Disclaimer: This post is R-rated. Proceed with caution if there are some things you would rather not know about me.
So…remember when Lizzo got sued last year for attending a sex show with her dancers where they ate a banana out of a stripper’s vagina?
Well, I’ve learned firsthand this is the kind of thing that happens on a regular Tuesday night in Amsterdam’s red light district. The location of the infamous banana shenanigans is Casa Rosso, one of Amsterdam’s erotic theatres. But let’s start at the beginning of my evening in the red light district, accompanied by Lauren, my reluctant partner in crime.
The main strip of the red light district is a clean, aesthetic street, split down the middle by a canal. The street is lined with sex shops, strip clubs, peep shows, and advertising that features bronzed models with giant fake tits. There are also many rooms with large windows concealed by red curtains. These are the rooms rented by the sex workers.
After a dip into a sex shop where we find many gadgets and substances we have never heard of before, Lauren and I decide we are not nearly drunk enough for this place yet. We decide to explore the surrounding neighborhood first. It’s a touristy area where you can find shops selling edibles and space cakes alongside the usual chips and candy bars, as well as the small but informative Cannabis Museum.
Space cakes and edibles:
Our tour of the nightlife begins at the Amsterdam Icebar, which is one of those incomprehensible and random tourist attractions that are extremely popular for some reason. You have to pay an entry fee, which covers three drinks. A Brazilian man dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow gives each of us a puffer jacket and gloves and leads us into a room which is essentially a massive icebox with walls made of ice. The pirate serves us flavored vodka in shot glasses which are also made of ice, and tells us firmly that we are allowed to “lick and suck, but do not bite.”
Lauren later gets in trouble with the pirate for this reason.
We drink the vodka as quickly as possible so we can get out of the cold, which effectively gets us drunk. We end up in a gay bar next, where we are advised to avoid the red light district, but after a couple more drinks, the pull of morbid fascination is too strong.
Upon our drunken return to the district, we are confronted with a transformed street. The neon lights of the strip clubs and peep shows have been turned on, and many of the red curtains are open. The street is awash in red light, reflected in the black mirror of the canal water, and sex workers pose in the windows.
Most of them are dressed in leather lingerie and heels.The light makes their skin and hair glow phosphorecent, so they look more like neon signs come to life rather than real people. I am transfixed and can’t help staring, even though it makes me feel complicit in gross objectification. Lauren is horrified.
Yet, we end up inside Casa Rosso theatre, encouraged by a group of other young women entering in front of us. It is a surreal, soulless place where sane people (like us) go to satisfy their morbid fascination, and deeply troubled people (men) go for…other reasons.
In Casa Rosso, you get to watch people have mechanical, dry sex on stage in front of you to songs like “Zombie” by The Cranberries, and wonder if this isn’t the embodiment of patriarchal capitalism being enacted in a twisted parody before your eyes. Because…the problem is…it doesn’t even provide the illusion of good sex and caters only to the straight male gaze.
But anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound. We sit in the second row and stay to watch every single one of the acts. At one point, the “banana song” starts playing and the dancer asks for volunteers from the audience…and the less said about that incident, the better.
When Lauren and I leave the theatre we are mildly traumatized. We say goodbye to the red light district and end up in Gouden Bocht, a popular hangout area for young queer people.
Despite the rather icky aura of female objectification that lingers in the otherwise friendly red light district, Amsterdam is also an extremely queer-friendly city and is considered “the Gay Capital of Europe.” Homosexuaity was decriminalized here way back in 1811. While the US was steeped in the homophobia of the purple scare in the 80’s, Amsterdam was busy erecting the first monument to the LGBT+ soldiers who died in WW2.
The nightclub Exit is filled with people our own age and serves as a good pallette cleanser. It has hyped music, fog machines, stripper poles, and lots of hot gay men. Everything you could possibly want from a nightclub. However, after Lauren has alcohol spilled down her shirt and I get sucked into an extremely confusing lesbian love triangle involving three best friends, we decide to call it a night.
And what a night it was. Certainly not a night to be repeated anytime soon. I wake up the next morning with “Zombie” stuck in my head and a penis-shaped lollipop on the nightstand. Best not to dwell on these things.
When Lauren and I leave the theatre we are mildly traumatized. We say goodbye to the red light
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