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While the literal definition of prostitution (Italian: prostituzione) is defined as the exchange of sexual acts for money, scholars have found the practice embedded in larger social structures, and as such, is much more complex than the mere exchange of services and goods. In their modern History of Sexuality, H.G. Cocks and Matt Houlbrook, approach "sex" and its various forms as "a prism through which to explore wider social and cultural issues. In Western Europe, democracies of the nineteenth century witnessed a protracted and contested rise of democracy which was accompanied by what is known as the 'invention of sexuality'. While their is a long history of prostitution in Italy, in its modern form it reflected the enormous societal changes that occurred across Western European society. Modern prostitution is an outgrowth, like many industries and economies of industrialization and urbanization. These twin social phenomenon "inhibited stable family formation for some, and delayed it for others creating larger markets for prostitution." As an outgrowth of larger social trends,  the prostitute was labeled not a criminal, but a deviant by the Italian state--who required regulation and intervention. She, as the prostitute at this time was invariably posited as a female subject, became a prominent symbol of the classi pericolose (dangerous classes) by the Italian ruling class and bourgeoisie.

Prostitution in the Modern Period
As a consequence of the adoption of the Napoleonic Code in much of Europe, France became the model for the regulatory approach to prostitution. In the mid-nineteenth century the French established state-sponsored brothels and a system of registration and the tracking of prostitutes. This required the inspection of prostitutes for disease and the naturalization of brothels as a natural outlet for men's lustful natures. Following the French occupation, at which time the Napoleonic Code had been implemented, many municipal governments on the Italian peninsula (the Italian peninsula had yet to be united under a national government) issued patienti di tolleranza (licenses of tolerance) for brothels. In 1841, twenty years prior to unification, the move toward regulation was strengthened by the requirement in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies that all prostitutes undergo medical inspection in Palermo.

Regolamentazione (Cavour Regulation)
The Italian statesman Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri, or better known simply as Cavour, was the first Prime Minister of a united Italy. In accordance with his aim of unification aided by the ideological framework of regulation, Cavour attempted to implement homogenous statutes to all communes. Under this new state regulation prostitution was not approached as a crime, but was nonetheless regarded as a vice "morally and hygienically dangerous to society." Cavour accordingly legalized prostitution, but subjected it to "special regulation." The prostitute as a symbol of the classi pericolose (dangerous classes), or working classes, became the site of state intervention--as did women's sexuality in general. These efforts to regulate the state were not exclusively concerned with prostitution but were part of larger efforts to rationalize bureaucracy and included the establishment of the Guardie di Pubblica Sicurezza (Public Security Guards). In an effort to protect the social body the prostitute was submitted to regulation which included registration and examination.

Prostitution, then, came to symbolize larger fears about the population increase of the working classes and the alarm about the potential threat they represented to established societal structures. The dramatic increase in the population from the beginning of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries (from 18 to 37 million) post-unification incited fear among the ruling classes. The countryside could no longer support a population that was growing due to a drop in the death rate and child mortality. The rapid growth of cities also materially impacted the prospects of young women. Fewer families could afford to provide dowries for their daughters as land holdings grew smaller. Single women were particularly vulnerable to these societal changes, and unlike men they did not emigrate to find work. Most women migrated regionally, but were restricted to certain trades as they were barred from heavy industry and most skilled trades. This left women to compete for employment in domestic service and garment making.

Nineteenth Century Positivist Criminology
In the nineteenth century the figure of the the prostitute came to be viewed as deviant. Urbanization and the growth of populations produced a confluence of trends that resulted in an increase of prostitution and other perceived forms of deviance. Positivist science attempted to analyze and qualify these behaviors--particularly those of criminals. Cesare Lombroso established himself as the authority of criminology with the publication of L'uomo delinquente (Criminal Man). Lombroso's work attempted to establish shared biological components among a criminal class that could be be discovered and proven by identifying common physical abnormalities. In 1893 Lombroso published La donna delinquente, la prostituta e la donna normale (Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman). This publication was intended to prove Lombroso's theory which he accomplished by collecting data first on "normal" women and then proceeded to examining the "Pathological Anatomy and Anthropometry of Criminal Woman and the Prostitute." Although his work has lost scientific legitimacy and may disturb the modern reader, it reflects the mainstream views of the day--that the external physiognomy reflected "internal moral character." Lombroso also held that women were biologically inferior to men and that women's criminality is based in her physiognomy. Lombroso's work had a profound impact on the field of criminal anthropology and the practice of criminology. Prostitution was approached by Lombroso as "the female equivalent of male crime." In this way positivists perpetuated societal prejudices and further secured prostitutes as representative of the dangerous classes.