Research Catalog
Erotic exchanges : the world of elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris
- Title
- Erotic exchanges : the world of elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris / Nina Kushner.
- Author
- Kushner, Nina
- Publication
- Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2013.
- ©2013
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 16-5312 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- xi, 295 pages; 24 cm
- Summary
- "In Erotic exchanges, Nina Kushner reveals the complex world of elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris by focusing on the professional mistresses who dominated it. In this demimonde, these dames entretenues exchanged sex, company, and sometimes even love for being "kept." Most of these women entered the profession unwillingly, either because they were desperate and could find no other means of support or because they were sold by family members to brothels or to particular men. A small but significant percentage of kept women, however, came from a theater subculture that actively supported elite prostitution. Kushner shows that in its business conventions, its moral codes, and even its sexual practices, the demimonde was an integral part of contemporary Parisian culture. Kushner's primary sources include thousands of folio pages of dossiers and other documents generated by the Paris police as they tracked the lives and careers of professional mistresses, reporting in meticulous, often lascivious, detail what these women and their clients did. Rather than reduce the history of sex work to the history of its regulation, Kushner interprets these materials in a way that unlocks these women's own experiences. Kushner analyzes prostitution as a form of work, examines the contracts that governed relationships among patrons, mistresses, and madams, and explores the roles played by money, gifts, and, on occasion, love in making and breaking the bonds between women and men"--Dust jacket.
- Subjects
- Mistresses
- France > Paris
- History
- Prostitution > France > Paris > History > 18th century
- Women > France > Paris > Social conditions > 18th century
- Prostitutes > Social conditions
- 1700-talet
- Women > Social conditions
- Paris (France) > Social life and customs > 18th century
- Mistresses > France > Paris > History > 18th century
- Manners and customs
- Prostitution > historia
- Prostitutes > France > Paris > Social conditions > 18th century
- 1700 - 1799
- Genre/Form
- History.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Contents
- The police and the demimonde -- Leaving home -- Being sold into the demimonde -- Madams and their networks -- Contracts and elite prostitution as work -- Male experiences of galanterie -- Sexual capital and the private lives of mistresses.
- Call Number
- JFE 16-5312
- ISBN
- 9780801451560
- 0801451566
- LCCN
- 2013027623
- OCLC
- 855263720
- Author
- Kushner, Nina, author.
- Title
- Erotic exchanges : the world of elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris / Nina Kushner.
- Publisher
- Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2013.
- Copyright Date
- ©2013
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Chronological Term
- 1700 - 17991700-talet
- Research Call Number
- JFE 16-5312