Prostitution and Public Space

Abstract

The presence of women selling sex on the street and in other public space lay at the heart of the rising concern about prostitution in post-war Britain. That women were soliciting on the street was nothing new: this had been the primary form of solicitation in London and many other cities for more than a century. Ideas about public space, however, had changed dramatically during the first half of the twentieth century. Changes in consumerism and in women’s leisure habits had raised concerns about the supposed moral effects women’s engagement with public space. Then came the destruction wrought by the blitz, which transformed many city’s business and housing landscapes, adding new urgency to ideas about urban regeneration, national identity, and safe public space.