Overview

In Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner reveals the complex world of elite prostitution in eighteenth-century Paris by focusing on the professional mistresses who dominated it. In this demimonde, these dames entretenues exchanged sex, company, and sometimes even love for being ""kept."" Most of these women entered the profession unwillingly, either because they were desperate and could find no other means of support or because they were sold by family members to brothels or to particular men. A small but significant percentage of kept women, however, came from a theater subculture that actively supported elite prostitution. Kushner shows that in its business conventions, its moral codes, and even its sexual practices, the demimonde was an integral part of contemporary Parisian culture. Kushner's primary sources include thousands of folio pages of dossiers and other documents generated by the Paris police as they tracked the lives and careers of professional mistresses, reporting in meticulous, often lascivious, detail what these women and their clients did. Rather than reduce the history of sex work to the history of its regulation, Kushner interprets these materials in a way that unlocks these women's own experiences. Kushner analyzes prostitution as a form of work, examines the contracts that governed relationships among patrons, mistresses, and madams, and explores the roles played by money, gifts, and, on occasion, love in making and breaking the bonds between women and men. This vivid and engaging book explores elite prostitution not only as a form of labor and as a kind of business but also as a chapter in the history of emotions, marriage, and the family.

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9780801451560

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Reviews

This history brings to life les dames entretenues-women who dazzled and scandalized eighteenth-century Paris as mistresses of powerful men. Kushner traces the pathways to elite prostitution: many mistresses began as actresses and singers; others were sold into the demimonde by their parents. She finds that mistresses were held to have a stabilizing influence on men's romantic whims, and they enjoyed some of the benefits of married women. Contracts guaranteed their pay, and they were often the primary breadwinners for their own families. Some mistresses found lifetime partners in their patrons, and some achieved financial independence, but many were discarded by their late twenties and began a life of streetwalking. Kushner avoids over-contemporizing her subject, affording her women agency but not more than they actually had. -New Yorker Nina Kushner examines the role of girls' and women's agency along the spectrum of sex work that catered to an upper-class clientele, and in doing so, evokes both sympathy and admiration for her subjects. -Bust One of the most compelling features of the book is the fact that Kushner raises fascinating questions and draws attention to a number of paradoxes underlying the web of relations between police, prostitutes, clients and procurers... Erotic Exchanges is not addressed to specialists in Enlightenment France (although those interested in the specific topic of eighteenth-century courtesans will appreciate having a social historian's expert perspective on the subject), but it offers a valuable contribution to the fields of women history or history of prostitution. Kushner's combination of careful archives research and sharp sociological analyses makes her book an intriguing look into the universe of eighteenth-century France's elite prostitution. -Marine Ganofsky, French History (November 2014) In spring 1758 Dame Boujard entrusted her thirteen-year-old daughter Marie to the elite brothel owner Madame Varenne, who promptly set about hawking the girl's virginity. The marquis de Bandol negotiated a price of ninety-six livres (about half the annual salary of a shopgirl), but the deal collapsed when the client claimed that the girl was not a virgin. Marie then spent six months at Varenne's brothel before contracting a venereal disease (probably syphilis); at the age of fifteen she became the mistress of the marquis de Persenat who paid off her mother's considerable debts and offered Marie herself a contract of three hundred livres a month. Forgotten figures like Marie, her mother, Varenne, and the marquis populate Nina Kushner's richly detailed and persuasive sociocultural history of eighteenth-century Parisian prostitution... [T]his generous but unsentimental study will be of enduring value to those interested in women's history, libertinage, and urban culture. -Thomas Wynn, French Studies (October 2014) Based on extensive archival research, this book provides a thorough and subtle analysis of relations between kept women and their keepers: patrons, madams, and police. Nina Kushner reconstructs the experience of the Parisian demimonde within the context of larger questions about sexual economy, female agency, and public order in eighteenth-century France. -Jeffrey Merrick, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, author of Order and Disorder under the Ancien Regime Erotic Exchanges is an important and engaging book. Nina Kushner goes beyond anecdote while using anecdote-rich sources to give incredible texture to her study. It is a fascinating and compelling read. -Dena Goodman, Lila Miller Collegiate Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan, author of Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters In Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner rekindles discussion of a historical population for which we have a great deal of documentation. Because of police surveillance, the dames entretenues of eighteenth-century France can be followed in all phases of their work lives. The result is a textured and nuanced picture of possibilities and limitations for these women in their historical setting. Erotic Exchanges could reshape discussions of sex work in important ways. -Katherine Crawford, Vanderbilt University, author of The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance

This history brings to life les dames entretenues-women who dazzled and scandalized eighteenth-century Paris as mistresses of powerful men. Kushner traces the pathways to elite prostitution: many mistresses began as actresses and singers; others were sold into the demimonde by their parents. She finds that mistresses were held to have a stabilizing influence on men's romantic whims, and they enjoyed some of the benefits of married women. Contracts guaranteed their pay, and they were often the primary breadwinners for their own families. Some mistresses found lifetime partners in their patrons, and some achieved financial independence, but many were discarded by their late twenties and began a life of streetwalking. Kushner avoids over-contemporizing her subject, affording her women agency but not more than they actually had. -New Yorker Based on extensive archival research, this book provides a thorough and subtle analysis of relations between kept women and their keepers: patrons, madams, and police. Nina Kushner reconstructs the experience of the Parisian demimonde within the context of larger questions about sexual economy, female agency, and public order in eighteenth-century France. -Jeffrey Merrick, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, author of Order and Disorder under the Ancien Regime Erotic Exchanges is an important and engaging book. Nina Kushner goes beyond anecdote while using anecdote-rich sources to give incredible texture to her study. It is a fascinating and compelling read. -Dena Goodman, Lila Miller Collegiate Professor of History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan, author of Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters In Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner rekindles discussion of a historical population for which we have a great deal of documentation. Because of police surveillance, the dames entretenues of eighteenth-century France can be followed in all phases of their work lives. The result is a textured and nuanced picture of possibilities and limitations for these women in their historical setting. Erotic Exchanges could reshape discussions of sex work in important ways. -Katherine Crawford, Vanderbilt University, author of The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance

In Erotic Exchanges, Nina Kushner rekindles discussion of a historical population for which we have a great deal of documentation. Because of police surveillance, the dames entretenues of eighteenth-century France can be followed in all phases of their work lives. The result is a textured and nuanced picture of possibilities and limitations for these women in their historical setting. Erotic Exchanges could reshape discussions of sex work in important ways. Katherine Crawford, Vanderbilt University, author of The Sexual Culture of the French Renaissance

Author Information

Nina Kushner is Associate Professor of History at Clark University.

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