Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai: A Social History, 1849-1949 (review)

As far as subject matter is concerned, Christian Henriot’s book on prostitution in Shanghai can be seen as “killing two birds with one stone.” The author has deliberately chosen not to conceive of his subject as “women’s history” or “women’s studies” (p.6), but the very nature of this work—a study of female prostitutes—inevitably place it in the vibrant field of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. The book also deals with another hot topic, Shanghai, a city that has been an unusually favored object of research in the West for more than two decades. In this regard this book is evidence of the unfailing zeal for Shanghai in the China field. It is the author’s second book on Shanghai in six years, the first being his Shanghai 1927–1937: Municipal Power, Locality, and Modernization. Both books were originally written in French, and the French version of the current book was published simultaneously with another major study of the city’s prostitution, Gail Hershatter’s Dangerous Pleasure: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth Century Shanghai.

The fourteen chapters of the book are organized into four parts. Part I discusses the higher class courtesans, whose services to men were believed to be more directed at satisfying the refined tastes of the elite than mere lust, something that bore similarities to the world of the geisha of Japan (though few comparisons are made in this book). Part II treats the common prostitutes, including streetwalkers known as “pheasants” (yeji), female guides and escorts (xiangdaonü), and what the author calls “ancillary forms of prostitution” such as the waitresses in amusement centers nicknamed “tea glasses” (bolibei) and sexual services provided in massage parlors and dancing halls. Together, Parts I and II provide a panoramic view of the variety of prostitution, and the author has quite convincingly argued that, in contrast to other views on the hierarchy of Shanghai prostitution, the lower categories of prostitutes were always the most numerous in the period examined. Part III starts from outside the brothels by looking at the source of prostitutes, that is, the female market in China, and the houses of prostitution in the urban space of Shanghai. The author then brings the reader inside the brothels to peruse the interiors, organization, and management of these houses. Part IV examines state and society relations as they were reflected in the matter of prostitution. Chronologically it covers the period from the late nineteenth century to 1949 and thematically includes the efforts of Western and Chinese authorities and charities to cope with prostitution. Together, Parts III and VI present a political economy of prostitution.

Researchers on Chinese prostitution have heavily relied on literary works, which reflected the view of brothel visitors and spectators rather than that of the protagonists, the prostitutes, whose voices were almost entirely silent, especially on the question of the details of their daily lives. For example, we know little about the contraceptive measures taken by Chinese prostitutes, which must have been a critical daily concern for them. Because of the taboo nature of the subject, prostitutes seldom talked about themselves, which makes the writing of a social history of this group a formidable task. The merit of Henriot’s book is that the author has nearly exhausted the materials currently available to scholars and has presented readers with a study that is richly clotted with details, insights, and sensitivities. Henriot was very conscious that he “was dealing with real lives, not merely with historical figures or images” and that his job was to retell “the history of Chinese prostitutes for themselves” (p.xv).

Such an approach or attitude has resulted in the remarkable array of information and delineation this book offers. Readers will see how country girls were lured or forced into Shanghai’s alleyways (lilong) where most of the city’s brothels were located, how these houses were managed and physically laid out, and what life...