Journal of Australian Colonial History: Book Reviews
Vol 11, 2009
Raelene Frances, Selling Sex: A Hidden History of Prostitution, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2007, ISBN 978 086840 901 6, pbk, x + 342 pp, $39.95.
In the opening pages of Selling Sex we are introduced to 'Joy', a statue of a young female sex worker which stood in East Sydney for eighteen months during 1995-1997. Following complaints by local residents, the statue was removed from public view and returned to its owner. Evidently, Joy was considered a reminder of the community's 'bad old days', when it was better known for prostitution than restaurants. In a nation in which almost every sizable community has proudly erected monuments to military men, the removal of Joy reveals much about labour and gender relations in Australia. For Frances, the removal of Joy is symbolic, our historical treatment of sex workers having parallels with our treatment of the convicts. This work sets out to give these women (male prostitutes do not figure in this history) a voice and break with the stereotypes of 'abandoned whores' or 'sad victims'. It also sets out to place the sex industry in the broader national and international context in which it has historically operated.
The title of the book is misleading: this is not a general history of prostitution, but a history of prostitution in Australia. The cover of the book, with its shadowy image of a young street worker in contemporary dress, also disguises the fact that this is a broad ranging history, over half of which examines prostitution prior to Federation. This is the first attempt at a broad ranging history of prostitution in Australia. This is not to suggest, as the book's title does, that prostitution has been 'hidden' in Australian history. While we may be uncomfortable with recent incarnations of prostitution, as was the case with the Joy statue, there has been ample acknowledgment of the presence of 'whores' in colonial Australia. Since the appearance of Kay Daniels' So Much Hard Work (1984), there has been a minor stream of historical work which has questioned stereotypes associated with prostitution, among the most recent being two accounts of Kalgoorlie's sex industry. These works have offered a refreshing contrast to recent European histories of prostitution, which have concentrated on the upper end of the market, comprised of exotic courtesans. This upper end of the sex industry rarely features in Frances' history.
In contrast with recent Australian research, Selling Sex applies a broad focus to its subject matter, this ambitious project having much in common with earlier histories of prostitution which tried to produce national or global narratives of their subject matter. What distinguishes the book from these earlier works is the way in which it has been informed by second-wave feminism. And yet, this book rarely engages directly in the critical debates thrown up in the scholarly literature on prostitution (or 'sex work', as it may be, depending on your position in such debates). Instead, Frances presents a popular history, clearly targeting a broad readership. The narrative approach is largely descriptive, built around sketches of a number of historical characters and events, some of which have been well rehearsed in the existing literature. We encounter the convict seamstresses, Aboriginal women on the frontiers and women on the goldfields. Yet we never become familiar with these women in any intimate way. What we do learn of them tends to hold to the conventions of more recent histories: all that is lacking is the detail and depth of storytelling about their lives and times which could aid a better understanding of their circumstances.
What we learn of characters, such as the convict Jane Torr or Kate Leigh, who combined the sale of sex with illicit liquor in 1920s Sydney, has largely been handed down to us by the authorities who intervened to police these women, and media reports. When we are introduced to the Japanese prostitutes known as karaytuki-san, it is in the context of a violent crime. As such, despite the book's stated intent, the spectre of disease and violence forms a constant subtext to the lives of these women. Unfortunately, the public records which inform this history are not subjected to critical interrogation and we are presented with a series of sensational incidents in the lives of these women, not their everyday preoccupations. What in the end remains hidden are the various audiences who policed, defined and categorised these women. Also missing from a large part of the narrative are the men who made up their clientele. But again, this may well only reflect the prejudices of the official records. When men do appear, it is typically as 'foreign' pimps or clients.
The irony here is that to be successful in prostitution — to make a 'career' of it — has largely been premised on being hidden from public view. What we encounter in these pages is that which failed to divert the gaze of authorities. The women we encounter have largely been those who have come to public attention through some misfortune, so it is difficult for Frances to break from the stereotypes. Frances does take us beyond the popular imagery of prostitution associated with inner city streetworkers. We are reminded that prostitution was an important element of frontier life and that the barter of sex preceded the arrival of Europeans. We are also taken, albeit briefly, to the suburbs. More significantly, Frances draws attention to how prostitution has contributed to Australia's ethnic diversity and cultural prejudices. A strong subtext of this work involves the 'non-white' female migrant experience and race relations in Australian history.
Unfortunately, there are not any strong threads holding this narrative together. The conclusions, briefly drawn, sit flat and are not well illustrated in the preceding text. We see apparent shifts in legislation or social norms, but these are never well explained or contextualised. An issue here, which muddies the narrative, is the complex development of legal attitudes associated with prostitution, which have advanced differently in each state jurisdiction. The other problem of broad histories of this type is that it is difficult to feel for the characters or the period. For example, we rarely get to glimpse what these women actually did behind closed doors. Did they simply 'sell sex' as the title suggests or did they see themselves as contributing something more to their clients and the societies they inhabited? Such issues may be difficult to address given the limited archival resources, but without attention to detail the history of prostitution becomes a series of unfortunate events. While this work may not sufficiently grapple with some of the complex debates associated with prostitution, it does distil some of the historical subject matter which has surfaced to date and in doing so exposes some of the gaps in our contemporary historical knowledge of prostitution.
John Scott
Citation: Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol. 9, 2009, pp. 207-09.