Prostitution In Victorian

During this essay, I will be discussing the relationship between social control and prostitution in the Victorian era.

Firstly, I will give a brief introduction and description of prostitution in Victorian times then continue to highlight the key factors of social control during this era.

Women in Victorian times entered into prostitution mainly because they were forced into it via poverty and lack of job prospects for working class women. According to Walkowitz, most women who entered into prostitution were from either broken homes, or were orphans who had experienced their first sexual encounter at a young age; the average being 16. During Victorian times, girls were valued much less than boys, including within the family; daughters

During these times prostitution was seen to be the cause of a lot of problems, or potentially used as a ‘scape goat’ for many moral panics in society. The threat of prostitution was articulated in three main factors, one being visible prostitution, two being its association with the City, and three its magnitude. Prostitution was first seen as a threat to property and decency and within that, the main concern being visible prostitution within the streets and public areas, spilling into the respectable society, creating a ‘leakage’ from one class into another. This now created a need for prostitution to be recognised and reinforced as a public threat and danger and was then built into the law; this is where social control steps up to ensure there is no breakdown of the carefully constructed boundaries between the classes of the pure bourgeoisie and the fallen

During the Victorian era prostitutes had been given a lot of the blame for the spreading of diseases and prostitution was defined as an offence against public health. Prostitution was seen as the link between the classes which caused the spread of diseases. By 1864 the bourgeois viewed the common prostitute as a source of contamination. During these times, the female bourgeoisie’s view of how women should be greatly influenced by how prostitution and poor women were seen, and in fact it was not just prostitution which appeared to be the problem, it was all women and their sexuality and promiscuity. In these times, that was simply not allowed, as sex was seen as a means only for reproduction. Men were viewed as a victim of the women’s promiscuous behaviour; any woman who had sexual urges or displayed sexual behaviours were stigmatised and considered lunatics and