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Friday, June 09, 2006



Madison et Arielle Kobryn said...

Here's an example of one of the weird exhibits at the Sex Museum in Amsterdam- what the f*** were they getting at here anyways? I'm baffled.....


Hi girls,Apparently your not up on your Dutch history so perhaps I can explain. This exhibit is clearly the artist's interpretation of the "Gevoortshaaren" law (gevoort=ugly, haaren=whore) that was instituted in the mid-sixties. The Red Light District of Amsterdam had recently been officially sanctioned and prostitution legalized much to the delight of many local and international visitors (some of my close relatives included!). The Dutch being a foreward thinking people wanted to portray even THIS area of the city as an example of their heightened sense of democracy so spurred on by the spirit of the time and not wanting to be boxed in by the west's (i.e. USA's) traditional view of beauty, they decreed that 1 in 10 prostitutes would have to be be drop-dead ugly, or "gevoorts". In essence this was a well principled idea with its roots in a fair and just society but market forces prevailed and the law was soon phased out. Hope this answers any questions you had.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

K, Bob. I'm a bit insulted. Your atrocious syntaxical tendancies chill my very soul. "[...] your not up on your Dutch history [...]"?! Apparently you're not up on your grammar!

Regarding your article, very intriguing. I knew the Dutch were intelligent, sophisticated people, but I didn't know to what extent. Too bad the law was ousted. Poor gevoorts? I don't know.