The Prostitution Information Center - Amsterdam

We were a diverse group assembled that warm Friday evening for a tour of Amsterdam's Red Light District; a mother and daughter from South Africa, a youngish couple from Scotland, a service man on leave from Morocco, plus a smattering of Canadians and Americans. Our common denominator was curiosity.

We decided an organized tour would reveal more about this unusual place than we could glean on our own. Even more intriguing, the brochure mentioned the tour would stop at the Prostitution Information Center....now that did catch our eye.

As darkness fell, the red neon lights reflected across the murky canal, as they have for decades, beckoning all comers with a promise of perfectly legal nightly ecstasy, or, for many tourists, glimpses of the forbidden. We passed the windows, where the scantily-dressed girls sit displaying their wares, oblivious to the stares, gawks and comments of those on the other side. And all the while, we were regaled with lurid, scintillating tales of the district’s famous madams and mysteries.

Toward the end of our tour, we made our way to a nondescript little building, just steps away from window women. Prostitution Information Center was engraved on the front glass window as if it were nothing more extraordinary than an accountant’s office. Considering this was Amsterdam, perhaps it was nothing unusual, but for us non-Dutch, the sign might as well have read, " Sex Education Center!"

According to our guide, Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute, founded the Prostitution Information Center in 1994 to provide support and information to prostitutes and the public. We quietly filed in. I can't speak for the others, but I was feeling awkward. Wasn’t this off-limits? Illicit? Illegal? The corn-fed, conservative Hoosiers from my home state of Indiana would certainly look askance at this! But here, prostitution, like marijuana and hashish, is perfectly legal, quite well organized, government regulated and even socially acceptable. Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas, anymore!