Introduction: Tolerance as a policy

BELGIUM. Town of Antwerpen. 1992. The Red Light District, cousin of Amsterdam prostitutes' district, HG, 1992, Magnum Photos.

Prostitution in the 21^st century remains a largely taboo subject. While varying from place to place, the sale of sex has been treated as one of society’s ills, calling for state intervention to limit, regulate and control those involved and the spread of the industry. The persistence of prostitution, however, has led some states to embrace an attitude of “toleration,” believing that regulation is necessary if prevention is impossible. A number of countries in the past decades have created dedicated zones of tolerance, sometimes called red-light districts, in order to physically and socially separate the sex industry from the rest of society. Beginning with an exploration of 19^th century Parisian maisons tolerées through du Châtelet’s exhaustive documentation of the first national system of prostitution regulation, this exhibit will continue with an examination of the following contemporary examples: Zona Galactica in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Mexico and the red light districts of Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium.

The rhetoric of tolerance in itself implies the notion of prostitution as a necessary evil. Such a vision of sex work has remained in popular imagination for hundreds for years (as will be explored in exhibit section Tolerance in 19th Century Paris: Maisons Tolerées), manifesting in conceptions of prostitutes as “human sewers,” depositories for excess male desire. As scholars Howell, Beckingham and Moore write, ““That prostitution must be tolerated contains an implicit assumption that it is an ever present phenomenon that can only ever be mitigated, and hence the focus on the control and management of sex workers rather than any systematic attempt to improve their lives and working conditions.”[1] While in some places there has been a move towards acceptance of prostitution as a legitimate form of work, tolerance zones are not always borne out of such progressive thought. Though on the surface they seem to be signs of official reckoning with social norms, tolerance zones are often extensions of long-engrained sentiments of states’ rights to regulate and control sexuality, and more specifically, the female body. However, some argue that there are benefits for sex workers in the legalization of managed zones of prostitution. A closer look at several different red-light districts provides insight into both the advantages and downfalls of doing sex work within zones of ‘containment,’ as well as the consistency of official attitudes toward prostitution from du Châtalet’s 19^th century Paris to current day.