alternative authorities, such as religious institutions. 9 Likewise, ‘policing’ does not necessarily
infer prohibitive or punitive activities but can refer to protective or supervisory activities. For
example, during the late medieval period in Southwark, England, ‘stews’ (a type of semi-legal
brothel) were under the protection of the diocese of Winchester. In this way, the Church
‘policed’ the act of prostitution without enacting punishment. 10 This nuance in meaning can
make a longitudinal and cross-cultural study of the policing of sex work difficult. Focused on
the modern period, I use ‘policing’ in its modern definition: the use of state or government
legislation to control sexuality. 11
THE PROSTITUTE
DARK was the sky and still the night, Each clock had told the midnight hour, The lamps shed round a feeble light, And swiftly fell the beating shower.
Loud thunders roar’d with awful noise, The lightening flash’d with hideous glare,
When accents of a female voice, Broke sadly thro’ the murky air.
What to a wretch like me, forlorn, (It cy’d) this elemental rage; Alike to me the smiles of morn, Or gloomy midni ght’s blackest rage.
9 Daniel Villatoro Segura, Social Norms for Self-Policing Multiagent Systems and Virtual Societies (Barcelona: Institut d’Investigaci ó en Intel-ligència Artificial, 2012), p. 1; Peter Joyce, Policing: Development and Contemporary Practice (London: SAGE, 2011), p. 2 10 Sondra L. Hausner, The Spirits of Crossbones Graveyard: Time, Ritual, and Sexual Commerce in London (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016), pp. 152-155 11 ‘Policing, n .’, in The Oxford English Dictionary [online], <https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/146838?rskey=1uEe0h&result=2#eid> [Accessed 11/03/2023]
65
Made with FlippingBook HTML5