Paulo Drinot. The Sexual Question: A History of Prostitution in Peru, 1850s–1950s.

Abstract

The modern state’s approach to the world’s “oldest profession” has inspired historical work across geographies and time periods. Paulo Drinot’s excellent monograph on the history of prostitution in Peru is an important contribution to that scholarship. Because of Drinot’s serious engagement with this scholarship, he is able to place Peruvian history within the global context while signaling the local particularities of his case. This is all the more important because of the transnational nature of the scientific, at times pseudo-scientific, information that influenced state policies toward prostitution. The Sexual Question traces the emergence of prostitution as a social problem for the medical community, journalists, and state institutions in the late nineteenth century. Campaigns for the regulation of sex work clashed with arguments for its abolition. These debates generated state policies with consequences for prostitutes and their clients, neighbors of brothels, and the broader public. Experts placed venereal disease at the center of sex-work regulation. Drinot demonstrates, however, that eugenics, creating proper sexual citizens, and policing women’s freedoms were also significant drivers of policies around prostitution.