September 13, by Justin Lehmiller. One of the topics that we explore extensively in my sex and culture course in Amsterdam is sex work. As part of this course, I give my students the opportunity to speak with current and former sex workers about their experiences in the industry and, not surprisingly, one of the topics that always comes up is money.
In order for it to be legal, it must operate within the confines of the law. In other words, there are a lot of hoops to jump throughβand, as a result, this had led to the emergence of a sex work shadow industry that operates outside of the law. In fact, some believe that this shadow industry is many times larger than the legalized industry.
Based on what several workers have told me, there seems to be a pretty standard going rate in the Red Light District, where usually scantily clad workers stand behind floor-to-ceiling windows and beckon potential customers as they walk by.
Pricing works differently outside of the Red Light Districtβand it really depends on the venue in which sex is being sold. And depending on how long they stay, how many bottles of champagne they buy, and what they want, they may very well end up paying thousands of Euros for an evening.
Thus, a worker would need to see three clients per shift just to pay for the space. However, you can make a solid income in this setting by seeing just one client per shift if you can get them to stick around for multiple hours and upsell them on extras for example, workers get a commission on champagne purchases.
