Europe's belt of sleaze, stretching through the traditional centres of Amsterdam and Berlin, has carved out new notches in Prague, Warsaw and Bucharest. Never before exposed to gay sex, the Romanian boys, aged between 17 and 22, are in it only for money.
A slow but steady post-Cold War influx has enabled the rentboys from Romania to take over what was once a placid backwater of Dutch sexual laissez-faire. It is conducted not through ringleaders and brothelkeepers, but over the bar counters of a dark and cobbled alley called Paardenstraat at an average of pounds 50 a trick. THE TRADE in human flesh from East Europe has begun in earnest in Amsterdam.