A visit to Amsterdam engraved just a few mixed memories: the brown bars, the fear that my eyeballs would freeze in the stinging wind chill, the art galleries and, of course, the Red Light district.

Curiosity and titillation seeking landed me on a front row seat in a somewhat shabby little theatre where a continuous sex show was under way. Very self-conscious, I found myself in the company of a gathering of what appeared, at the risk of my first and only glance, to be a grubby and salivating bunch of genital manipulators unseen beneath their overcoats.

The young lady on stage sporting a dental hygienists smile was just finishing her act and had pulled enough baubles from her person to decorate a Christmas tree. Next up was a couple I imagined to be married given their jaded attitude to what would have been one of many performances that evening. Rapidly approaching middle age, yet still maintaining physiques within the all-important sell-by date, the pair bounced onto stage with fixed theatrical smiles. 

He stood centre stage, hands on hips sporting an impressive bulge under his speedo while she circled him with all the panache of a magician’s assistant prior to removing what little clothing protected their respective modesties. They proceeded to go through their entire repertoire of a Kama Sutra tableau terminating with an enthusiastic doggy style finale; both maintaining a fixed, somewhat disarming smiles. Holding hands, they stood to take a bow before the audience when those with hands not otherwise occupied, managed a pitiful ripple of applause. The man left the stage with his manhood still standing proud no doubt supported by a subcutaneous injection of amyl nitrate.

I concluded that the only way to enjoy the Red Light district would be to be within a group of drunken yet constrained friends having previously had an injection of penicillin, a pocket full of condoms and wearing a wetsuit.