Gossip ‘journalist’ Henk van der Meyden and sex boss Theo Heuft have teamed up to produce a musical about the latter’s former brothel, Yab Yum.

Yab Yum, named after a Tantric position called ‘woman on top’ in the West, was the iconic brothel of the Netherlands until it was closed down last year by the city of Amsterdam using the dubious Bibob law, which allows local governments to refuse permits on the basis of rumours.

Speaking of which, it was rumoured that Yab Yum was the place where one brought business associates if deals needed to be closed.

According to Radio Netherlands, Heuft told the Telegraaf (Van der Meyden’s employer):

It’s an honour that there’s going to be a musical about my life’s work. That’s what Yab Yum was. I mounted prostitution in a golden frame.

[The musical will allow us] to enter a world of beautiful young women, of glamour and glitter.

(Photo by Chana de Wolf, some rights reserved.)

The Hoerengracht (literally ‘whore canal’) is the clever name of an exhibition by Americans Ed and Nancy Kienholz currently at the National Gallery in London featuring ‘an artistic re-creation of Amsterdam’s red light district’.

Althought the play on words is excellent, this sentence, however, is rubbish: “The Herengracht, or Gentlemen’s Canal, is home to Amsterdam’s prostitutes, who famously sit in windows to ply their trade.”

The Herengracht has beautiful houses, lawyers, offices, a few nice restaurants, but no whores. The nearest girls are on the Spui, roughly two streets down. So much for fact checking.

Someone on television said this exhibition would come to Amsterdam, and I wonder why anyone would bother looking at some artsy-farty rendering of the real thing when we can go, see and even experience the real thing. I could be missing the point, who knows.

(Link: independent.co.uk)

A group of Amsterdam citizens critical of the way the city is run has decided to change its name and logo under heavy pressure of the city government, Volkskrant reported last week (Dutch).

The group called Ai! Amsterdam (meaning Ouch! Amsterdam, a play on the official city marketing slogan of the city, I Amsterdam) has publicly criticized the city’s ban on drinking-while-standing, the gradual closing down of the Red Light district, and other less illuminated measures. The city has threatened with costly legal procedures if the group do not give up their name and logo, procedures which the group estimate would cost them tens of thousands of euro.

Ai! Amsterdam points out to De Pers (Dutch) that the city centre’s candidacy for becoming a UNESCO world heritage site (not just the canals, the entire city centre!) threatens the liveliness and openness of the city even further, creating a real risk of Amsterdam becoming just as staid as Bruges, Belgium, which is also a world heritage site. I think the group are underexaggerating things. At least Bruges started out boring. Amsterdam on the other hand has something to lose.

Ironically, the official I Amsterdam manifesto proclaims: “It’s time for Amsterdam to speak out for itself and make its relevance known in a proud, supportive and positive manner.”

(Illustration: the old Ai! Amsterdam logo, source: Ai!)

If you’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to be a window prostitute, now you can actually learn the tricks of the trade from an expert. The course is given by Mariska Majoor who used to work as a prostitute and now runs the Prostitute Information Centre in Amsterdam’s Red Light district. She lets people experience what it’s like to work as a window prostitute. Majoor says that she has been telling her story for ages and that “people still gape in awe and find it exciting, but don’t understand what it’s really like.”

Of all the people in Amsterdam, Mariska Majoor is probably the best ‘teacher’ you’ll ever have. A local expert in prostitution and educating people about it, she apparently provides information to some 22,000 visitors a year.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl)

In an attempt to reduce the number of women forced into prostitution, unexperienced working girls in Amsterdam’s red light district are to be interviewed and must answer a bunch of questions about why they want to get into the ‘oldest profession in the world’. Bordello owners will have to inquire about identity, age and nationality of the girl, her family, any criminal record, education and language skills. The first three you can get from a passport, unless it’s fake. It sounds like questions immigration usually asks even though they have 20 copies of the info already.

The girls will also have to divulge how they get to work (bicycle vs. some big guy in a BMW who tells me to shut up all the time?) and demonstrate ’some knowledge’ of the Dutch language and of Amsterdam. Speaking Dutch, fine, but I bet they do have to speak a lot of English with those shy Japanese businessmen. Knowledge of Amsterdam? Like what, where you can get food at 2 am? The local government can barely get taxi drivers to show off their knowledge of Amsterdam.

According to the article, many employers already take the time to check out their future employees, but not all of them. The idea is to get everyone to weed out forced prostitution. If I remember correctly, I once read that 70% of all prostitutes in Amsterdam were foreigners, which I imagine makes the city ripe for exploiting women. But I don’t know, and hope this is all for the better. Oh, and only if this screening works will it be applied to other places in Amsterdam were prostitutes work.

(Link: parool.nl)

A man got arrested last Sunday after he kept his socks on for sex. The prostitute at the Doubletstraat in The Hague whose services he was availing himself of thought his behaviour was strange and asked him about it—she thought maybe he had cold feet. The man admitted that he was carrying a valuable load of drugs in his socks, and even offered to sell some of it to his supplier of sex. Instead the woman called out to two police officers who were passing through the street and who in turn arrested the man and discovered that indeed, he had hidden “229 drug balls, 32 pony packs cocaine and 2 bags of marijuana” in his socks, according to the Telegraaf (Dutch).

Photo by Lauren Weinhold, some rights reserved. Boy is there a lot of sock porn on Flickr.

The city of Eindhoven wants to reward street hookers for good behaviour, which seems to mean getting out of the hooker business. Instead of earning ‘air miles’, originally a Dutch concept by the way, prostitutes get to earn ’street miles’ so they can buy things from the city. I still have no idea what that could be as I write this!

The city has a range of plans to help hookers stop with their street corner activities. Interestingly enough, the plans were not thought up by bureaucrats, but by… designers! City council called in the Eindhoven Design Academy and the Cologne International School of Design. The Germans thought up a plan to provide structure to the hookers’ lives with the help of coaches. By way of a credit system they will be rewarded when they participate in certain – I suppose – more wholesome activities. They will also get some sort of common room where they can meet and swap stories.

(Link: waarmaarraar.nl, Photo:omroepbrabant.nl)

Two female ex students from Rotterdam have started an escort service that specialises in deflowering men. The ladies who work for the escort service have been specially trained for this. Clients can lose their virginity in bed, in the sauna or in a limousine, even by two women at once. And instead of cuddling, the women will answer their questions about sex in general.

According to owners Zoë and Marieke, most male virgins between 20 and 35 years of age work in the IT sector. ”Every virgin I know works with computers. They are very nice, but have a lack of social skills. They mean well, but get increasingly anxious because they don’t come into contact with women.”

(Link)

Amsterdam is famous for its wonderful canals, the Van Gogh museum, the flower market, the … ah, who are we kidding, when you go to Amsterdam, you visit the Red Light District. If you have been to the Red Light District before, but shyness or prudishness, or even plain old out-of-pocketness have stopped you from availing yourself of the services of a prostitute, or from watching an erotic show, now’s your chance to look behind the famous red-lit windows. On Saturday March 31 from noon to 6 p.m., the Prostitutie Informatie Centrum will hold an open house (Dutch) at the Red Light District. You’ll be able to visit prostitutes’ rooms, a sex theatre, and even (children, cover your eyes) the Salvation Army.