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Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai
This pioneering work examines prostitution in Shanghai from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawn mostly from the daughters and wives of the working poor and declassé elites, prostitutes in Shanghai were near the bottom of class and gender hierarchies. Yet they were central figures in Shanghai urban life, entering the historical record whenever others wanted to appreciate, castigate, count, regulate, cure, pathologize, warn about, rescue, eliminate, or deploy them as a symbol in a larger social panorama.
Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity. For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity.
Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the "larger" meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives? Hershatter makes use of a broad range of guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers.
Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.
Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity. For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity.
Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the "larger" meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives? Hershatter makes use of a broad range of guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers.
Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.
603 pages, Hardcover
First published February 11, 1997
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October 3, 2014
This is an exhaustively researched book, incredibly detailed and well thought. I highly recommend it, though it’s not for the light reader, it’s for those interested in a thorough piece of the history of courtesans and prostitutes.
The absolute best thing about this book is the author’s dedicated to uncovering truth. Hershatter is incredibly well researched; nothing is missed by her.
Below are two of the book’s main elements that stood out the most to me: First, the methodology and the author’s analysis on historical evidence; second, the sections of the book about courtesans (high rather than low-end prostitutes) .
First:
Hershatter’s analysis of the limited historical evidence available on prostitutes. She points out that women in general were typically written by men, but even more so with prostitutes, which gives modern day researchers a distorted perspective on who these women actually were.
Hershatter explains that the existing evidence on Shanghai courtesans is less a portrait of these women as individuals, than a casting of them into two stereotypes: that of the honorable, moral, and loving courtesan, or that of the untrustworthy, cruel, and cunning courtesan. “Very seldom did these stories present a courtesan of complex or contradictory character” (p. 143). Hershatter explains that when looking at evidence of the lives of courtesans, this is the sort of writing that misleads the reader, offering stereotypes developed by men, rather than genuine portrayals of individual women.
Hershatter’s frustration with lack of evidence about courtesans is apparent throughout the book, as was her admirable determination to uncover an accurate portrayal of the lives of courtesans and prostitutes. Since Shanghai courtesans did not write accounts of their own lives, and the two esteemed types—the shuya and the changsan—no longer exist, what exists about them are only what men wrote. Hershatter voices her frustration at the “virtual silence about menstruation, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering among courtesans,” all of which are elements central to women’s lives (p. 143). Broader, factual information is also difficult to find, and Hershatter notes that, “the profession was alternately forbidden and tolerated in the International Settlement, and brothels were licensed in the French Concession. The inconsistent attitude of multiple municipal governments meant no systematic statistics were collected” (p. 38). Statistics could have been a helpful comparison to the male-written and often fanciful accounts of courtesans.
Hershatter is very thorough in presenting her sources of evidence, which shows her commitment to finding the most accurate and comprehensive information available. She lists as evidence, “guidebooks to the pleasure quarters; collections of anecdotes, portraits, and poetry to and by high-class courtesans; gossip columns devoted to courtesans in the tabloid press; municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting; police interrogations of street walkers and those accused of trafficking in women; newspaper reports of court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers; polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers arguing the merits of licensing verses abolition; learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its social causes; surveys by doctors and social workers on the incidence of sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations; records by relief agencies of kidnapping and trafficking cases in which women were sold to brothels; and fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes” (p. 3). I think this goes to show that Hershatter is extremely well researched and dedicated to uncovering truth.
These sources, though, are not direct sources—they are not the words of the courtesans themselves. Hershatter believes that these sources can be relied on more as an evaluation of cultural views about courtesans and the lives of courtesans as a group, from the perspective of an outsider looking in. She writes, “…they tell us much more about the classificatory strategies of the authors than about the experiences of prostitutes” (p. 3). There is only so much that can be understood about the courtesans of earlier times, and we can speculate on their internal thought and feelings by comparing them the courtesans of other cultures and to modern-day courtesans, but the truth is that we may never really know the whole picture.
Second:
Gail Hershatter’s book Dangerous Pleasures is about all types of prostitution in Shanghai, from the late nineteenth century to modern-day. As a reader, I chose to focus more on the sections about courtesans, rather than on lower-end prostitutes.
