ABSTRACT
In the Netherlands, prostitution, the exchange of sexual services for money, has been legal since the early 20th century but street prostitution always sits uneasily in the public imagination. The chapter focuses on the conditions that enable and constrain public policy towards streetwalking and on the symbolic or meaning aspects of street prostitution especially the aspect of space as being not only geographic but social, symbolic and above all contested. It reviews the Dutch Tippelzones at the geographic margins of the city, removed from residential areas, which local governments designate as spaces where streetwalking is allowed the purpose being to enhance the safety of streetwalkers and safeguard the security of citizens. The legalization of the prostitution industry generated intense media coverage in the Netherlands. The chapter argues that the conceptual and material space that street prostitutes occupy in urban areas contains all the symbolic conflicts, dilemmas, expectations and value positions that surround street prostitution.
