Sex, Drugs, Rock N' Roll: Netherlands



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When I was little, the mothers of the church forbade us to cross our legs in church. Till this day I’m not sure what God and crossed legs have in common, but like wearing red lipstick or short skirts, it was one of those church rules we were supposed to follow. I, on the other hand, mentally added it to my list of rebellious acts to perform. My mom use to say that a “hard head, makes a soft butt”, but I figured that that only applied if you got caught. So, whenever I got a chance, I dangled my bobby socked foot like a grown woman, crossing chubby thighs, slick with Vaseline and glistening to Sunday perfection.

Breaking the rules carried with it a sense of manifest destiny, a rush of living on your terms. However, let something bad happen later, like a fall off a bike or a Nintendo game that won’t play even after blowing on the cartridge a thousand times,  and the first thought that would come to mind is, “I shouldn’t have crossed my legs in church!”  Interestingly enough, it doesn’t matter how old you get, the initial freedom and subsequent guilt associated with doing something “wrong” can rear its nasty, little, head in just about any old place. I use to think that this cycle of freedom and guilt was a universal truth that everyone experience; I’ve since learned that this may just be cultural.

Old Gates of the City, now a restuarant.

So I’m in the Netherlands, Holland, home of windmills, pointy hats, and clogs. However, I’m specifically in Amsterdam, home of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, so all the other cliché landmarks can be placed on the back burner. This is a trip of exploration and I have every intention of exploring all the legal avenues placed before me or so I think.

National Monument

The first day, I took a massive three and a half hour walking tour of Amsterdam.  We met at the National Monument in Dam Square and then headed all over the city seeing the Amsterdam's Royal Palace, The House of Anne Frank and Descartes, Rembrandts Home, and the Old city gates of Amsterdam. The guide on this tour was excellent and really funny, so people asked a lot of questions. While touring the canals, one of the ladies in the group asked why there were no railings and warning signs along the banks. “This is really dangerous! People could fall in if they were drunk or something,” she commented. The tour guide responded, “Of course they could and they do fall in all the time! They just have to swim and get out.  Railings and warnings aren’t needed because this is Amsterdam, where personal responsibility is paramount. The state shouldn’t have to help you protect yourself from your own poor decision making.” 

“Well, that’s a new concept,” I thought to myself as we proceeded along the way.

Towards the end of the tour, I’m talking to the guide and he asks, “So, what are you going to get into tonight?” I respond, “Well, I was thinking about going to a live sex show.” He starts coughing, nearly choking on his spit. “Sorry about that,” he says looking slightly sheepish, “I didn’t expect you to say that. You don’t look like the type.” Now, I’m not sure if this is a compliment or an insult and I’m left wondering what my type looks like; nevertheless, I just nod and say, “No problem.”

The houses lean and are built pitched forward....

“If you really want to go to a show tonight, then I have some suggestions,” he continues. I know that I’ve seen some things, but a live sex show is wading into new waters for me, so I’m all ears. He begins advising which theaters I should stay away from. “They are cheap, but a little seedy and they don’t care what the performers look like,” his says. Levels of seediness? Ok.  Finally, he determines that I should go to Casa Rosa.” The theater is bright, there are a lot of tourists there, and you should feel fine going alone,” he says with finality.  It’s legal, it’s Amsterdam, and it’s on my bucket list. I’m there.

After explaining how to get there, he scrunches up his face and asks if I’ve even gone into the red light district yet. The way in which he is asking me this, makes me think that he sees a Burqa, instead of the jeans and sweater I have on. Nevertheless, I feel the need to show him my “rebel persona”, so I tell him that my hostel is actually in the red light district. Thank you very much! I began recounting the previous night’s tale of arrival. Walking past S&M shops, condom stores, and clubs with a ‘shoes only’ dress code, I was initially shocked that I hadn’t read the directions to the hostel more clearly before booking, but more excited that I was actually in the famous red light district.  “Yea, but have you seen the windows yet?” he asks. I hadn’t, so he suggested that I take an evening tour with the guide first.  It’s an upsell. I recognize it a mile away, but I sign up anyhow.

During the evening Red Light District tour we visited the World’s first Stock Exchange, China Town, The Condomerie, Warmoesstraat: the hardcore leather neighborhood, and The Old Church, a massive church directly in the middle of the red light district. The tour would have been great, but our guide, a fifty plus, American, male, kept using popular slang for genitalia, instead of the proper names (which drives me crazy), and he kept commenting on the girls he wanted to “come back and bang later.” With these types of comments and a tour group of nearly all female, solo, travelers, the tour quickly became kind of creepy, instead of informative. So, I cut out early because I had an appointment with Casa Rosa; the oldest erotic theater in Amsterdam.