Shanghai courtesans, similar to the precolonial Indian courtesans and the Japanese geisha, were sought after for much more that just beauty and sex. These were women who, “famed for their beauty, their extravagant dress, and their elaborate opium and tobacco pipes, they were equally renowned for their refined artistic sensibilities” (p. 42). They too were trendsetters of fashion, which Hershatter believes is evidence of the “relatively unstigmatized participation of courtesans in urban life” (p. 83). Shanghai courtesans are the portrayed, in the existing evidence about them, as powerful and with considerable control over their lives. Like the Indian courtesans and Japanese geisha, they were not seen as victims. I found the similarities between Shanghai courtesans and Japanese geisha the most striking—they were actually nearly identical, aside from the fundamental difference in selling sex: geisha are not prostitutes.
Shanghai courtesans, like geisha, generally began their profession as young girls in training. Often as children from lower-class families, they entered into or were sold into contracts with a madam. The madam would then pay for their training, which included learning artistic skills the art of conversation, and expect to be paid back and receive a sizable profit once the girls began working. As with the geisha, the sale of virginity at around the age of fifteen marked the start of a girl’s career. Hershatter describes the type of courtesan, depending on the time period, these girls would become if successful.
The two types of famed courtesans in Shanghai were the shuya and the changsan. The shuya, the top courtesans throughout Shanghai’s history, were present in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These women were “singers and storytellers who had entertained the local literati” and who were highly skilled in playing musical instruments and performing opera scenes (p. 42). I think it can easily be imagined that the shuya were like courtesans pretending to be geisha; the shuya pretended to be only delightful and artistic social companions, hiding the fact that part of their profession involved the trade of sex for money.
The changsan were the top courtesans during the Republican period and were present after the shuya and into the 1940’s. They too “performed classical songs and scenes from opera, although the range of pieces they performed were not as broad” (p. 42, 43). Although they did not hide the sale of their sex, changsan courtesans “entertained daily but were not routinely expected to have sexual relations with customers” (p. 42, 43). Sex with a changsan courtesan, although less difficult than with a shuya courtesan, was not the simple exchange we think of today (money given, clothes removed). Due to the later time period, more detail is known of the changsan courtesan. In order to be with a changsan courtesan, a man had to win the favor of the madam and often the woman herself. “…A patron who went through a long ‘courtship’ process and paid elaborate fees to the woman and her madam could hope for sexual favors” (p. 44). Particularly with the more popular courtesans, a patron hoping for intimate moments with her would go through an elaborate process of buying her gifts and bringing money to the madam’s house, which included hosting parties. For both the shuya and the changsan, “difficulty of access was a important part of their self-definition” (p. 109).
Shanghai courtesans sometimes entered into long-term arrangements with their customers, which were comparable to the relationship between a geisha and her danna. This type of arrangement generally provided the customer with exclusive or near-exclusive access to a courtesan, and in exchange the courtesan and her madam would benefit considerably financially. The courtesan would also have more time to pursue her own interests, as her daily social obligations would dissipate. Although this type of arrangement could be the most financially rewarding, I would hasten to guess that it could also be the most emotionally damaging, as it would inevitably lead to blurred boundaries.
Long-term, exclusive arrangements get to the core of a central conflict between the courtesan-customer dynamic: the customer wants to be loved. “Late-nineteenth-century sources spoke not of sex but of deep mutual feelings, expressed in cultural correspondence between a courtesan and her customer (p. 112-113). These customers wanted a relationship that involved a mutual love, shared between both parties. The implied formula is that a relatively small amount of money will buy you sex with a woman, and larger amount will buy you her conversation, entertainment, and sex, and an even larger amount of money will buy you her love. But unlike sex, love is not something that can be purchased. And most courtesans did not fall in love with their customers; Hershatter found that “when they chose sexual partners for love, rather than material advantage, courtesans were said to prefer actors or their own drivers to well-heeled literati and merchants” (p. 116).
In this case, a woman considering long-term, exclusive offer would have two options: tell the man the truth, that she cannot love him—as Veronica Franco, infamous 16th century Venetian courtesan, did—or accept his money and pretend to love him. For a woman in a secure financial situation, like Veronica Franco, the truth may have been easier to tell. But many Shanghai courtesans owed heavy debts to their madams and, with retirement approaching as their looks faded, they knew they didn’t have many years to make money independent of debt, money that would give them enough to survive after retirement.
