Tolerated evil : : prostitution in the kingdom of Poland in the nineteenth century / / Jolanta Sikorska-Kulesza ; translated by Julita Mastalerz.

• Superior document: Polish studies transdisciplinary perspectives
• VerfasserIn: Sikorska-Kulesza, Jolanta,
• TeilnehmendeR: Mastalerz, Julita,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin : : Peter Lang,, 2020.
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Polish studies, transdisciplinary perspectives.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (358 pages).

In the nineteenth century, state policy towards prostitution was primarily shaped by an assessment of its role in spreading venereal diseases. In this book, the author traces normative and organisational efforts of the authorities of the Kingdom of Poland, which sought to maintain control over prostitution and the health of women who offered paid sexual services. The author uses data collected by the police and medical authorities supervising legal and illegal prostitution to provide a demographic and sociological picture of the big-city and small-town market of sexual commerce. It was only in the early twentieth century when prostitution became an important subject of the Polish public debate, a process which is described in the book against the backdrop of the major issues and fears of the epoch.

Table of Contents

The state versus prostitution: rules, regulations and means of control -- Police and medical supervision over prostitution -- Legal prostitution: social and demographic analysis -- Prostitution in the eyes of the society: written discourse at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries.