A difícil vida fácil: o mundo da prostituição e suas representações na cidade de Manaus (1890-1925)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze the representations of the prostitution practice in Manaus city, in the late 19th century and early 20th. Aiming to comprehend the everyday of associations and images produced about prostitution, in which places the sexual commerce was established, the debates presented about the theme and the medical-hygienists and police interferences faced by the prostitutes. The narrative is built from the representations constructed by subjects from another time, through the local journals, public repartitions reports, police chiefdoms registers and medical records. Searching in these evidences, the prostitute women which were still mothers, daughters and wives, and in the streets or houses offered their sexual services as a merchandise. The everyday of (in) tolerance is presented in the moment in which the behavior patterns were forced: the luxury prostitution is masquerade as a necessary evil by the same authorities that condemned the miserable prostitution and tried to abolish the practice. The recidivists images of prostitution in Manaus present various forms of representation, revealing the phantasmagorical projections and resistance practices.