PROSTITUTION

PROSTITUTION

1. Contemporary Society

   • Male Dominated - Double Standard
   • 'Modest' (U+M) women needed protecting - Prostitution outlet
   • Prostitution became a state supported institution
   • Authorities saw absolutionists/repealists as lunatic fringe, didn't want to publicise attention
   • Upper Classes Legislation, moral regulation of WC sexuality (threat to UC male sons)
   • Prostitutes seen literally & figuratively as conduit of infection to respectable society

2. Facts

   • 1857, 1 in 60 houses brothel, 1 in 16 women prostitute
   • that's 6000 Brothels & 80,000 Prozzies!
   • 1864, 1/3 sick cases in Army venereal (Navy 1/11)
   • Proof of success, Castle St in Plymouth, every house was Broth now only 1 with 3 P

3. Acts

   • 1864, 1866 & 1869
   • 'Morals Police' arrest, inspect and place on reigster
   • Fear of weakening Military power and deficient troops
   • Extentionists - grand plan for a moral and sanitary Utopia
   • 1882 Lords Committee lead to Criminal Law Amendment Bill (raise age to 16, harsher punishment on Brothel keepers etc, wasn't passed but temp checked ideology)

4. Quotes

   • 'Walter' 'aGHBFTYfMtaBBfN..iitFoSGtbFY..iitLoNtNCT'
   • Butler (Protest) 'BitUtPtSwatMVoVaLUtSwatMCBoVaiDC'
   • Walkowitz 'SaOoCGAaF,aPSoEEUIC'
   • Home Office, wOS,tOaCaaMoG,wtOiiaIIofNI

5. Historiography

   • Finnegan, too much concentration institutional aspects rather than Proz themselves.Double Standard doesn't work (73% WCM) Criticisms- fails to recognise women as historical agents of own history
   • Walkowitz, Proz important historical actors who's move wasn't pathological or deviant but making rational choice given limited opportunities. Proz became social lepers of Ind Rev as Syphilis replaced leprosy as symbol of social contagion & disease
   • Hollerstein ,Parker & Offen - Symbol of Proz was used as a threat to women of all social classes who challenged established gender roles
   • Lynn Nead, Victorians defined Proz as victims rather than oppressors, in order to disarm them of their power. 'Wretched Outcast' ravaged by 'remorse' & 'shame' to deflect power & threat of WC women
   • Linda Gordon, Proz were living symbols of women's economic and sexual vulnerability
   • Historians only recently relating public struggles with private lives of MC feminists and more generally the social relations between the sexes in C19.
   • Not much non-feminism Historiography
   • Feminism Historiography forgets about impact of male leader roles such as Henry Wilson & James Stansfeld, who directed political strategy of campaign & also fails to recognise the repeal campaign as an organised movement
   • Military historians regarded acts as pragmatic response to pressing social problem, realistic attempt to control prostitution and venereal diseases in disordely towns

6. Advocates/Extentionists

   • Society which worshiped 'purity' of women while accommodating inherent 'evil' of men, imagery of sacrifice
   • 'medicinal research rubbed shoulders with moral philosophy and political economy', social medicines
   • 3 Promoters: Military, Medical Profession & Civilian Elite
     • M=Increase military efficiency, Other 2 reflect new interventionalist approach to social problems
   • writings of W.R Greg & William Acton instrumental in generating intellectual climate sympathetic to regulation
   • MC demand, WC supply, not always case though much demand from WC also, many Proz went in out of own choice
   • hostile towards assertive women and fear of female autonomy

7. Repealists

   • Anti-law; call for removal of double standard, first move of sexual moralism & women liberation, seen as licence for male vice, sentenced registered women to a 'life of sin' by public stigmatization, direct threat to own status and self-respect, 'fallen sisters',
   • Josephine Butler
     • militant feminism, Ladies National Asso (LNA) grounds for equality, directed appeal at women and WC men (wives&daughters) not just unhappy slaves but also respectability to some Prost.
     • LNA; helped defeat General Sir Henry Storks, challenged act as immoral, women lacked cultural and political power to shape world, but did check ideology, got full appeal in 1886 but limited success; harsher crackdown meant rise of pimps and worse conditions; Proz now social outcasts, deviants & criminals
   • hostile to male power and influence
   • Henry J Wilson& James Stansfeld National Association for the Repeal of the CD Acts in 1869- Acts immoral and unconstitutional, called for full repeal
   • LNA&NA support; MC Noncomformists, evangelical clergy, feminists & radical working men