oops, what does that red light mean?

Today I walked and walked and walked and walked all over Picadilly Circus, Hyde Park, and apparently the Red Light District of London. I didn’t know there was one. First I saw one club advertising “Striptease.” Then I saw a doorway with a woman sitting on a stool, kind of like a bouncer–except she wasn’t wearing too much. Then I looked a little more closely and saw lots of doors with women sitting in them. All of them were lit up with an overhead light that was red. All of them in front of steep staircases, either going upstairs or into a basement. One place had a handwritten sign that said “Sexy Asian Models” “Models This Way.”

Then I turned the corner and I was in “boystown” or whatever the gay neighborhood is in London. At the end of street was the theater showing “Mama Mia” a new musical based on the songs of ABBA.