How do I explain a live sex show without placing a warning on this post?

Let’s start with a story…

During my sophomore year in high school, students were required to watch a slide show of sexually transmitted diseases as a part of our Biology course. This was such a big deal that we had to get permission from our parents and the upper classmen had been hyping us up about this since freshmen year. The day of “The Event” everyone was on time for class and excited about seeing something consider so taboo. The first slide went up and there was a noticeable shocked silence in the room, followed by a chorus of uneasy laughter. I recall looking at the teacher and thinking, “You guys are not playing around!” After viewing slide after slide of mangled penises and putrefied vaginas, towards the end it just started looking like… Biology.

This is exactly how I felt in the show…

Every ten minutes performers went on stage in a choreographed and thematic display of sexual intercourse done to music: the emo couple, the urban couple, the punk rockers, the country western couple, the Latinos etc. After the initial shock, uneasy laughter, and thinking “You guys are not playing around”, it just became… Biology. It initially felt “wrong” to be watching something so taboo, but in the end I could have been watching the mating rituals of bovine on the Animal Planet and it would have had the same outcome: no big deal at all. Between the red light district tour and the live sex show, I felt like I had sufficiently explored the Sex clichés of Amsterdam. So I checked it off my list and moved on to drugs.

Now, coffee houses are abundant in Amsterdam and the opportunity to get high on marijuana is as easy as ordering a Starbucks latte. With that said, I don’t live in Amsterdam; I live in “New Amsterdam” where the usage of marijuana is not looked upon highly, especially in the job market and I have to get back to work. So, I made a grown folks decision to opt out of this experimentation and settled for a different type of “higher education” – Cannabis College.

According to their website, The Cannabis College Foundation is “a non-profit information centre based in the heart of Amsterdam. [They] strive to provide visitors from across the globe with correct, objective, and honest information regarding every aspect of the Cannabis sativa L. plant.” The College has several experts on hand to answer visitor’s questions regarding marijuana and hemp. They also have literature, displays and movies about hemp and its usage. Lastly, they have an organic, public Cannabis garden growing in there basement. Which I had to see…

I went to Cannabis College the next morning and walked in feeling like I was breaking the law, but prepared to learn something. The moment I stepped through the door, I walked up on a man taking a hit off of the Vaporizer, which looks like a blender with a sandwich bag attached to it. He was coughing like crazy and in a Katt Williams voice I wanted to say, “Do you know that I can see you?” Unconsciously, I kept looking over my shoulder and waiting for the police to come in and raid the place. I was so uncomfortable in there that I didn’t ask a single question. I didn’t view the marijuana garden and I didn’t even stay long. One lap around and I immediately left. In my head, I still associate marijuana usage with people sneaking around red light parties or rolling at home in privacy, so I realized that I wasn’t really comfortable with pubic drug use. It still felt “wrong.”

In order to actually get my higher education, I went to the Hash Marijuana Hemp Museum not too far from Cannabis College and was rewarded by a wealth of things I didn’t know.  Hemp can be used for just about everything from building materials to medicine to clothing to soap and beauty products. When I finished touring the museum my view on the plant, in general, had changed. I now had more respect for its properties and didn’t see it simply as a 420 point of celebration. The museum also has a display about how marijuana is viewed in many cultures around the world. Seeing many of the old, propaganda films out of the U.S gave me greater insight into my own psyche and made the experience that much more profound.



Hemp Guitar



So, here’s what I really like about Amsterdam. When you’re a kid and someone tells you that you can’t do something, you immediately start looking for ways to get around it. If you were like me, then you did it when no one was looking.  You crave the opportunity to rebel, break the rules, and live life on your terms. In Amsterdam, many of the things we consider taboo in the U.S are actually accepted (hard drugs not included). Since nothing is off limits, you would think that there would be high addiction rates, crime, and pimps beating up prostitutes on the corner. Yet, it’s the exact opposite; lower drug related crimes, lower rates of STDs, etc. So, instead of creating a culture perpetuated by a craving for rebellion followed by feelings of guilt, they’ve created a culture of self-awareness and personal responsibility. A culture where, like I did, people can determine their own limits, what’s right and what’s wrong for them, and then act accordingly. Hmm…Brilliant!