That Time We Accidentally Found the Red Light District in Nuremberg

Note:  This post contains personal, moral, and political opinions regarding prostitution.  If you disagree with my position, I welcome your comments and defense of your position, but request that you refrain from personal attacks, vulgarity, profanity, or rudeness.  

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"Hey, let's go down this way and walk along the city walls."

With this suggestion from Danny, we busted a sharp left down the cobblestone streets of Nürnberg's Altstadt or Old Town.  This was new territory for us.  Danny hadn't visited since he was a child spending his summers playing soccer in the shadows of thousand year old city walls, so he had few clear memories of this city.  For me, this visit to Nürnberg, or Nuremberg as most Americans know it, was my first and the culmination of a long wish to see the city where my grandfather had served as a guard during the infamous Nuremberg Trials.

As we walked down the street with the walls to our left, Danny began happily taking pictures of the ramparts, towers, and catwalks looming over us.  Garments, primarily lingerie, hung from the beams of the catwalk.  I frowned as I'd never encountered anything so, well, intimate having ever been displayed so brazenly in Germany.  It just didn't seem very German in my experience.

Just at that moment, I saw two middle-aged women ahead of us, standing beside an open door and scowling in our general direction.  As Danny's camera continued to snap away, one of them began shouting at us.

"Nee, nee!  Keine Fotos!"

And that's what I realized what Danny was still oblivious to.  Apparently, we were in the middle of the red light district.

To my right, a few girls were draped across the sills of the open windows, smoking cigarettes and wearing nothing but lingerie.  A red, heart-shaped sign hung above the door, simply reading "Nr. 49."  I now understood that the two middle-aged women were madams, hell-bent on making sure we were not trying to photograph their wares, and the name of the area, Frauentormauer, finally made sense, too, as it was a combination of the words for women, gate, and walls.

I felt nauseous, tricked, embarrassed and ashamed.  But above all, I felt sad.

Sure, prostitution is legal in Germany.
Sure, the women receive regular check-ups and mandatory testing.
Sure, it's highly regulated, and the daily transactions are taxed just like any other.

But...

From the Rahab Foundation in Costa Rica.
See also: My Words As Weapons.

You see, as much as people argue that prostitution should be a woman's choice, that it empowers the woman, that legalized prostitution protects the women and gives them a better societal standing, and that any opinion to the contrary is a Puritanical, patriarchal "war against women," I cannot be persuaded or convinced of that, particularly when I see women displayed as if they are no more than cheap china for sale in a window.  Prostitution objectifies women.  Legalized prostitution is government-sanctioned objectification of women.

As quickly as we had stumbled into the area, we power-walked our way out.  But unfortunately, this wrong turn shadowed my overall experience in Nürnberg.  The city has a lot of wonderful sites, and although I enjoyed them, it wasn't as wholeheartedly as I might have if we hadn't taken that turn along the walls.  I couldn't get the images of the women out of my mind or shake the feeling of sadness.  Sometimes travel opens our eyes to amazing new places and ideas, but sometimes it reminds us of situations that expose the dark side of human nature.

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Have you ever made a wrong turn on your travels and seen something you wished you hadn't?

Linking up with Chasing the Donkey, Pack Me To, A Southern Gypsy, The Fairytale Traveler, and Ice Cream & Permafrost for the #SundayTraveler!

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Linking up with Bonnie Rose, Amanda, Caity, Marcella, and Michelle for #TravelTuesday!