The Atlantic – September 2019

THE ATLANTIC SEPTEMBER 2019 21

Pay cable’s freedom to titillate no longer
offers the same competitive advantage it
once did, thanks to streaming porn. Last
year, the network retired its late-night
adult programming, including reality
shows like Real Sex as well as soft-core
erotic movies. At the same time, the rev-
elations of #MeToo have made networks
more tentative about shooting sex that
could be interpreted as exploitative. Nina
Noble told me that, in her view, The Deuce
probably wouldn’t have been green-lit
post #MeToo—even though the show’s
objective is not to revel in exploitation
but to shine a critical light on it.
Financial and cultural pressures have
already had an unmistakable effect on
how sex is depicted in film. In an essay this
spring, The Guardian’s film editor, Cathe-
rine Shoard, described a new “age of cine-
matic abstinence.” In June, the Washington
Post film critic Ann Hornaday declared
that “the classic sex scene—once a staple
of high-gloss, adult-oriented, mainstream
movies—has been largely forgotten and
ignored,” as studios now favor films that
are either violent or kid-oriented.
For the moment, at least, HBO seems
intent on finding a way to make sex safe
for the small screen, and the small screen
safe for sex. Rodis now advises about two
dozen intimacy coordinators at the net-
work, who work on shows across the net-
work’s lineup, including High Maintenance,
Succession, and Westworld. I asked her
what she believes is at stake in her efforts.
Suppressing such an essential aspect of
the human experience would be negli-
gent storytelling, she told me. Imagine if
we treated sex like the ancient Greek play-
wrights treated violence, “where every-
one just went offstage, and then someone
came back and said, There was a killing!”
The costs of such an approach would
not be merely artistic, she added. Depic-
tions of sex on-screen have a power ful
ability to shape our attitudes toward inti-
macy. “Sex scenes are not just a vehicle
for someone to get off,” Rodis said. “Sex
has so many narratives, and it’s so com-
plex and it’s so important. People who
are growing up with the internet and just
seeing a certain type of pornography? I
think we owe it to them to show forms of
sexuality that are not the top 50 videos on
Pornhub.” Put another way, the severing
of sex from art would impoverish both.

Kate Julian is a senior editor at The Atlantic.

T

HE DUTCH HAVE

suffered some

brutal occupations,

from the Roman empire

and Viking raids to Spanish

and Nazi rule. But now

they face an even larger

army of invaders: tourists.

In the era of cheap

flights and Airbnb, their

numbers are staggering.

Some 19 million tourists

visited the Netherlands

last year, more people

than live there. For a coun-

try half the size of South

Carolina, with one of the

world’s highest population

densities, that’s a lot. And

according to the Nether-

lands Board of Tourism

& Conventions, the

number of annual visitors

is projected to increase

by 50 percent over the

next decade, to 29 mil-

lion. Urban planners and

city officials have a word

for what the Netherlands

and quite a few other

European countries are

experiencing: over tourism.

With such an influx of

humanity comes a decline

in quality of life. Residents’

complaints range from

inconvenience (crowds

spilling from sidewalks

to streets) to vandalism

to alcohol-induced

defilement (vomiting

in flower boxes, urinating

in mailboxes).

Amsterdam, with its

museums, guided canal

tours, and picturesque

architecture, sees much of

this collateral damage. To

combat it, the city recently

passed various pieces of

legislation, including a

moratorium on new hotel

construction in much of

the city; new fines (140

euros for public urination

or drunk and disorderly

conduct); new restric-

tions on Airbnb rentals

(30 nights a year per unit);

and a combination of

bans and restrictions on

new tourist-centric busi-

nesses, such as bike-rental

outfits and donut shops,

in the historic city center.

Guided tours of the city’s

Red Light District will be

banned in January 2020,

and thanks to new govern-

ment regulations, many

of its cannabis “coffee

shops”—the first of which

dates back to 1967—have

closed. There’s even talk

of charging day- trippers

to step foot in the city,

a bold policy recently

enacted in Venice.

Perhaps most telling,

earlier this year the Dutch

tourism board officially

shifted its mission from

“destination promotion” to

“destination management.”

Overtourism may have

pierced a part of the Dutch

psyche that once seemed

inviolable: its gedoog-

cultuur, or culture of

per missiveness. Ko Koens,

who studies sustainable

tourism at Breda University

of Applied Sciences, finds

the anti- tourist sentiment

expressed by his fellow

citizens both curious

and troubling: “There’s a

certain irony that many

left-wing people who

condemn xenophobia

nonetheless talk about ‘the

Chinese’ and ‘the English’—

if they’re tourists, that’s

seen as okay,” Koens says.

Tony Perrottet, the

author of Pagan Holiday:

On the Trail of Ancient

Roman Tourists, says

anti-tourist sentiment

can be traced at least as

far back as the first and

second centuries A.D.,

when wealthy Romans

visited Greece (where

they complained about

the food), Naples (where

they complained about

the guides), and Egypt

(where they defaced the

pyramids and the Sphinx

with graffiti). “The struc-

ture of tourism historically

is that you have resentful

locals, and rich, obnox-

ious, clueless intrud-

ers: the Greeks and the

Romans, the Brits and the

Americans, the Dutch and

Germans,” says Perrottet,

who lives in Manhattan.

“But I sympathize with the

Dutch. God, there’s noth-

ing more annoying than

getting stuck on

Fifth Avenue between a

bunch of tourists.”

Illustration by RAMI NIEMI

• BIG IN ... THE NETHERLANDS

The War on Tourists

Outnumbered by drunk and disorderly

visitors, the Dutch fight back.

BY RENE CHUN