The word "red light district" first appeared in the United States from 65438 to 1990. At that time, women would hang red lights in front of their windows to attract business.
Dodge City in Kansas was mentioned in Marginal Man. There is a railway to California passing through here. Whenever the train stops there, the staff on board always go to the red light district to have fun.
In order to facilitate the railway company to find themselves in time, these employees specially hung the special red light of the railway company at the door. Gradually, this has become a common practice. As long as some areas of the street are covered with red lights, you can find many special trading places.
At present, the supervision of the red light district is different in different regions. In China, whether legally or morally, the existence of the red light district is not allowed. What about ancient society?
Image from the Internet: Red Light District
1. Prostitution and prohibition of prostitution The ancients thought it was normal to find a woman for the emperor. As early as the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Guan Zhong established the "Female Lv" and selected more than 700 beautiful women to be included. These women all have their own advantages and special identities. They were born in various brothels.
Guan Zhong collected them from brothels and set up a "state-controlled brothel", and these women became "official prostitutes". It can be said that Guan Zhong took the lead in rationalizing brothels, and also gave women in the dust jobs and some status.
In fact, Guan Zhong is not a pleasure-seeking person. The main purpose of opening a brothel is to increase the financial income of the court. After all, men are most willing to spend money on this. However, it is not pleasant to say that prostitutes make money. So many people were talking about it at that time.
It is recorded in the Warring States Policy that some people openly opposed the establishment of organized brothels by the imperial court and disagreed with the legalization of brothels. This is also the first time in the history of our country that the viewpoint of "banning prostitution" appeared. However, these voices were quickly suppressed, because going to brothels in public is definitely a kind of welfare for men. Soon, "internal travel" became one of the hot spots of business.
Photo: Still photos of men visiting brothels.
After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the "brothel culture" was gradually derived. Although the brothel culture gradually merged into the folk culture of China, the court never stopped banning it from beginning to end, and so did the people.
The behavior of "whoring" is despised by most ordinary people because it breaks up many harmonious families. When it comes to prostitutes and men who spend money, people usually use ugly words to describe them, and some people directly call them "bad things."
This is the early "public opinion banning prostitution", which banned prostitution with social spontaneous moral constraints. Later, in response to the public's voice, the court issued some policies, that is, "prostitution is prohibited by law". However, this process only treats the symptoms rather than the root cause, and only limits the behavior of some people to a certain extent, which cannot fundamentally eliminate this phenomenon.
For example, the Ming law stipulates that if a good woman is forced to engage in prostitution, she will be beaten 100 feet, or even exiled or executed, which can fundamentally reduce the source of prostitutes. However, this is not enough. Since prostitution is forbidden, government officials must set an example. Therefore, in the period, supervision officials and prison officials were not allowed to go whoring.
However, out of humanity, Song Renzong also stipulates that every birthday, without violating any laws, officials can be allowed to go whoring at will.
Photo: Song Dynasty officials in brothel stills.
Second, the ancient red light district In various dynasties, the most prosperous period of prostitution was in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, the court recognized the status of workers engaged in this industry, legalized prostitution reasonably, and even established an official prostitute system. It is worth mentioning that prostitutes at this time are of high quality and brilliant.
This brothel is also called Jiao Fang. All prostitutes in Chang 'an should be included in Jiao Fang, and their personal information should be registered. In addition, Jiao Fang will also conduct regular training. Those who sing well will be trained as singers, those who are in good shape will become maiko, and those who drink will be trained as prostitutes.
It can be seen that all the women in Jiaofang are full of stunts and talents, and even they often appear in the poems of literati in the Tang Dynasty. Because of this, the official prostitute system in the Tang Dynasty spread far away, and it was not until the Ming Dynasty that it was abolished.
However, prostitution was not prohibited in the Ming Dynasty. On the contrary, Zhu Yuanzhang was more considerate of the situation of prostitutes. He upgraded "Jiao Fang" to "Jiao Fang Branch". In the early Ming Dynasty, there were only a few teacher workshops in China, so Zhu Yuanzhang ordered all of them to go to centralized teacher workshops to entertain princes and nobles or perform songs and dances in large places.
Until the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Ming Dynasty, the voice of the people demanding the prohibition of prostitution became stronger and stronger, and the court launched the "Prohibition of Prostitution Movement", but the effect was not satisfactory. Why?
Photo: maiko stills
Because the official prostitutes suddenly lost their jobs and didn't know what to do, they had to work in private brothels and become private prostitutes, which led to the rapid growth of the number of sex workers in that period, especially in the late Ming Dynasty, there were countless brothels on both sides of Qinhuai River, forming the largest "red light district".
The Qing Dynasty strengthened the prohibition of prostitution, and the emperor shunzhi launched two campaigns. First, he ordered all religious workshops not to accept new teachers. Second, he did not use female music at court banquets, but used eunuchs instead.
The policy of banning prostitution in Kangxi dynasty involved private prostitutes, and later Jiaqing emperor supplemented it on this basis. Although these anti-prostitution movements seem to be massive and effective on the surface, there is no way to ban prostitutes fundamentally.
For example, although the official prostitutes in the Qing Dynasty were abolished, they became "private prostitutes", "half-moon gate" and "boat girls" and continued to sell talents and bodies. Whenever they learn that the imperial court is going to launch a campaign to ban prostitution, they will temporarily hibernate and wait until it is safe to come out.