ABSTRACT
This is an examination, from a feminist historian's standpoint, of the background to the present system of regulating prostitution in Britain - which is generally admitted to be not only unjust and discriminatory, but ineffective even in achieving its stated aims. Concentrating on the 1950s, and especially on the Wolfenden Report and the 1959 Street Offences Act, it is a thorough exposure of the sexual double standard and general misogynist assumptions underlying legislation relating to prostitution. In addition to the detailed analysis of the 1950s legislation and the background to it, there is an exposition of the subsequent workings of the Act, and of attempts to amend or repeal it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |14 pages
Introduction
part |52 pages
PART I The Regulation of Prostitution: Society and Law
chapter |20 pages
CHAPTER 1 Technologies of Power
chapter |31 pages
CHAPTER 2 The Legislative Background
part |90 pages
PART II The Wolfenden Committee: Regulating Prostitution in the 1950s
chapter |11 pages
CHAPTER THREE The Origins of the Report
chapter |17 pages
CHAPTER FOUR Preliminary Organisation
chapter |18 pages
CHAPTER FIVE Listening to the Experts
chapter |15 pages
CHAPTER SIX Formulating an Offence
chapter |19 pages
CHAPTER SEVEN The Report
chapter |9 pages
CHAPTER EIGHT The Double Standard
part |51 pages
PART III The Law and Society
chapter |17 pages
CHAPTER NINE The Legislative Legacy
chapter |33 pages
CHAPTER TEN Moral Matters
part |79 pages
PART IV Change and Continuity: The Consequences of Legal Reform