'Her good service': a comparative study of sexual labour in sixteenth century Lyon, Seville, and Mexico City

Thesis

This thesis offers a comparative study of sexual labour in Lyon, Seville and Mexico City over a long sixteenth century, c.1470-c.1630. It uses labour as a lens through which to understand sex work, and delineates four types of sexual labour: legalised prostitution, extralegal prostitution, transactional sex, and unfree sexual labour. By understanding these four forms of work on a continuum, this study examines working conditions, relationships with authorities and management, and the status of the sex worker within her community. I document the late-medieval perception that sex could be labour, and an understanding of the public prostitute as performing a necessary service and then chart the shift over the early modern period by which sex work came to be seen as a moral failing. In analysing this change, sex work is positioned as a form of gendered labour alongside other productive and reproductive labour and I trace the devaluation of these forms of labour in the early modern period. This process is attributed to shifting moral attitudes generated by the Reformation and its Catholic counterpart, as well as changing conceptions of masculinity which prescribed restraint and sexual continence in contrast to earlier models which prioritised sexual exploits, drinking and gambling as indicators of masculinity. This change is situated within wider efforts to remake the early modern city to separate sacred and profane and distance elites from undesirable practices, and which produced more restrictive approaches to addressing poverty including imprisonment. The thesis considers the impact of race, class, and bondage on the circumstances of sex work, and analyses sexual violence and the insights these cases provide into perceptions of women and their sexuality. I draw heavily on archival sources from municipal, regional, notarial and national archives, and use travel accounts and literary sources such as the works of Quevedo and Cervantes.

Authors: Burgess, C

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-kormp6mqv
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: France; early modern; sexual violence; Spain; sexual labour; prostitution; gender history; sixteenth century; Mexico
• Subjects: Sixteenth century; Sex work; History