City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920
This scholarly yet ribald history of New York City's "whorearchy" (as early wags termed the ladies of the night) also sheds light on present mores. Gilfoyle, who teaches at Chicago's Loyola University, has produced a Baedeker of NYC's early brothels, concert saloons and bawdy assignation houses. He shows how "unprecedented demographic growth, residential transience, deplorably low female wages, new real estate patterns and a sporting-male ideology and subculture undermined older patterns of sexual behavior after 1820." The details--erotic or shocking, depending on one's point of view--are here. Virgin prostitutes commanded the most money; 16-year-olds were over the hill. Quotes from such 19th-century periodicals as Rake and Whip prove that the Playboy philosophy existed long before Hugh Hefner. Yesteryear's prostitutes, the author demonstrates, were equivalent to today's homeless people--and plenty of New York men said yes to the "gay girls" who swarmed over the streets. Although he maintains an objective tone, Gilfoyle evinces a muted libertine enthusiasm for the demi-monde. Photos not seen by PW.Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.