amsterdam

WOW. Ok so I haven’t posted in a while, BUTICANEXPLAIN! Here’s the thing, last Tuesday evening I left for Amsterdam, and since then I have been on a magically dysfunctional euro-adventure. You see, when I signed up to study abroad back in the springtime, I was under the impression that the dorm-less conservatory would help me find a place to stay, AND that they had somewhere I could live until I found a room. Why did I think this? Well, because it’s what the people in the study abroad office told me. #HUHinteresting…

BUT ANYWAYS. Long story short, I have (unsuccessfully) been trying to find a room for rent in Amsterdam all summer.

At this point you may be wondering “Are you currently homeless?” Thankfully, no. My only friend in Amsterdam very graciously let me stay in his apartment in the middle of the Red Light District so that I would not have to sleep on a park bench. Although, the park is lovely this time of year.

But I digress… My trip in Amsterdam has just hardly begun, but allow me to tell you about my first time travelling as a boy and the gendered experiences I have had thus far.

So first off, I will being going “stealth” in Amsterdam as they say. Not that I’m trying to hide, but I am just going to intro myself as “Miles” and not “Miles the transguy” to the people I meet while studying at school. So it is going to be very interesting to see what it is like to interact with people who know me as Miles from the start, instead of re-introducing myself to people I have know for some time, which is what I have been doing at home. Of course, there are some people who I will have to come out to right away. Already I have told the school that I am transgender, and they agreed to change my name in the system to Miles without any trouble. #thatwaseasy. Also, the receptionist at the hostel that I moved into this afternoon knew that I wasn’t biologically male as soon as I handed her my ID. Luckily there was a bed available in a co-ed room so that I wouldn’t have to stay in a room with nineteen girls for a week.

I have been using public bathrooms without any problem as well since I got through security in the airport in Boston. Thus far, it seems as though men’s rooms in Amsterdam have a lot more stalls than those in the US, which is a huge relief. Passing 100% of the time is also a relief, although I haven’t really been able to enjoy that feeling yet because of the ocean of stress I have been drowning in fed by the rains of sleep deprivation and the nagging need to find a room to stay in for four months.

Anyway, the interesting part of my journey began upon my arrival to Centraal Station, Amsterdam….

We got off the metro in what appeared to be right in the middle of everything. As my friend showed me the way to his apartment, we entered the Red Light District. And let me just say, I had heard about this part of the city before, but it was nothing like what I had pictured in my mind on the plane ride over. As we turned the corner onto his street I could not even believe what I was seeing: Prostitutes. Everywhere.  Real live women, standing in big glass window-doors, posing seductively under florescent red lights in an attempt to attract customers, interspersed with various sex shops and live-porn establishments. 

I was not prepared for this. 

how you doin?

As I walk further down the street, the rows of women in windows went on and on, some high up on the second floors of buildings, some down low in basements. Some women posed enthusiastically, waving and winking at men that walked by, while others looked bored or forlorn, sitting back in chairs and staring dully at the passerby on the street.

Was I, a young man arriving in the city, supposed to find this appealing? It was like a human meat-market: women displayed like fresh (or not-so-fresh) cuts of beef, available for the picking to men who walked by to judge which leg, thigh, breast etc. they would like to purchase. Honestly, it mostly just made me uncomfortable. But it wasn’t the women themselves that made me uneasy; it was the thought of the practice. Now, I grew up in a place very different than Amsterdam, and having spent my formative years as a girl in the smallest town in the smallest state in the US, I grew up learning that prostitution was illegal, scandalous, dirty, sad, and potentially dangerous.

My friend took me to an old church in the area, and even the narrow streets that circled the building were lined with red-lit windows. THE CHURCH! As we got close to his apartment my friend informed that he lived on the corner where the transvestite prostitutes worked. Their windows were lit with a blue-ish purple light rather than a red, to indicate that they had penises. My friend smiled and waved politely to the girls as we walked by, so I gathered that I should do the same instead of just staring in disbelief.

As I got settled in the little third-floor room, I looked out the window and noticed the glaring sign across the street that read “SEX PALACE,” flanked by subtitles reading “Peep Show,” “Live Couples,” and “Bondage, Homo, and Teen-Sex.”

AH! 

Gross!

that doesn't look good

Again I thought, am I supposed to find this appealing? Does being disgusted and a little frightened make me less of a man? Do all men have sex with hookers and enjoy lap dances and peep shows??? #calmdown 

No, of course not. You can’t say that ALL MEN are like this or ALL MEN like these things or act this way. Any sort of very broad generalization like that is just false. But still, I felt weird about it, because these windows and these sex shows were obviously advertised towards men, but I just couldn’t see the appeal.

First off, I couldn’t really understand the concept of live porn as a whole. I mean, what do you do? You watch people have sex, but you’re not just gonna masturbate to it right there in a room full of people, right? And I kept on seeing guys walking in in groups, I mean, it’s not like being part of a film club, where you go out and see a movie together and then discuss it over coffee afterwards, right…?

Later, as I did a bit of exploring on my own, I kept on getting startled as prostitutes would knock on their glass doors as I walked by, trying to grab my attention. They certainly grabbed my attention, but my returned expression of awe/confusion/surprise was probably not what they were going for. Although I personally couldn’t imagine having sex with someone I didn’t like and trust a whole lot, or, you know, didn’t even know at all, I was flattered in a small way when the women would look at me and smile and try to beckon me inside. I even looked up once to see a transvestite licking her lips at me as she curled her index finger in towards her palm, motioning to me to come here. 

HEY THURRR

Did they think I was cute? Or did I just look like a dumb tourist with lots of money to lose? Did they pick and choose who they smiled at or did they just try and attract every man that walked by?

Over all, the Red Light District just makes me sad, especially after today when I learned that the majority of the women working in the windows are trafficked, and that pimps own the buildings they work in, and that these men are actually the ones making most of the money off the exchange. It would be different if these women were working as prostitutes by choice; choosing to make money using their bodies and not being forced to have sex with sixty men or more each night, but unfortunately the fact that prostitution is legal here does not mean any of these things are true. 

Living in Amsterdam is obviously different than what I’m used to, and it’s going to take more than four or five days to understand a completely different culture. I’m looking forward to seeing how masculinity is constructed somewhere outside of the US, and I think it will help me gain a lot of perspective on American culture and masculinity as well.