Prostitution and Carnal Vigilance in Cape Town

Race, Gender, and Public Health, 1868-1957
Winner of the Bloomsbury and World History Association Diversity in World History First Monograph PrizeExploring the history of prostitution in Cape Town from 1868 to 1957, this book charts the transformation of the sex trade from societal and legal toleration to criminalization and abolition. Showing how this transformation to Cape Town’s commercial sex industry did not solely occur in a vacuum, but also affected the Western Cape and southern Africa, Gonzalez-Stout shows how regional, international and imperial forces shaped the sex economy in a region undergoing colonization, warfare, racial stratification, urbanization and apartheid. Illuminating socially constructed ideas on morality that shaped the sex trade in Cape Town, this book shows how the selling of sex proved to be a vigorous economic force that remained tethered to racial and gender norms that defined moral boundaries. Feared and watched by government officials, women’s organization, moral reformers, medical professionals, law enforcement and concerned citizens, it was also a commodified and contentious arena. Arguing that sexual anxieties were ultimately racial anxieties, Prostitution and Carnal Vigilance in Cape Town shows how this transformation was sustained by white supremacy and nationalism against a backdrop of wider exclusionary and segregationist measures, while marginalized sex workers continued to demonstrate resistance and agency in the face of moral policing and increasing surveillance.

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