the sale of sex were considered deviant by nature. 13 Whilst these notions of immorality and
deviance would (and still) remain attached to sex workers, the process of modernity was
introducing novel and often contradictory, ideas and fears about sex work.
Methods of policing sex work were intrinsically linked to the prevailing social values
of the time. During the eighteenth century, notions of gender and sex roles began to change.
Faramerz Dabhoiwala argues that men and women’s sexuality began to be perceived
differently. Women were no longer considered the lusty sex, instead regarded as innocent
and sexually passive, almost asexual. It was now the male libido that was insatiable and
corruptive. 14 These ideas can be seen in the poem, where the young, innocent girl is sexually
corrupted by a villainous man. In one regard, this encouraged a more empathetic view
toward sex workers, where the woman was a victim of male coercion. 15 It also, however,
established a double standard. If male sexuality was inherently unbridled, then an outlet for
these sexual needs was required to protect the sanctity of marriage and the virtuosity of
‘respectable’ women. 16 Laite suggests that sex workers came to be seen as a ‘necessary evil’,
since it was better for men to relieve their sexual urges with already ‘fallen’ women. 17
This increasingly led to regulationist approaches to policing sex work. For example,
strict regulationist policies were adopted during the Italian unification process in 1860. These
forced women to register at state sanctioned brothels, which imposed nightly curfews and
administered non-consensual venereal disease examinations. Gibson explains that, unlike
13 Garcia, Heerma van Voss, and van Nederveen Meerkerk, p. 12; Hendrik Wagenaar, Helga Arnesberger, Sietske Altink, Designing Prostitution Policy: Intention and Reality in Regulating the Sex Trade (Bristol: Policy Press, 2017), pp. 29-30 14 Faramerz Dabhoiwala, ‘Lust and Liberty’, Past and Present , 207 (2010), 89-179 (pp. 144, 153-156) 15 Ian Ward, Sex, Crime and Literature in Victorian England (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2014), pp. 118-123 16 Teresa Degenhardt, ‘Prostitution’, in Shades of Deviance: A Primer on Crime, Deviance and Social Harm , Ed. Rowland Atkinson (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), pp. 21-23 (pp. 21-22) 17 Laite, Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens , p. 6
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