Red Light District, Amsterdam
This occured during a one month trip through Europe. Amsterdam was the first stop in a 9 country tour. This was my first and only journal entry from the trip. Whoops.
It’s not red the way you likely pictured it, it’s a faint red glow emanating from the rooms of the many women, casting its hue over the tourists, curious and perverts on the street below. It’s not even a district really, a mere street split in two by one of Amsterdam’s many canals. We pass buildings, the fronts covered with tall glass doors and windows from which the girls—women, whores—beckon you, “Choose me,” “I want you.” We walk at a leisurely pace, slow enough to take in every detail, every luscious curve but quick enough to not be confused for customers. Black men congregate about every other block, whispering in your ear as you pass, “co-Caine,” “estasy”—sharpe C’s in cocaine, no C in ecstasy. Rich and I diligently keep track of the attractive to ugly girl ratio—yes, yes, hmm…no, yes, ugh no never, man did you see her face? They are meat, we buy the meat. We stand over the supermarket fruits, we poke, we prod—we choose. I try to avoid eye contact with most of the girls—oh how they beckon you, make you want them and oh how they want you. They can’t all want money right? Maybe she actually likes me, wants me for more than the contents of my pants pocket. No, she doesn’t want me. She’s given that look to a million other men who think just like me, that these women actually give a shit about us johns. A boat drives through the canal, the smell of stagnant water is kicked up into the red air—it smells like pussy. This street, right now, with at least a hundred wet, just wet, or about to be wet woman smells like pussy. Rich and I almost die laughing—no one else seems to notice.
A brunette.
A blonde.
A curtain closed. Right now someone in there is having raw, passionate, animalistic sex. No rules. Maybe not, maybe it’s awkward, slow, quiet. Maybe its simply just sex. Or maybe she’s blowing him and he is sitting there on the edge of a well worn bed with satin sheets, his eyes wide open, no emotion on his face and he is staring at the wall, that red painted wall bathing in red light, and in that wall and its nothingness he sees himself and that moment, a moment not soon forgotten and he’s asking himself, “Am I really doing this?” Maybe not—fucking curtain leaves so many unanswered questions. Maybe you can pay to just ask questions, I’m sure you can right? Bring a pad and pen and ask away, hell they could even striptease or something sexually constructive—my money’s as good as the next guys. Bring us your kinky, your erotic, your perverse. The complex and confounding dance of courting is eliminated, as clear as the glass that separates you from them. Sex, we chase it, we crave it, we live for it and here it is in all its glory, stripped of its rituals and routines, on display for you, for anyone and everyone is invited.
It’s not red the way you likely pictured it, it’s a faint red glow emanating from the rooms of the many women, casting its hue over the tourists, curious and perverts on the street below. It’s not even a district really, a mere street split in two by one of Amsterdam’s many canals. We pass buildings, the fronts covered with tall glass doors and windows from which the girls—women, whores—beckon you, “Choose me,” “I want you.” We walk at a leisurely pace, slow enough to take in every detail, every luscious curve but quick enough to not be confused for customers. Black men congregate about every other block, whispering in your ear as you pass, “co-Caine,” “estasy”—sharpe C’s in cocaine, no C in ecstasy. Rich and I diligently keep track of the attractive to ugly girl ratio—yes, yes, hmm…no, yes, ugh no never, man did you see her face? They are meat, we buy the meat. We stand over the supermarket fruits, we poke, we prod—we choose. I try to avoid eye contact with most of the girls—oh how they beckon you, make you want them and oh how they want you. They can’t all want money right? Maybe she actually likes me, wants me for more than the contents of my pants pocket. No, she doesn’t want me. She’s given that look to a million other men who think just like me, that these women actually give a shit about us johns. A boat drives through the canal, the smell of stagnant water is kicked up into the red air—it smells like pussy. This street, right now, with at least a hundred wet, just wet, or about to be wet woman smells like pussy. Rich and I almost die laughing—no one else seems to notice.
A brunette.
A blonde.
A curtain closed. Right now someone in there is having raw, passionate, animalistic sex. No rules. Maybe not, maybe it’s awkward, slow, quiet. Maybe its simply just sex. Or maybe she’s blowing him and he is sitting there on the edge of a well worn bed with satin sheets, his eyes wide open, no emotion on his face and he is staring at the wall, that red painted wall bathing in red light, and in that wall and its nothingness he sees himself and that moment, a moment not soon forgotten and he’s asking himself, “Am I really doing this?” Maybe not—fucking curtain leaves so many unanswered questions. Maybe you can pay to just ask questions, I’m sure you can right? Bring a pad and pen and ask away, hell they could even striptease or something sexually constructive—my money’s as good as the next guys. Bring us your kinky, your erotic, your perverse. The complex and confounding dance of courting is eliminated, as clear as the glass that separates you from them. Sex, we chase it, we crave it, we live for it and here it is in all its glory, stripped of its rituals and routines, on display for you, for anyone and everyone is invited.
posted by Eric at
10:26 PM
