To browse Academia. Commercialized sexuality became a prominent feature of American urban settings in the nineteenth century as young men migrated far from the watchful eyes of family as soldiers and laborers. Concentrated in large population, and unable to afford the comforts of marriage, these men composed a reliable pool of customers for women who sold sex. These women turned to working as prostitutes on a casual or steady basis due to the sex segregated labor market that paid women perilously low wages, or due to family disruption like paternal or spousal abandonment, or limited opportunities within their home life.
Selling sex was profitable and allowed some women a path towards economic independence; though sex work had its risks of venereal disease and violence.
By mid-century American cities had adopted a policy of tolerated red-light districts where brothels thrived as part of urban sporting culture. Fears of sexual slavery emerged in the s and led to a concerted attack on the brothels by progressive reformers. After the war, the introduction of antibiotic and the celebration of heterosexual normativity in the form of marriage and family nudged prostitution into the margins of society, where women who sold sex were seen as deviant, yet men who purchased sex were thought to be sexually liberated.
The dawning of second wave feminism gave birth to the sex workers rights movement and a critique of the criminalization of prostitution.
Yet, attitudes about prostitution continue to divide activists, and sex workers still bear the brunt of criminalization.
