Browse Exhibits (16 total)

Prostitution in Algeria: Free or Forced?

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This exhibit examines the polarized and contradictory depictions of Algerian women's agency at the time of French conquest, as described in the second edition of On Prostitution in the City of Paris (1857).

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Sex Work And Public Health: Then and Now

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This exhibit illustrates the substantive lack of change in discourse regarding sexually transmitted infections (STIs), public health, and sex work, which shows a larger pattern of sex work stigmatization that has stayed mostly the same. Public health is a discipline that has evolved over centuries of scientific advances and the development of new health scares, but many of these changes are reflections of the past. Though there are certainly inherent differences, HIV/AIDS in modern sex work communities is very much a reflection of syphilis in 19th century Parisian sex work communities.

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Prostitution and Stigma Cross-Culturally: Paris, Nairobi, and California

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This exhibit compares the stigmatization of indoor prostitution with that of outdoor prostitution. These two forms of prostitution carry significant (but varied) meanings with regard to stigma in that they are reflective of class lines.  To explore this comparison more deeply, I juxtapose three different cultures: Paris in the 1830s, Nairobi in the 1900s, and California in the late 1990s-early 2000s.  In doing so, I examine how the dominant attitudes affiliated with indoor and outdoor prostitution inform kinship and living structures for female prostitutes in each of these places and time periods.  The patterns and differences between these three cases demonstrate that stigma (like prostitution) varies across cultures.

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The Policies and Politics of Prostitution: Contrasting 19th Century Paris with Present-Day Legislative Strategies

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This exhibit contrasts the state of legislation on prostitution in 19th century Paris with the legislative ideologies regarding prostitution today.

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Prostitution Discourse: How do we talk about sex work?

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Over time, discourses relating to prostitution have seen little change. This exhibit will look at specific groups (researchers, workers’ agency and the public) related to prostitution and explore how the discourses from 1830’s France reflect similar discourses used today. 

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Whiteness, “Othering”, and Prostitution: Intersections in 1830s Paris and Modern Areas

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This exhibit explores the various ways that Whiteness interacts with a racialized other that is also a sex worker, a comparison of French colonized Algeria, 1830s Sub-Saharan Africa, and modern Dominican Republic reveals that a process of exotification and "othering" still occurs and links the realities of prostitution in these places across time.

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I Got It From My Mama: Prostitute Mothers

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This exhibit examines the social roles of “mother” and “prostitute” that are assumed to be incompatible. As a result of this assumption, prostitute mothers are often erased from current public discourse and art, are believed to negatively influence their children, have strong reasons for choosing their profession, and face obstacles in accessing health care. This exhibit will report on these phenomena, as well as the depiction of prostitute mothers in Alexandre Parent-Duchatelet's work.

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The Fashion System of Prostitution

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The ways in which prostitution and fashion intersect and how this affects the perception of others as well as the style of "respectable women."

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Deviant Existences: Understanding Queer and Sex Worker Identities and their Entwined Histories

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This exhibit examines modern queer identities, sex work, and the murky, entwined relationship between history, behavior, and identity formation.

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A History of Prostitution and Public Health: The Social Control of Prostitutes' Bodies

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19th century Paris and the contemporary United States extered similar mechanisms of social control over prostitutes’ health and bodies. This control simultaneously reflects and reproduces stereotypes of the prostitute as a diseased body that the customer needs protection from. 

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