An Ambivalent Object: Sex Work, Discourse and Policies in Italy, from Merlin to Berlusconi

Abstract

By delving into the recent history of sex work in Italy, and the related practices, discourses and policies implemented in the past sixty or so years in the Bel Paese, this essay suggests that commercial sex is at the center of a plurality of forces and phenomena, which are apparently very distant from it, but converge on this «hub» and, while transforming it into an observation point able to see the changes in the surrounding society, on occasions use it as a lever to produce transformations. The instrumental and changing nature of commercial sex makes of this object and the people involved an ambivalent lieu, situated between freedom and repression, change and social conservatism.

Keywords: prostitution, gender, social change, city, Italy