fridge magnets, even hats. Watching children travel through the city in what can only be described as a wheelbarrow attached to a bicycle, I considered what their views on sex would grow to become. Even the Red Light District has no age limit so there is no stopping an unsupervised minor from being exposed to the pornographic photographs displayed outside of a sex show or the women selling their bodies for too little. I hoped that I would feel empowered for the sex workers and strippers and the progression of feminism when visiting such a sex-proud city. Though, having sex represented in this completely unromanticised and easily accessible manner, I fear feminism will be stuck and unable to move forward at all.

Despite having a disheartening reality sink into my stomach when the sky turned red, Amsterdam remains one of my favourite foreign cities I have visited. Record and video tape stores scattered the streets, art galleries greeted us at every corner. The golden chandelier shining in a slim emerald house and a floating home with plants dancing around a five-foot easel. The city is a free spirit. Perhaps this explains its explicitly candid representation of sex. It is not romantic or precious. Nor, intimate or, indeed, private. As sex continues to be profited upon in this capitalist society, I wonder, will it ever again be ours?