Venereal disease and the politics of prostitution in the Irish Free State

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8069170
AutoresPhilip Howell (0000-0002-4673-6422, Emmanuel College - Massachusetts, autor correspondente)
Ano2003
Volume33
Fascículo131
Páginas320-341
Data de publicação2003-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoIrish Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-1214 • E-ISSN: 2056-4139
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021121400015832
OpenAlexW2315765710
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas8
Referências citadas33

This article is intended primarily as a contribution to work on the regulation of sexuality in modern Ireland, but, more generally, it attempts to situate the Irish experience within a wider problematic concerning the relations of state and society in the regulation of prostitution. The regulation of sexuality in early twentieth-century Ireland has been a focus of concern for feminist historians in particular, and recent work has clearly demonstrated the salience of questions of gender and sexuality for the politics of the Saorstát. This article is directed at these same concerns, elaborating on a series of proposals to regulate prostitution in the Free State in the mid-1920s. But when discussing prostitution or sex work, the word ‘regulation’ can be used in a quite specific sense, ‘regulationism’ referring to the argument that the state should control venereal disease by registering prostituted women, inspecting them for signs of communicable venereal disease, and incarcerating the contagious in order to protect the health of both nation and state. The history of ‘regulationist’ policies in Europe and beyond allows a point of comparison by which we may understand the specifics of Ireland’s situation in the post-revolutionary era. The history of regulationism, in this technical sense, is a particularly useful context, not least because such policies amply acknowledge ‘the enduring power of the state as the author and executor of regulation’. Particularly important, in ways that suggest a direct parallel to the Irish experience in the early twentieth century, is the coextensive experience of state formation and the regulation of sex work, the most notable example being that of modern Italy

Argument (complex analysis · Context (archaeology · Human sexuality · Irish · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Medicine · Sex work and related issues