AMSTERDAM -- Rule No. 1, according to the new police guide for tourists to
Amsterdam's red-light district, is: Have FUN, but act in a NORMAL manner.

Tolerant. Within limits. How very Dutch.

- - Rule No. 6: PROSTITUTION. No pictures of the women.

- - Rule No. 8: Soft drugs, NOT UNDER 18.

- - And No. 10: Parking is NOT FREE.

"This brochure is NORMAL," insisted Superintendent Klaas Wilting, chief
police spokesman, who must have repeated the word "normal" 30 times in an
hourlong conversation about the brief brochure. He denied that the police
felt defensive about publishing it. But he was distinctly irked that the
FOREIGN press had taken such an interest. Here we go again, he implied: the
old stereotype of Amsterdam as SIN CITY.

Actually, the guide is fairly subdued. Most of it is the kind of
common-sense advice dished out by the police everywhere: watch out for
pickpockets, don't play balletje (Amsterdam's three-card monte), resist
those drunken impulses to take off all your clothes and jump into the canals.

Although it contains a map, it is not the usual guide, per se. It doesn't
say which "coffee shops" sell the best marijuana, which live-sex shows are
liveliest or which bordellos have the prettiest women.

In fact, it is virtually impossible to find such information in print here.
Most tourist guides to the Netherlands devote pages to the Vermeers in the
Rijksmuseum, but scant sentences to the red-light district, even though it
is unlikely the Vermeers get five million visitors a year.

So what's the most common inquiry at the Amsterdam Tourist Service on
Damrak Street?

"Where is the red-light district?" answered Djawehly Pelupessy, who works
behind the counter. "They blush, we tell them, then they walk away fast.
They're shy. They don't want to admit they want to see the women in the
windows."

Toine Rodenburg, who manages the Banana Bar, the Erotic Museum, Theater
Casa Rosso and other district landmarks, accuses the city of being
"ambivalent or even hypocritical" toward the reality that sex lures far
more visitors than culture.

"They take the taxes without saying thank you," he complained. "They put up
signs everywhere saying 'Rijksmuseum' or 'Anne Frank House,' but there's
only one for the red-light district, like it's something horrible. As if
Amsterdam was all about tulips and wooden shoes. It's not. It's about freedom."

If it seems hard to tell whether the guide was written by a police officer
or by a fed-up resident, it is because the answer to both questions is yes.
The author, Officer Willem Schild, has patrolled this libertarian Arcadia
for 12 years and, like Mr. Rodenburg, lives there. "That's me on the
cover," he said proudly, pointing to the grinning policeman on a motorbike
beside an Erotic Museum sign.

The guide reflects neighborhood thinking, repeated by everyone from Officer
Schild to Erik Blom, a law student who sells tickets to the Moulin Rouge
show, to Theodoor van Boven, founder of the Condomerie condom boutique. If
the district has a problem, they say, it is not the law-abiding women
sitting in pink windows wearing only fetching smiles and eye-popping
underwear. Nor is it the mellowed-out hashish dealers who sit giggling with
their coffee shop customers, debating which of Bob Marley's tunes was his
chef-d'oeuvre.

Rather, if there is a problem in this district of 300-year-old gabled
buildings and expensive real estate housing doctors, lawyers and plenty of
families, it is the street drug dealers who sell heroin -- or cough drops
ground up to look like heroin -- and those tourists, American spring break
kids or English stag party louts who jump into the canals, howl their
drunken lungs out at 4 a.m. and punch each other silly.

Nobody really minds the middle-class tour groups that fill the sex shows in
theaters that are cleaner and better lighted than many Off Broadway houses.
Mr. Rodenburg seems to revel in the groups -- often featuring blue-rinse
grandmothers and other unexpected spectators -- that flock to his Theater
Casa Rosso. By prior arrangement with tour guides, he confided, the
loudest-mouthed man in each group is the person selected by a leather-clad
lady with whips to join her on stage -- to his embarrassment and the
general hilarity of his fellow tourists.

Superintendent Wilting's guide seems to be written in the same spirit of
tolerance for human indulgence, while noting that despite popular notions
about Amsterdam, the place does have rules.

"Cocaine, heroin, LSD, ecstasy, etc. are strictly forbidden," the guide notes.

"These drugs are always FAKE (washing powder, sugar, rat poison, vitamin
C). On top of that, you may be forced to hand over your wallet."

A small amount of marijuana for personal use can legally be consumed in a
coffee shop, the leaflet says, adding, "When you feel sick after smoking,
or eating space cake, drink lots of water with sugar."

There is also a discreet hint about prostitutes: "If you visit one of the
women, we would like to remind you they are not always women."

But, here too, the guide demands decorum: "Don't shout or use bad language
toward these women. SHOW SOME RESPECT."

That section was the most heavily edited by the department, Officer Schild
said. He had advised tourists that the women charge $25 to $50 for 20
minutes, paid in advance. "So make a clear deal at the door and don't be
too drunk to get things done," he had written. "Time is money for the ladies."

The department felt that was a bit TOO helpful, he said, although his
precinct house's biggest headaches are frustrated drunks who get angry.

All the women have alarm buttons, and the police then have to run or
bicycle over to sort out the fight.

He also had a warning about "smart shops," which sell herbs that supposedly
boost intelligence or virility, along with hallucinatory psilocybin
mushrooms, which can mix badly with alcohol. "People think they're eagles
and try to fly out of their hotel rooms," Officer Schild said. But the
department is trying to ban smart shops, which also sell drug
paraphernalia, so it did not want them included.

Officer Schild said he got to put in 95 percent of what he had hoped for,
and takes the pamphlet around himself to bars and restaurants.

"In the Netherlands," Superintendent Wilting noted, "we talk about the
problems. We don't put them away."