De Witte Aap - Rotterdam
A beautiful night in a beautiful city. Rotterdam is a modern dream of cleanliness and engineering. Tall and open at the same time, the modern towers loom above the bustling ports, as the beautiful people go riding by on bikes and in cars. A quick skateboard around the city shows a superficial glance of many of the city’s architectural wonders, from the Erasmus Bridge (Swan Bridge) passing over the bay, to the surrealist cube houses which loom at forty-five degree angles above the boardwalk.
It’s Friday night and the hostel crowd is trying to slowly make its ways out of the common room, always difficult to corral a bunch of drunk people into moving one direction. Just as soon as we leave we’re already missing one. Where did Dave go? Anyone see him?
Dammit, he’s the one who knows where we’re going. Can someone go back and get Dave?
“Go get who?”
“Dammit Dave!”
A brown-haired Irishman comes tumbling out of the bushes to the cheers of the group.
“Where are we going?”
“Rotown. I think,” he exclaims with a grin. “Just start walking.”
And thus the night was started. We never did get to Rotown. But it was probably for the best anyways. Halfway down the street a bar with bright lights and beautiful people beckons us in. The sign reads De Witte Aap and we’re greeted by an albino gorilla gorilla above the door.
The White Ape is a busy bar full of young drinkers sampling from the extensive collection of Dutch beers. We sit down in a corner table towards the back, and order a round of beers from yet another waitress so beautiful that you want to rip the heart out of your chest and leave it as a tip. I settle on a Trappist Dubbel and am not disappointed with the result. Yet another delicious Dutch amber ale.
Sitting with us tonight, is a Blonde Canadian named Lara, an African American called Sam, a skinny Brit known as Ben and our off the walls Irishmen, aka Dave.
Dave it turns out is a naturalist, who has been farming using sustainable practices and knows an awful lot about cooking and growing vegetables. He’s worked in Ireland for most of his life but has come to the Netherlands to work on the farms in the spring to prepare for summer and learn about their practices. He’s farmed everything from beets, to leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, and other ground vegetables.
As he enters into his story, he brings in all the Irish stereotypes, Catholic guilt, repressed sexuality, and a fondness for alcohol. At the bright age of 25, just a month ago and still a virgin, he arrived in Amsterdam with a case of the curiosities. Friends were always easy for Dave, but intimacy was not. And farming, like fishing, doesn’t offer many chances for a young man to find a suitable lover.
One night in Amsterdam, after having drunk with many fine people, Dave found himself wandering the streets of the red-light district. He was half-cut and fighting with his repressed self, not to look at the voluptuous, half-naked girls beckoning to him from the windows.
It wasn’t what he expected, the streets were clean and the girls look happy, healthy and sexy. It disarmed him to the point that he realized, that tonight was going to be the night. What was there holding him back?
I can’t help but about equate him with James Joyce in “The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man” who lost his virginity to a prostitute when he was fourteen. They were both outcast, interesting Irishmen with a lot to say.
It was a dark-haired Grecian lady who invited him in, and with a little liquid courage in his veins Dave finally decided to take the leap. When he entered the room it was dimly lit and simple. There was table with lube and condoms, and a bed with a rotating sheet, not unlike the paper they use on the bench in a doctor’s office. The Greek beauty was kind and patient, even when our giddy Irishman couldn’t stop laughing.
When I ask him how he felt, he says he didn’t feel uncomfortable at all, just in a state of heightened sensation. At first she started to talk him through the first steps, trying to warm him up to the act, but before she could finish her first sentience his clothes were already off. Dave was fuckin’ ready. He’d been waiting twenty-five years for this day and if he was paying for it, he was sure as heck going to get his moneys worth.
Our table is doubled over in laughter at this point imagining our awkward Irish Farmer buck naked in a brothel trying to figure out how he’s going to lose his virginity.
In the end he says it was an excellent experience. It got him passed that first stage of awkwardness and self-hate that came along with male virginity. It made him more comfortable with himself. It was easier for him to interact with girls because he no longer had that invisible societal weight hanging around his shoulders. I respected him for taking the leap. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.
For the ladies, sex is just a job to them, they can love it or hate it. But if they’re regulated and protected then why should we stop them from plying their trade. We all have talents, sex is just one of theirs.
As long as they choose it…
But that’s the real question, isn’t it? How many have chosen this life and how many have been forced into it? Either by circumstance or more sinister actors? Hard to say. But that’s the way that it works here, and at least from the outside, it seems to be working.
We order another beer, and it’s cheers all around for an honest story and a new perspective. We high five the white gorilla statue on the way out the door and head out into the Rotterdam night.