Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai: A Social History, 1849–1949

by Christian Henriot , Translated by Noel Castelino

• ISBN13: 9780521571654
• ISBN10: 0521571650
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Shanghai's nightlife, from the mid-nineteenth century until the victory of the Communist Party in 1949, was dominated by the world of prostitution. Henriot portrays the Chinese sex trade, from the sophisticated life of the courtesan to the common life of street prostitution. He examines the extent to which these worlds were integral to Chinese social life, commercial trends, and Chinese mores and sexuality. Henriot draws a picture of a sector that was sensitive to economic and social change, and thus a good reflection of Shanghai's changing social structure, societal attitudes, and commercial development. This is the most comprehensive treatment available of a social phenomenon that has been much discussed in studies of Chinese culture, but largely neglected as a subject of serious historical concern. At the crossroads of social and intellectual history, this study gets beyond the curtain of exoticism for a realistic look at a vibrant sector of Shanghai's economic and cultural life.

Table of Contents

List of Tables, Figures, Plates, and Maps	xi
Author's Preface	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Introduction: Prostitution and Sexuality -- a Historiographical Review	1	(18)
Part 1 The Courtesans: Prostitutes to the Elite and the Elite of the Prostitutes	19	(54)
The Courtesans from the Nineteenth to the Twentienth Centuries: The End of a World	21	(26)
Lives of Splendor and Wretchedness	47	(26)
Part 2 The Market of Prostitution and Mass Sexuality	73	(90)
From the High-Class Brothel to Mass Sexuality: The Explosion of Common Prostitution from 1849 to 1949	75	(24)
Ancillary Forms of Prostitution (1920s--1940s)	99	(16)
The Prostue in the Twentieth Century: An Essay in Social Anthropology	115	(23)
Sex, Suffering, and Violence	138	(25)
Part 3 The Space and Economy of Prostitution	163	(108)
The Female Market in Shanghai and China	165	(36)
Houses of Prostitution in the Urban Space	201	(25)
The Organization and Management of the Houses of Prostitution	226	(22)
The Economy of Sex	248	(23)
Part 4 Abortive Attempts to Regulate Prostitution in Shanghai	271	(83)
Disease Prevention and the Policing of Morality (1860--1914)	273	(18)
The Abolitionist Movement in Shanghai (1915-1925)	291	(21)
The Nationalists and Regulationism Chinese-Style (1927-1949)	312	(22)
Institutions for the Rescue of the Prostitutes (1880-1949)	334	(20)
Conclusion	354	(9)
Notes	363	(68)
Bibliography	431	(32)
Index	463