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Common Prostitutes and Ordinary Citizens

Commercial Sex in London, 1885-1960

  • Book
  • © 2012

Overview

Authors:
  1. Julia Laite
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Part of the book series: Genders and Sexualities in History (GSX)

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xiii
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  2. Introduction: Criminalizing Commercial Sex

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 1-23

  3. Selling Sex: Women, Work and Prostitution

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 24-42

  4. Buying Sex: Men and the Marketplace

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 43-53

  5. The Crusade Begins: The Criminal Law Amendment Act and London’s ‘Brothels’ before the First World War

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 54-69

  6. Women in Public and Public Women: Controlling Street Prostitution 1887–1914

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 70-86

  7. ‘Down on Whores’ and ‘Living on the Earnings’: Violence, Vulnerability and the Law after 1885

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 87-99

  8. White Slaves and Alien Prostitutes: Trafficking, Protection and Punishment in the Early Twentieth Century

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 100-115

  9. Making War, Taking Fingerprints and Challenging the Law: Policy Changes and Public Debates after 1914

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 116-134

  10. Behind Closed Doors: Off-Street Commercial Sex in the Interwar Years

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 135-148

  11. Sex, War and Syndication: Organized Prostitution and the Second World War

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 149-170

  12. The Shame of London: Prostitution and Panic in the Post-war Metropolis

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 171-190

  13. Risking the Dangers: Reconsidering Commercial Sex in ‘Permissive Britain’

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 191-211

  14. Conclusion

    • Julia Laite
    Pages 212-222

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 223-299
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About this book

Between 1885 and 1960, laws and policies designed to repress prostitution dramatically shaped London's commercial sex industry. This book examines how laws translated into street-level reality, explores how women who sold sex experienced criminalization, and charts the complex dimensions of the underground sexual economy in the modern metropolis.

About the author

JULIA LAITE Lecturer in Modern British History at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. She has published several articles on prostitution in Britain and is presently researching women's migration, sexual labour, and human trafficking in the twentieth century world.

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