catapult magazine

Read "Red light" by Brenda Heyink

I just finished reading Brenda Heyink’s article, entitled ‘Red Light’. While trying to relate to her witness, and imagining myself in her place, I realized that at no point in her article does she make an explicit reference to having actually approached one of these prostitutes she speaks about, and asking them how they felt living in the Red Light district of Amsterdam. What we receive instead, in this article, are observations from a distance — the feelings produced in Brenda — with no explicit reference to whatever feelings prostitutes must feel. Why doesn’t Brenda ask them herself, instead of speculating from afar?

My complaint to Brenda is that she really doesn’t know what she is talking about until she actually walks up to a prostitute and asks some questions, or shares some feelings, or makes at least some kind of connection with one. The closest Brenda comes, in the article, to approaching a prostitute is to suggest, near the end of the article, that she has contacted people who minister to prostitutes, to see if she could help out. It seems, for Brenda, the distance between her and a prostitute in her neighbourhood is still a distance too far for her to travel.

To my mind, while reading the article, Brenda’s observations (from a distance) struck me as an exercise in avoidance. For example, these moments in the article:

"But living here also means that we are exposed to much that Christians try to avoid…"

"But seeing prostitutes as only victims…causes me to ignore the voice of the prostitutes themselves."

"It would be much simpler to avoid the whole situation…"

"Some days I just try to ignore it."

"Nor do I know a good way of acknowledging the prostitutes."

As much as Brenda laments the ignoring of these men and women, she does a fine job of ignoring, avoiding, and failing to acknowledge them herself. My suggestion to Brenda would be to:

1. Stop staring, you sound like a tourist.

2. Try to get to know your neighbours, they’re probably sick of being stared at, especially by Christians like yourself.

I’m not sure how to take your advice – mostly because I don’t stare. But let me respond to some of the questions you raised in your response.

I had assumed from how I talked about prostitution that the reader would understand that my words were not merely my own personal presuppositions but were based on outside knowledge. It is a knowledge that consists significantly upon books written by prostitutes and sociological research that totalled hundreds of interviews with prostitutes and clients using their services. Yet, it is also based on the personal experience of living in the Red Light District for a year and regularly interacting with people who have spent much of their life experiencing this world around them in many different ways, including having prostituted themselves. It is this total knowledge that makes me realize that any response to prostitution in the Red Light District or elsewhere is not as simplistic as many (including and especially by the average Christian) would believe.

You (along with anyone else interested) are more than welcome to come here and see for yourself (and form an opinion then). Come join us in prayer, sit for a cup of coffee, share a meal, and spend time hanging out with all of us here who have found in this community a welcoming place to start over again.

Having recently been in Amsterdam I couldn’t not see the redlight district, and after having been there I can tell you I’ve never seen anything like it. At first it seems appalling to have mostly-naked women behind glass ready to be purchased. But then I rememberd that there are prostitutes in every city, it’s just that Amsterdam makes them visible. It’s the same commodification of sex, the same degradation of women, the same temptation for men to be unfaithful to their partners as in your city. But in Amsterdam prostitution is regulated which means that these women are relatively protected in comparison to the prostitutes in North American cities who stand on dark corners and get into cars with strangers and are taken advantage of by abusive and manipulative pimps. Maybe we should think about the idea that making prostitution visible is good for everyone involved. Ignoring it and criminalizing it simply makes it worse.

Sometimes "making visible" in a society means encouraging that particular behavior, like in the case of good-looking men and women smoking cigarettes in the movies. Other times "making visible" is meant to make a society safer, like in the case of putting pedaphiles on a list so a neighborhood knows of potential risks for their children. Which category do you think making prostitution visible fits into, dan?

making prostitution visible protects prostitutes who otherwise are easily taken advantage of and abused. of course, the visibility may also serve to encourage prostitution, but from what i saw, it served to banalize it. i don’t think the comparison with pedaphiles is a good one. maybe we could compare it to making HIV/AIDS visible. If there is less shame and more visibility in this case, HIV patients will be less marginalized and more likely to seek treatment. People are also less likely to contract it if they know how to protect themselves against it. Compare this to places like Uganda where HIV is invisible and millions are dying as a result.

Coming back to your comparison with smoking in movies I just want to make it clear that I’m not talking about glamorizing prostitution here, just making visible what is already there. When made visible, it’s not glamorous at all! It’s just commodified sex. Its easier to have compassion on both the buyer and the seller if we can see them.

I’m sure you don’t mean to glamorize it. I was just trying to make clearer distinctions because "making visible" in general cannot be a general rule of thumb. It’s not possible to make all things visible of course. A society could not sustain such a thing, as a whole. All societies try to keep certain things hidden. Perhaps in a super tolerant society we will try to hide our "extremists" who don’t accept the general value of tolerance.

Well, in many cases when intolerant extremists are made visible they look pretty ridiculous. But I don’t think this is about tolerance. I think it’s about being realistic. Prostitution won’t go away, so let’s make it as safe and boring as possible for all involved.

I’ve been a lurker lately, just reading the discussion from the RSS feed…but I saw this article and thought some in this thread might be interested:

’It’s like you sign a contract to be raped’
If you believe their PR, Nevada’s legal brothels are safe, healthy – even fun – places in which to work. So why do so many prostitutes tell such horrific tales of abuse? Julie Bindel reports …

The following is a story/incident that illustrates a bit what it’s like to live in the Red Light District.

last night as i was heading out, several of the community’s children were outside playing. a group of guys (tourists) walking by made a comment: "children shouldn’t be playing here." and i responded fairly loudly "maar wij wonen hier." and then i recognized that i had responded in the wrong language. but my correction to saying "but they live here" was too late to get a response. my implicit question was that if we live here, shouldn’t we be allowed to stand in front of our house and play games together?

somehow by saying we live here, i wanted to show that children playing games in front of one’s own house shouldn’t be considered inappropriate or even unusual. instead the selling of sex and drugs in our neighbourhood ought to be what raises comments about what should not be happening. and so i saw again that the Red Light District often conveys a skewed version of how life should be.