1st Global Conference
Thursday 14th October - Saturday
16th October 2004
Salzburg, Austria
Session 1: Prostitution and Monogamy
Chair: Margaret Breen
Cultural Clash on Prostitution: Debates
On Prostitution in Germany and Sweden in 1990’s
Susanne Dodillet
Department
of History of Ideas, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden.
There are few questions on which Europe
is as divided as prostitution politics. These differences become
very clear through a comparative analysis of the debates that have
preceded new legislations on prostitution in Germany and Sweden
during the 1990s.
In 2001 the German parliament passed a law that legalized
prostitution. One aim of the German prostitution law was to counteract
the discrimination and stigmatization of prostitutes by increasing
the acceptance of sex work. Due to the law prostitutes have become
able to report sick , receive unemployment benefits, and retire like
any other group of employees. In Germany this legislation was celebrated
as a long overdue improvement on the way to a more liberal outlook
concerning the role of sexuality in society.
In Sweden people became
indignant when they heard about the German way to handle the case of
prostitution. In 1999 the Swedish parliament chose to criminalize the
purchase of sexual services while maintaining the legality of providing
such services. Sweden is the only country in the world with this legislation.
The laws are supposed to show Sweden’s
opposition to prostitution. The supporters of this law view prostitution
as an example of women’s oppression, and it therefore must be
combated. Prostitutes were regarded to be victims of a patriarchal
society while clients were seen as their oppressors.
Swedish and German
politicians think of their prostitution laws as humanitarian and social
ways of handling prostitution. The fact that their courses of action
still differ so much can be explained by different historical conditions,
contrary sets of values, and reverse social analysis. The aim of my
work is to give an insight into some of these prerequisites.
Prostitution, Sexuality, and Gender Roles
in Imperial German Hamburg: A Case Study
Julia Bruggemann
Department of History,
DePauw University,
Greencastle, Indiana, USA
In Imperial Germany (1870-1914), female prostitution
was a highly
contested issue. On the one hand prostitutes were tolerated because
they
were perceived to fulfil a necessary social function by providing
an
outlet for male extramarital sexuality. On the other, they constituted
a
threat to contemporary society by offering a vision of female sexuality
incompatible with bourgeois morality. Given the ambivalent nature of
prostitution, the state did not attempt to abolish, but strove to
control it. By creating a system based on clear restrictions and
definitions, German municipalities seized the power to define boundaries
of female sexual behaviour. With the help of strict regulations for
prostitutes the state created and recreated categories of ‘proper’ and ‘deviant’ female
sexuality – in
the process defining gender roles more
broadly.
In order to examine the relationship between prostitution, sexuality,
and the definition of gender roles in late nineteenth-century German
cities, I have chosen Hamburg as my case study. The large port city
was
known for its stringent regulatory system that subjected prostitutes
to
extensive limits. Their movement, clothing, and general conduct within
and outside the confines of brothels had to conform to specific locally
defined rules. Their occupations as prostitutes determined all facets
of
their lives, even those unrelated to their jobs. I argue that the state
regulations created clear boundaries for women’s sexual behaviour
and
unmistakably established prostitutes, as the sellers of extramarital
sex
and as a distinct category of women. In the past, gender roles in
Imperial Germany have been examined especially in the context of
bourgeois society. In such a treatment, prostitutes, who did not belong
to that society figured only marginally. This paper will argue instead,
that the contested definition of prostitution was not an incidental
phenomenon in a bourgeois society, but central to the social
construction of gender boundaries.
Only with You – Maybe – If You Make
Me Happy: A Genealogy of Serial Monogamy as Governance and Self-
Governance
Serena Petrella
Department of Sociology,
Carleton University, Canada
In my research, I explore governance practices in
the Western world. I study how individuals are governed and govern
themselves through the deployment of bio-political power in neo-liberal “free” market
regimes. Specifically, I analyze the administration of citizen’s
lives through the regulation of sexual conduct. I observe how different
types of sexual identifications and practices are consistent with the
political agendas of neo-liberal regimes and of late-phase capitalist
economies, as well as characteristic of their inherent contradictions.
I investigate how such sexual matrices of behavior and subjectivation
have become entrenched through processes of normalization, which support
and reproduce systemic bio-political power (Foucault 1978: 139-40).
The object of my inquiries is the norm of monogamy.
In the Western world,
the great majority of people share a substantial portion of their lives
with one partner. Adherence to the norm of monogamy begins in youth:
upon entrance into the sphere of the sexual, we pair up. Many individuals
now engage in long-term life partnerships that may or may not be marriage.
Sequential partners are acceptable and individuals can, throughout
their lives, have a varied array of sexual experiences. Generally though,
we tend to pair up in multiple yet exclusive relationships.
My research
aims at answering numerous questions. First, how has serial monogamy
come to be the presently predominant sexual and emotional dyadic structure
in Western neo-liberal regimes? Second, how does it collaborate with
and reproduce larger technologies of sexuality, specifically heterosexuality,
by providing a basic schema for human intelligibility that orders bodies
and normalizes heterogeneous erotic direction? Third, how has serial
monogamy become the tool through which individuals strive for emotional
and sexual fulfillment, in a larger project of self-actualization? Fourth,
how has symbolic monogamy been bundled into a sexual morality that prescribes
an ethics of “love quests” through serial
but exclusive pairing?
In this paper I outline my research aims for
the study of the emergence of normative serial monogamy. I offer an overview
and critique of previous sociological work done in this area, and make
evident its theoretical lacunae and methodological shortcomings. Further,
I discuss at length the Foucauldian Genealogical method and illustrate
its advantages for socio-historical inquiries. I argue that this methodology
is particularly useful for researching the constitution of subjectivities,
as well as theorising and analysing practices, their discursive construction
and their effects on subjects. It is intrinsically anti-humanistic in
nature and is very useful in avoiding different problematic issues in
social theory, among them the debates over objectivism vs. subjectivism,
individuality vs. totality, and structure vs. agency. I present a selection
of my research to illustrate how certain governance technologies have
shaped the formation and mutation of this powerful symbolic fabrication.
In conclusion I argue that in the present social, serial monogamy as
a norm, participates in the deployment of a technology of sexuality which
allows individuals to access their intelligibility through processes
of ethical self-formation.