Social Class Within Prostitution
The methods of enforcement utilized by the police used social class as an indication of possible “debauchery,” despite the existence of prostitutes within each social class. While the stated goal of prostitution regulation was the protection of public decency, the sex workers visited by the upper classes fell outside the gaze of regulation. With their classy attire, elegant manners and well-connected social networks, upper class sex workers were seemingly undetectable if they did not embody the stereotypes commonly associated with prostitutes.
Courtesans, prostitutes who engaged with the upper social classes discretely, were not subject to the same regulations as their brothel-dwelling and street-walking counterparts. They were not registered prostitutes, as the methods of enforcement used to target and capture prostitutes only targeted the lower social classes. This ironically left the upper social classes without the benefits provided by the prefecture's meager attempts at public health promotion.
Pictured left, Paul Gavarni's Enchanté, M'sieu de l'honneur de vous voir! shows two well-dressed men encountering each other outside the home of a sex worker. The title translates to a polite greeting extended from one to the other: "Delighted, sir, to have the pleasure of seeing you!" Far removed from the often repeated characterization of prostitution as a filthy and debased act, here we see two men regarded as respectable engaging in polite conversation. The topic of conversation turns to their health: one responds that his health is "not bad," again contradicting the representation of prostitutes as hotbeds of disease.
Several attempts were made to include femme galantes in prostitution regulation, however they found little success. In 1817, the police de moeurs enlisted a private citizen to help them arrest courtesans, as their absence from the streets and cabarets in conjunction with a high social class left them totally invisible to the police. 60 courtesans were arrested and made to undergo syphilis examinations, however, their patrons and social networks provided so many complaints to the police that the initiative was abandoned.[1]
Another attempt came with the petite dispensaire, a special medical examination room for women thought to require “special consideration.” Separate from the main dispensaire, this special room was designated only for upper class prostitutes. They were not rounded up and arrested for failing to appear at their exams, like other sex workers. Rather, a trained and gentlemanly member of the police would issue social calls to remind them of their medical obligations. [2]
Jill Harsin includes a translated account of an occasion on which an ordinary member of the police was charged with “courtesan duty.” Failing to use tact and proper social manners, he used harshness and brutality, as was custom, to provoke the femmes galantes to fulfill their medical obligation. Having outed these well respected women as prostitutes publicly in the law-abiding buildings they lived in, they were expelled from their residences.[3] This led to intense resentment from the femmes galantes, and forced the police to devise a new strategy in the face of massive resistance.
Prefect Jean-Clause Mangin mounted another attempt to submit upper class sex workers to medical examination in 1830. He attempted to make a formal distinction between two classes of prostitutes, and to set aside a special examination day for the upper class women who preferred not to mix with the lower class. Prefect Mangin characterized the first class as “dressed elegantly, or even simply properly,” while the second class was described by Parent-Duchâtelet as “disgusting prostitutes, badly dressed and in sabots.”[4]
These experiments were regarded as failures, and upper class prostitutes remained largely unpoliced for the rest of the century.
[1] Parent Duchâtelet, Alexandre. 1837. De La Prostitucion Dans La Ville De Paris. Francia: Bailliere. Translation: FREN 311 Spring '13
[2] Harsin, Jill. 1985. Policing Prostitution In Nineteenth-Century Paris. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. p 17
[3] ibid 18
[4] p.18