1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910460625503321

Autore

Stauter-Halsted Keely <1960->

Titolo

The devil's chain : prostitution and social control in partitioned Poland / / Keely Stauter-Halsted

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, New York ; ; London, [England] : , : Cornell University Press, , 2015

©2015

ISBN

1-5017-0165-7

1-5017-0166-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (392 p.)

Disciplina

306.7409438

Soggetti

Prostitution - Poland - History - 19th century

Prostitution - Poland - History - 20th century

Sex - Social aspects - Poland - History - 19th century

Sex - Social aspects - Poland - History - 20th century

Electronic books.

Poland History 1864-1918

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Reforming the National Body -- 1. Out of the Shadows -- 2. Into the Abyss: The Turn to Paid Sex -- 3. Sex and the Bourgeois Family -- 4. Narratives of Entrapment -- 5. Sex Trafficking and Human Migration -- 6. The Devil's Chain -- 7. Female Activism and the Shadow State -- 8. The Physician and the Fallen Woman -- 9. Purity and Danger: Prostitution Reform and the Birth of Polish Eugenics -- 10. Sex in the New Republic -- Conclusion: Prostitution and the Shaping of the National Community -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In the half-century before Poland's long-awaited political independence in 1918, anxiety surrounding the country's burgeoning sex industry fueled nearly constant public debate. The Devil's Chain is the first book to examine the world of commercial sex throughout the partitioned Polish territories, uncovering a previously hidden conversation about sexuality, gender propriety, and social class. Keely Stauter-Halsted



situates the preoccupation with prostitution in the context of Poland's struggle for political independence and its difficult transition to modernity. She traces the Poles' growing anxiety about white slavery, venereal disease, and eugenics by examining the regulation of the female body, the rise of medical authority, and the role of social reformers in addressing the problem of paid sex. Stauter-Halsted argues that the sale of sex was positioned at the juncture of mass and elite cultures, affecting nearly every aspect of urban life and bringing together sharply divergent social classes in what had long been a radically stratified society. She captures the experiences of the impoverished women who turned to the streets and draws a vivid picture of the social milieu that shaped their choices. The Devil's Chain demonstrates that discussions of prostitution and its attendant disorders-sexual deviancy, alcoholism, child abuse, vagrancy, and other related problems-reflected differing visions for the future of the Polish nation.