Contemporary Prostitution: Study of a Social Question

Contemporary Prostitution: Study of a Social question is a book that was originally published in 1884 by Léo Taxil, causing significant scandal for its condemnation of the morality police and its argumentation for the regulation of prostitution to be abolished. It details the lives of sex workers in France, and to a lesser extent elsewhere in Europe, and supplements these accounts with data from the police and doctors tasked with the inspection and treatment of sex workers. Various elements of contemporary prostitution in the 1800s are discussed, from disease to mistreatment at the hands of police to lesbians and gay men selling sex and the sexual vices. The text shines a light on children being registered as prostitutes by the very police claiming to desire to protect them.