Non-the-less guidebooks and other published works warned men against the manipulative nature of many courtesans. One guidebook author Hershatter quotes (Sun Yusheng) warned: “The false emotions and fake love of the prostitute, which resemble the beautiful relations between lovers, in actuality will lead one to lose one’s soul and break one’s heart” (p. 128). Holding the courtesan solely responsible is unfair. Any man who expects to trade love for money should know he is the first to set himself up for heartbreak. But a man heart-broken by unreturned loved would often blame the courtesan, seeing her as the stereotype of the greedy, manipulative whore.
This book is an invaluable source of information on prostitution in a particular time and place in history (Shanghai, 20th century). Finally the lives of these women are told by a woman, and one who seeks to uncover the truth.
The absolute best thing about this book is the author’s dedicated to uncovering truth. Hershatter is incredibly well researched; nothing is missed by her.
Below are two of the book’s main elements that stood out the most to me: First, the methodology and the author’s analysis on historical evidence; second, the sections of the book about courtesans (high rather than low-end prostitutes) .
First:
Hershatter’s analysis of the limited historical evidence available on prostitutes. She points out that women in general were typically written by men, but even more so with prostitutes, which gives modern day researchers a distorted perspective on who these women actually were.
Hershatter explains that the existing evidence on Shanghai courtesans is less a portrait of these women as individuals, than a casting of them into two stereotypes: that of the honorable, moral, and loving courtesan, or that of the untrustworthy, cruel, and cunning courtesan. “Very seldom did these stories present a courtesan of complex or contradictory character” (p. 143). Hershatter explains that when looking at evidence of the lives of courtesans, this is the sort of writing that misleads the reader, offering stereotypes developed by men, rather than genuine portrayals of individual women.
Hershatter’s frustration with lack of evidence about courtesans is apparent throughout the book, as was her admirable determination to uncover an accurate portrayal of the lives of courtesans and prostitutes. Since Shanghai courtesans did not write accounts of their own lives, and the two esteemed types—the shuya and the changsan—no longer exist, what exists about them are only what men wrote. Hershatter voices her frustration at the “virtual silence about menstruation, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering among courtesans,” all of which are elements central to women’s lives (p. 143). Broader, factual information is also difficult to find, and Hershatter notes that, “the profession was alternately forbidden and tolerated in the International Settlement, and brothels were licensed in the French Concession. The inconsistent attitude of multiple municipal governments meant no systematic statistics were collected” (p. 38). Statistics could have been a helpful comparison to the male-written and often fanciful accounts of courtesans.
Hershatter is very thorough in presenting her sources of evidence, which shows her commitment to finding the most accurate and comprehensive information available. She lists as evidence, “guidebooks to the pleasure quarters; collections of anecdotes, portraits, and poetry to and by high-class courtesans; gossip columns devoted to courtesans in the tabloid press; municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting; police interrogations of street walkers and those accused of trafficking in women; newspaper reports of court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers; polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers arguing the merits of licensing verses abolition; learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its social causes; surveys by doctors and social workers on the incidence of sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations; records by relief agencies of kidnapping and trafficking cases in which women were sold to brothels; and fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes” (p. 3). I think this goes to show that Hershatter is extremely well researched and dedicated to uncovering truth.
These sources, though, are not direct sources—they are not the words of the courtesans themselves. Hershatter believes that these sources can be relied on more as an evaluation of cultural views about courtesans and the lives of courtesans as a group, from the perspective of an outsider looking in. She writes, “…they tell us much more about the classificatory strategies of the authors than about the experiences of prostitutes” (p. 3). There is only so much that can be understood about the courtesans of earlier times, and we can speculate on their internal thought and feelings by comparing them the courtesans of other cultures and to modern-day courtesans, but the truth is that we may never really know the whole picture.
Second:
Gail Hershatter’s book Dangerous Pleasures is about all types of prostitution in Shanghai, from the late nineteenth century to modern-day. As a reader, I chose to focus more on the sections about courtesans, rather than on lower-end prostitutes.
