History Main / RedLightDistrict

* The Yoshiwara district of Tokyo is mentioned from time to time in ''Manga/{{Ooku}}''. Shogun Iemitsu downsizes the Inner Chambers and restocks the decaying pleasure district with desirable men after a {{gendercide}} plague destroys the market for female prostitutes and leaves only dregs of men. The Reverend Kasuga earlier hired a few women from there for a plot.

* ''Manga/KamisamaKiss'' has a demonic version of the Red Light District that [[{{Kitsune}} Tomoe]] used to visit often before [[PluckyGirl Nanami]] showed up. How often? Well, he knew all the {{Tanuki}} prostitutes by name and they treat him like he is almost family.

* The Circe chapter of ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'' by Creator/JamesJoyce has Bloom and Dedalus travel through Dublin's Nighttown and stop off in a brothel. It's one of the most surreal sections of the book and has degrees of all three versions, but tends towards pitiful and hostile.

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** As the male/female population slowly goes back to normal in the wake of an effective Redface Pox vaccine, the Yoshiwara district starts to become more female, however, there is still a demand for male prostitutes. It's how Masahiro Abe meets Takiyama: he was working as a kagema. [[spoiler: His revealing that fact-something most men would try to keep secret-during his RousingSpeech to Iesada's retainers impressed said retainers into maintaining their loyalty to Iesada.]]

'''The hostile version:''' The drunks will pick a fight with you, the women will rob you or knife you in an alley. Like the pitiful version above, possible location in a WretchedHive. The protagonist is either lost or hopelessly naive and will be wishing he'd found the liberal version before the end of the night. Also common in cop shows, particularly in the first five minutes when they're showing the soon-to-be victim.

* In ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2'', The spaceship ''Von Braun'' has a brothel called the "Sensual Simulation Center" on the ship's Recreation deck, with [[ProjectedMan holographic performers]] of both sexes inside. To keep the game within an acceptable ESRB rating, all the holograms are broken by the time you get there. A dead crewman with a bottle of alcohol can even be found sprawled out on the bed inside the room of one of the male sex holograms. Either he died in the act, or figured he'd spend his last hours during the ZombieApocalypse in the [[OutWithABang company of a holographic hunk.]]

* Glitzville is portrayed like this in the remake of ''FanFic/YuGiOhTheThousandYearDoor''. It's tamer than most examples of this, but still far from innocent. Stan describes it as “A city of sin… but suspended in the heavens… A place of contradictions if there ever was one…”

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* In ''Literature/TheNarrows'' by Creator/MichaelConnelly, the fictional town of [[WretchedHive Clear, Nevada]] is a Pitiful/Hostile version, and [[SerialKiller the Poet]] has chosen it as his hunting grounds. Since many men who go there take measures to conceal that fact, he’s able to get away with more than ten murders over the course of a few years before Harry Bosch and Rachel Walling, [[PosthumousCharacter following clues left behind by Terry [=McCaleb=]]], track him down. The Poet had previously chosen the RLD in Amsterdam for the same reason.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* In ''Manga/PianoNoMori'', the town where the story takes place has a Red Light District where one of the two main characters lives. It is called "The Edge of the Forest" due to its location.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', one arc involves the main characters infiltrating the historic Yoshiwara red light district of Tokyo, since it's suspected that one of the [[HighClassCallGirl oiran]] at the top three houses is really a demon. The English localization refers to it as the Entertainment District Arc, but anyone who's familiar with Japanese terminology and history will know exactly what kind of "entertainment" is provided there even if nothing explicit is shown.

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', one arc involves the main characters infiltrating a red light district, since it's suspected that one of the [[HighClassCallGirl oiran]] at the top three houses is really a demon. The English localization refers to it as the Entertainment District Arc, but anyone who's familiar with Japanese terminology and history will know exactly what kind of "entertainment" is provided there even if nothing explicit is shown.

* ''Manga/FruitsBasket'': One of Sohma Ayame's high school stories involves him defending a student who got caught going to the red light district. Ayame's solution? [[HoYay To make himself the object of the male students' lusts.]]

* ''LightNovel/SaiunkokuMonogatari'': Shuurei worked as an accountant at Kougaro, the number one brothel in the red light district, as one of her various jobs; she's actually close friends with Kochou, the manager of Kougaro.

** On the "liberal" side: the main brothel featured there is a truly luxurious one, installed in a BigFancyHouse. The more "morally grey" boyfriends, Tsubaki and Toru, choose the place as their HQ, treat the women there better compared to their usual Johns (with Tsubaki, who is a gynecologist, having a part-time work as their personal doctor), and seem to be genuinely sympathetic to their pleas. [[spoiler: It's doubly meaningful in Tsubaki's case: as [[SonOfAWhore the son of a high-class prostitute]] [[MixedAncestry and a rich Dutch man]], he was ''raised'' in that brothel.]]

An area of strip joints, brothels, and other seedy locales. [[TruthInTelevision Very much based on reality]] - according to one version, the term came from railroad workers leaving their red work lamps outside the businesses they were patronizing when going into town for the evening so that they could be located if they needed to be called back to work on short notice (Said lamps frequently being left by brothels and bars).

An area of strip joints, brothels, and other seedy locales. [[TruthInTelevision Very much based on reality]] - the term came from railroad workers leaving their red work lamps outside the businesses they were patronizing when going into town for the evening so that they could be located if they needed to be called back to work on short notice (Said lamps frequently being left by brothels and bars).

* There is one in ''Literature/EvaLuna''; the title character spends some months as a protegèe of La Señora, the local and most influential MissKitty in the district itself. It's described as a relatively pleasant place where, despite the sometimes downright illegal activities in there, the residents are basically decent people who treat the sex industry merely as a way to support themselves. [[spoiler: When the new police leader breaks their implicit deals with the workers and tries to impose abusive bribe fees, Eva's {{Transgender}} CoolBigSis Melecio attempts to fight back and get support from the residents. [[GoneHorriblyWrong It backfires horribly]] and the district ends up being "invaded" and disbanded; La Señora has to run away, Melecio is incarcerated, and Eva is thrown back in the streets.]]

* ''Film/{{Goldstone}}'' has a variation. In the caravan park one of the caravans is painted pink and has a red light above the door. It's ''Pinkys'', a one-woman brothel that caters to the mine workers and other itinerants.