Compromised positions : prostitution, public health, and gender politics in revolutionary Mexico City / Katherine Elaine Bliss

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: University Park, PA : Pennsylvania State University Press , 2001Description: 243 p. : illus. ; 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780271021256
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • LAS 306.74 BLI 
Summary: To illuminate the complex cultural foundations of state formation in modern Mexico, Compromised positions explains how and why female prostitution became politicized in the context of revolutionary social reform between 1910 and 1940. Focusing on the public debates over legalized sexual commerce and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the first half of the twentieth century, Katherine Bliss argues that political change was compromised time and again by reformers' antiquated ideas about gender and class, by prostitutes' outrage over official attempts to undermine their livelihood, and by clients' unwillingness to forgo visiting brothels despite revolutionary campaigns to promote monogamy, sex education, and awareness of the health risks associated with sexual promiscuity. In the Mexican public's imagination, the prostitute symbolized the corruption of the old regime even as her redemption represented the new order's potential to dramatically alter gender relations through social policy. Using medical records, criminal case files, and letters from prostitutes and their patrons to public officials, Compromised positions reveals how the contradictory revolutionary imperatives of individual freedom and public health clashed in the effort to eradicate prostitution and craft a model of morality suitable for leading Mexico into the modern era.
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Item type Current library Call number Status Date due Barcode
Latin American Studies Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C. Sala Ingles LAS 306.74 BLI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 052668

To illuminate the complex cultural foundations of state formation in modern Mexico, Compromised positions explains how and why female prostitution became politicized in the context of revolutionary social reform between 1910 and 1940. Focusing on the public debates over legalized sexual commerce and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the first half of the twentieth century, Katherine Bliss argues that political change was compromised time and again by reformers' antiquated ideas about gender and class, by prostitutes' outrage over official attempts to undermine their livelihood, and by clients' unwillingness to forgo visiting brothels despite revolutionary campaigns to promote monogamy, sex education, and awareness of the health risks associated with sexual promiscuity. In the Mexican public's imagination, the prostitute symbolized the corruption of the old regime even as her redemption represented the new order's potential to dramatically alter gender relations through social policy. Using medical records, criminal case files, and letters from prostitutes and their patrons to public officials, Compromised positions reveals how the contradictory revolutionary imperatives of individual freedom and public health clashed in the effort to eradicate prostitution and craft a model of morality suitable for leading Mexico into the modern era.

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