Meet the 70 year old identical twin prostitutes who have spent the last 50 years on their backs.

Filmmakers Gabrielle Provaas and Rob Schroder’s documentary ‘Meet the Fokkens‘ paints a warmhearted portrait of a pair of elderly twin prostitutes who turned 70 earlier this year; one of whom (Martine) still occupies a storefront window in Amsterdam’s red-light district while her sister, Louise, gave up the game two years earlier because of arthritis.

Louise explains that she couldn’t ‘get one leg over the other’ after half a century of performing more adventurous contortions.

“We used to be very agile,” she laments wistfully but
now it’s only Martine who bounces into the local news agent’s to purchase an economy-sized box of condoms, though Louise often sits companionably alongside her leather-clad sister as she beckons to potential clients.

This is the story of 70 year old twins who have been prostitutes for over 50 years in Amsterdam’s red light district. According to them they serviced an average of 10 clients a day, 6 days a week; which according to our calculations, comes to over 156,000 clients serviced by each sister over a 50 year career (somehow that just makes my body ache)

While they are something of local ‘stars’ in their neighborhood, there are darker memories beneath it all – an abusive husband who turned into a pimp, a daughter who was taken into foster care, and losing their brothel ( Amsterdam’s only independent brothel at the time) after being forced out by organized crime.

Furthermore, decades of servicing thousands of men has taken its toll.

“I could have done without this nonsense,” admits Martine, bemoaning the inadequate state pension and her financially precarious future. These days, she tries to limit her business to creative foreplay.