health was legislated through the Contagious Diseases Acts of the mid-nineteenth-century.
These were initially focused on areas where armed forces were based. 25 In one regard then,
the state sought to control the sexual bodies of both sex workers and army personnel. There
was a clear distinction in purpose, however; such control was for the benefit of the soldier or
sailor. By regulating the sex worker’s body, the male consumer was free to purchase sex as
desired, safeguarded from infection, and therefore fit to fight. 26
Government concerns around prostitution and the sexual health of their armed
personnel increased at times of active warfare. In America, for example, attitudes to policing
sex work could be ambiguous during periods of peacetime. In early-phase frontier mining
towns, where male populations often disproportionately outweighed female, sex work could
be openly tolerated. 27 Yet, in urban areas with burgeoning populations, official attitudes
were usually more prohibitive. Such variation in policing was, in part, due to the governing
autonomy of each State. 28 During the Second World War, however, the American
government used national propaganda campaigns to warn their armed forces about the risks
of prostitutes and venereal disease (see Figure 2). The female sex worker depicted in the
poster is provocative. Her dress clings to her form, emphasising her breasts and waistline,
and she stares confidently at her audience. Yet underneath her appealing exterior, warns the
poster, lay syphilis and gonorrhoea. Its message is clear: prostitutes are dangerous.
25 Ward, pp. 123-126 26 Ward, pp. 123, 126 27 Heather Branstetter, Selling Sex in the Silver Valley: A Business Doing Pleasure (Charleston: The History Press, 2017), p. 20 28 Nancy F. Cott, ‘Introduction’, in History of Women in the United States: Historical Ar ticles on Women’s Lives and Activities: 9. Prostitution , Ed. Nancy F. Cott (M ü nchen: K.G. Saur, 1993), pp. IX-X (pp. IX, X); Peterson, pp. 1- 6
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