Between 1885 and 1960, laws and policies designed to repress prostitution dramatically shaped London's commercial sex industry. This book examines how laws translated into street-level reality, explores how women who sold sex experienced criminalization, and charts the complex dimensions of the underground sexual economy in the modern metropolis.

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Criminalizing Commercial Sex Selling sex: Women, Work, and Prostitution Buying Sex: Men and the Marketplace The Crusade Begins: The Criminal Law Amendment Act and London's 'Brothels' Before the First World War Women in Public and Public Women: Controlling Street Prostitution 1887-1914 'Down on Whores' and 'Living on the Earnings': Violence, Vulnerability and the Law after 1885 White Slaves and Alien Prostitutes: Trafficking, Protection, and Punishment in the Early Twentieth Century Making War, Taking Fingerprints, and Challenging the Law: Policy Changes and Public Debates after 1914 Behind Closed Doors: Off-Street Commercial Sex in the Interwar Years Sex, War, and Syndication: Organized Prostitution and the Second World War The Shame of London: Prostitution and Panic in the Post-War Metropolis Risking the Dangers: Reconsidering Commercial Sex in 'Permissive Britain' Conclusion Appendix Notes Bibliography Index