From red light to black light

Abstract

Looking at a 1960s image of the Amsterdam Red Light District and an image of it today means looking at two different places. Post-World War II images of the zone and photographs of the interiors of windows today show a spatial transformation during the last half-century. Prostitutes sitting inside living rooms by red lampshades have been replaced with sex workers standing in body-sized glass doorways, lit-up from behind in red and black light. On the outside, the red light window is a glowing advertisement with an aesthetic common globally among lower-end establishments of the sex industry. On the inside, the interior adheres to the new legislative health and safety standards. The Amsterdam Red Light District has become a monitored, adult mass entertainment zone that caters to the ranging desires of its international visitors and adheres to global standards of sex consumerism. This paper analyzes the infrastructural and aesthetic changes in the Red Light District, specifically the interior of red light windows. It argues that local legislation and changes in the sex industry are altering the way that sex is sold and consumed in this red light zone and that this change is resulting in an internal homogenization of spaces and bodies.