Prostitutes in History: From Parables of Pornography to Metaphors of Modernity

Abstract

BEFORE 1980, THE PROSTITUTE was pornographic. Few historians considered prostitution an important topic, and studies of the subject commonly played to the sensational and salacious.' The small body of significant scholarship concentrated on ideas, social movements, and campaigns to control or abolish prostitution.2 Other serious works focused on cities with red-light districts, emphasizing the most