Conclusion: Confinement across centuries
Zona Galáctica and the red light districts of Antwerp and Brussels were established as remedies to perceived problems of disorder and public exposure to immorality caused by unmanaged street prostitution. Recognizing the impracticality of banning prostitution completely, local officials claimed regulated zones of “tolerance” as a means of reducing some of prostitution’s “ills” without fully endorsing sex work. (To what degree the municipalities benefit financially from the sale of sex remains an important issue, though unaddressed here.) In line with such thinking, all three of these zones are single-use, removed from the rest of the city. The regulation of these areas means that the workers are required to give up anonymity in order to gain permits, a condition that can be seen as both an authorization of the trade and a further exertion of state regulation over sex and the female body. In some ways, the zones give the workers freedoms they may not have working on the outside. The women often set their own rates and hours, and in some ways gain a degree of safety, security and health care. And the experience of having a ‘place of work’ with set hours tends to normalize the work – though some clients complain this has sanitized the experience.
And yet, it is clear that many of the dangers of the work remain. In both Belgian RLDs, pimps remain a presence and crime still exists. The fact that just outside these three zones, street prostitution still remains (as it did in Paris outside of the maisons tolerées) suggests that prostitutes have many reasons to not become a licensed zone worker. Furthermore, the degree to which government officials play a role significantly affects the nature of the zones. While Antwerp’s RLD was created by a reform-oriented regime with input from prostitute rights advocates, the Brussels RLD has been characterized by a mostly hands-off official mentality, partially due to the neighborhood’s socioeconomic marginalization. The difference in the two municipalities’ attitudes is obvious in the physical appearance of both RLDs; Brussels’ is disorganized and decaying while Antwerp’s is modernized and cleansed.
No matter the differences in details, the zones examined here have been founded on similar antiquated notions of containment, concealment and isolation that bear more than slight resemblance to the 19th century maisons tolerées of Paris. Du Châtlet’s language makes clear that the official reasoning behind zoning had more to do with the respectable public than the wellbeing of the prostitutes. Although modern-day tolerance zones are claimed as sites of modernity, complete with health centers and high-tech security systems, the reality of these zones remains reminiscent of centuries-old notions of tolerating a necessary evil. The marginalization of these businesses to the outskirts of cities reminds us of du Châtlet’s ideal streets “which lead nowhere,” where city officials are “happy to conceal […] the abodes of vice which embarrass it […].” (CITE 101) It seems as if the only major change between tolerance zones of the 19th century and the 21st century is that official rhetoric has become less blatantly dismissive of the women themselves and instead, has taken on an air of paternalism that further investigation often proves to be filled with empty promises and timeworn repressive moralities.