Empire of Purity: The History of Americans' Global War on Prostitution (Politics and Society in Modern America)
Eva Payne’s invaluable study, Empire of Purity, sheds fresh light on a critical moment of U.S. history, the late-19th and early-20th centuries, when the country transitioned into a world power. She argues an original thesis that links the nation’s global aspiration with its war against prostitution both domestically and internationally.
Payne, a University of Mississippi historian, notes that prostitution had long been tolerated in Europe (i.e., England and France), often regulated by local authorities to control the spread of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. In the U.S., regulation was superseded by forceful police action.
Americans have been battling female prostitution since the nation was founded four centuries ago. During the post-Civil War era, a number of religiously based civic organizations were founded to address the perceived increase in immoral public life. These “prevention societies,” often with the active participation of female members, were troubled by the emergence of the more sexualized new woman who challenged the long-held Victorian model of femininity, the “Cult of Domesticity,” based on motherhood, propriety and passionlessness.
These organizations included Society for the Suppression of Vice, founded by Anthony Comstock in 1873; E. T. Gerry’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCC) founded in 1875; the Society for the Prevention of Crime (SPC) founded by Howard Crosby, minister of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church in 1878—Rev. Charles Parkhurst became the group’s president in 1891; the White Cross Society promoting purity (i.e., sexual abstinence) until marriage by Rev. Benjamin DeCosta in 1884; Parkhurst’s City Vigilance League was founded in 1893; and the Committee of Seventy, established by Cornelius Vanderbilt and William E. Dodge, in 1894.
Prevention groups differed from other morality groups—e.g., Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) and Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)—in that they combined politics and the legal system with direct action to achieve their goals. They represented a new generation of American Puritans, often referred to as the “new abolitionist” movement mirroring the anti-slavery crusade and identifying female sex workers as “white slaves.” The invocation of “white” was intended to refer to untainted white womanhood.
And they achieved notable successes. For example, Comstock’s campaign helped secure the passage of New York State “Obscene Literature Bill” in 1868 and culminated with the U.S. Congress adopting the 1873 Comstock Act, the federal anti-obscenity laws that banned illicit materials distributed through the mail; it remained in effect until the 1950s. Parkhurst’s battle against vice and corruption culminated in the establishment of the New York State Lexow Committee in 1894 to investigate police corruption.
These efforts signaled a shift in the nation’s belief system, the transition from “suasion” to “supression.” Traditionally, ministers believed that the power of belief—of being able to convince someone to be a better, God-fearing person—could change a person’s unacceptable behavior.
However, the old belief was giving way to one in which Christian conservatives—following Comstock—increasingly sought to use the power of the state to enforce moral order, whether involving unacceptable practices or expressions. Their efforts culminated in the passage of numerorous anti-prostitution laws and the Mann Act (1910) barring interstate sexual commerce and the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment (1919) prohibiting the manufacture, importation, distribution and sale of alcohol products. Theirs was a heroic effort that proved an historic failure.
Payne argues that that the U.S.’s anti-prostitution campaign was a two-sided undertaking— one domestic, the other international. She stresses that these combined efforts promoted a sexual morality grounded in a belief in American white racial hierarchy that characterized women of color, immigrants, sex works and other minorities as threats to the nation’s moral order.
Domestically, the forces of moral order moved aggressively to have states criminalize prostitution and have the federal government restrict migration, especially of suspicious women. Payne provides an important discussion of the regulation of sex work in St. Louis. It was the first U.S. city to legalize prostitution in 1870 with the adoption of Social Evil Ordinance. Modeled after European efforts, it required female sex workers to register with the police, to submit to regular testing for venereal disease, and to pay a $6 monthly fee. It established the Social Evil Hospital in a St. Louis suburb for female sex workers who tested positive for sexually transmitted diseases; Black and white women were housed separately. More than 2,600 women registered between July 1870, and March 1873; the ordinance was repealed in 1874, and the hospital closed.
Internationally, she argues that the federal government (along with well-funded American groups) aggressively promoted anti-prostitution and anti-sex-trafficking agreements mirroring U.S. laws. She focuses on U.S. campaigns in the Philippines in the 1890s, the Panama Canal Zone in the early 20th century, and the Dominican Republic in the 1920s. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt declared that “as a nation we feel keen pride in the valor, discipline, and steadfast endurance of our soldiers, and hand in hand with these qualities must go the virtues of self-restraint, self-respect, and self-control.”
She links the international dimension anti-prostitution campaigns to the overseas deployment of (male) U.S. military personnel. She anchors this consideration to the practices of General John Pershing. She notes that during his service in the Philippines, he lived with a local woman and fathered two children with her. While deployed in Mexican during the 1916 border war, he (unofficially) supported U.S. soldiers visiting red-light area bordellos. However, in France during WW-I, he opposed the local custom of sex worker regulation and sought to regulated U.S. solders, requiring them to attend lectures about the evils of consorting with prostitutes.
A century after the era discussed by Payne, adult sexual relations take one of three forms: consensual, commercial, or involuntary. Each is a terrain of moral and political conflict, with ongoing battles over each term’s meaning. Consensual sex seems simple enough. It involves “adults” (e.g., 18 years or older) who are fully “rational” (i.e., able to make a coherent decision) and agree to have sex without a financial (or other) exchange involved. Commercial sex involves a “consensual” relation involving a financial (or other) exchange. And involuntary involves all nonconsensual sex practices, whether rape, pedophilia, trafficking, or lust murder.
“Consensual” commercial sex is illegal in the U.S., with the exception of a few dozen whorehouses in rural Nevada districts. It has been decriminalized in Maine and parts of New York City and efforts are underway in other states. Nevertheless, it is estimated to be an $14.6 billion business.