Abstract
Based on multi-sited archival research, this article examines the racialized regulation of commercial sex in 1970s France, and whether and how this was intertwined with the protection of a racialized, gendered, and class-based sexual order. In doing so, this article contributes to a contextualized and historicized analysis of the construction of race and colour-blindness in French legislation and law enforcement. During and after the Algerian War, colonial anxieties about sexual threats posed by North African male labour migrants in the French metropole played a role in the discussion on commercial sex and motivated politicians, policymakers and journalists to argue for its selective tolerance. The author argues that the indirect legislation on commercial sex granted discretionary power to the police to protect the sexual order through colourblind justifications. This enabled law enforcement to implement and enforce universalist legislation ‘from below’ in a racially particularistic way.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 96-115 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Social & Legal Studies |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 21 Apr 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council, (grant number 725238).
Funding Information:
This research was funded by the European Research Council, as part of the project ‘Regulating Mixed Intimacies in Europe (EUROMIX)’ [grant number 725238]. I am grateful to Dr Elena Zambelli and Andrea Tarchi for their helpful comments and proofreading. I thank Prof. Betty de Hart, Prof. Marlou Schrovers, Dr Guno Jones, and Nawal Mustafa and the participants in the Euromix writing seminar for their feedback on alternative versions of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and feedback have greatly improved this paper, and the Editors of Social & Legal studies for facilitating its publication process.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council, (grant number 725238). This research was funded by the European Research Council, as part of the project ‘Regulating Mixed Intimacies in Europe (EUROMIX)’ [grant number 725238]. I am grateful to Dr Elena Zambelli and Andrea Tarchi for their helpful comments and proofreading. I thank Prof. Betty de Hart, Prof. Marlou Schrovers, Dr Guno Jones, and Nawal Mustafa and the participants in the Euromix writing seminar for their feedback on alternative versions of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers whose comments and feedback have greatly improved this paper, and the Editors of Social & Legal studies for facilitating its publication process.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Horizon 2020 Framework Programme | 725238 |
| H2020 European Research Council | |
| European Research Council |
Keywords
- colour-blindness
- critical race studies
- discretion
- france
- gender
- interracial intimacies
- labour migration
- police
- Prostitution
- sex work
