The brothel-without-walls : twentieth century photography and the presentation of prostitution
Abstract
This dissertation examines the interconnected visualization of fantasy, obscenity, and
eroticism in twentieth-century photographs of prostitution and the sex industry. Using
definitions of eroticism coined by Roland Barthes, Judith Butler, Roger Scruton and Georges
Bataille, and multiple interpretations of the obscene by various art historians including Lynda
Nead, Kerstin Mey, and Matthew Kieran, I analyze how and why these themes emerge vis-à-vis three specific sexualized, fantasized figures: the underground, clandestine prostitute of the
early 1900s; the empowered stripper/sex worker; the orientalized prostitute. Through
analysis of five different photographic albums produced between 1912 and 1995, I
demonstrate that photography operates as a strategy of regulation and reform, a means of
constructing the prostitute as a permissible figure of representation by taming and shaping the
connotations of eroticism, obscenity, and fantasy that shroud her. Through three chapters I
show how eroticism and obscenity are visualized, how fantasy is fuelled by concealment,
how notions of power/knowledge influence the display of eroticism and obscenity, and how
differences (based upon gender, morality, sexuality, race, and culture) determine and regulate
what one sees of prostitution in photography.
My examination begins with the photographs of E.J. Bellocq and Brassaï, both of whom
photograph an underground network of prostitution and capture prostitutes as figments of
eroticized imagination. The second chapter continues to explore the construction of fantasy,
but concentrates on the influence of gender and sexual difference as they reinforce and
disempower the fantasy images of female prostitutes. These ideas are approached through
the work of Susan Meiselas, who presents strippers and dominatrices as ‘real,’ powerful
subjects. The final chapter considers the intersection of gender difference with colonial or
cultural difference in photographs of prostitutes from India. Images by Mary Ellen Mark are
offset by postcolonial theories of Orientalism and stereotype to reveal how and why
prostitutes are orientalized – othered, made inferior, and typed – and how that oriental fantasy
confirms the regulatory and illusive power of the image.
Type
Thesis, MPhil Master of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Date: Permanently embargoed
Embargo Reason: Thesis under permanent embargo in accordance with University regulations.
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