Shanghai courtesans, similar to the precolonial Indian courtesans and the Japanese geisha, were sought after for much more that just beauty and sex. These were women who, “famed for their beauty, their extravagant dress, and their elaborate opium and tobacco pipes, they were equally renowned for their refined artistic sensibilities” (p. 42). They too were trendsetters of fashion, which Hershatter believes is evidence of the “relatively unstigmatized participation of courtesans in urban life” (p. 83). Shanghai courtesans are the portrayed, in the existing evidence about them, as powerful and with considerable control over their lives. Like the Indian courtesans and Japanese geisha, they were not seen as victims. I found the similarities between Shanghai courtesans and Japanese geisha the most striking—they were actually nearly identical, aside from the fundamental difference in selling sex: geisha are not prostitutes.
Shanghai courtesans, like geisha, generally began their profession as young girls in training. Often as children from lower-class families, they entered into or were sold into contracts with a madam. The madam would then pay for their training, which included learning artistic skills the art of conversation, and expect to be paid back and receive a sizable profit once the girls began working. As with the geisha, the sale of virginity at around the age of fifteen marked the start of a girl’s career. Hershatter describes the type of courtesan, depending on the time period, these girls would become if successful.
The two types of famed courtesans in Shanghai were the shuya and the changsan. The shuya, the top courtesans throughout Shanghai’s history, were present in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These women were “singers and storytellers who had entertained the local literati” and who were highly skilled in playing musical instruments and performing opera scenes (p. 42). I think it can easily be imagined that the shuya were like courtesans pretending to be geisha; the shuya pretended to be only delightful and artistic social companions, hiding the fact that part of their profession involved the trade of sex for money.
The changsan were the top courtesans during the Republican period and were present after the shuya and into the 1940’s. They too “performed classical songs and scenes from opera, although the range of pieces they performed were not as broad” (p. 42, 43). Although they did not hide the sale of their sex, changsan courtesans “entertained daily but were not routinely expected to have sexual relations with customers” (p. 42, 43). Sex with a changsan courtesan, although less difficult than with a shuya courtesan, was not the simple exchange we think of today (money given, clothes removed). Due to the later time period, more detail is known of the changsan courtesan. In order to be with a changsan courtesan, a man had to win the favor of the madam and often the woman herself. “…A patron who went through a long ‘courtship’ process and paid elaborate fees to the woman and her madam could hope for sexual favors” (p. 44). Particularly with the more popular courtesans, a patron hoping for intimate moments with her would go through an elaborate process of buying her gifts and bringing money to the madam’s house, which included hosting parties. For both the shuya and the changsan, “difficulty of access was a important part of their self-definition” (p. 109).
Shanghai courtesans sometimes entered into long-term arrangements with their customers, which were comparable to the relationship between a geisha and her danna. This type of arrangement generally provided the customer with exclusive or near-exclusive access to a courtesan, and in exchange the courtesan and her madam would benefit considerably financially. The courtesan would also have more time to pursue her own interests, as her daily social obligations would dissipate. Although this type of arrangement could be the most financially rewarding, I would hasten to guess that it could also be the most emotionally damaging, as it would inevitably lead to blurred boundaries.
Long-term, exclusive arrangements get to the core of a central conflict between the courtesan-customer dynamic: the customer wants to be loved. “Late-nineteenth-century sources spoke not of sex but of deep mutual feelings, expressed in cultural correspondence between a courtesan and her customer (p. 112-113). These customers wanted a relationship that involved a mutual love, shared between both parties. The implied formula is that a relatively small amount of money will buy you sex with a woman, and larger amount will buy you her conversation, entertainment, and sex, and an even larger amount of money will buy you her love. But unlike sex, love is not something that can be purchased. And most courtesans did not fall in love with their customers; Hershatter found that “when they chose sexual partners for love, rather than material advantage, courtesans were said to prefer actors or their own drivers to well-heeled literati and merchants” (p. 116).
In this case, a woman considering long-term, exclusive offer would have two options: tell the man the truth, that she cannot love him—as Veronica Franco, infamous 16th century Venetian courtesan, did—or accept his money and pretend to love him. For a woman in a secure financial situation, like Veronica Franco, the truth may have been easier to tell. But many Shanghai courtesans owed heavy debts to their madams and, with retirement approaching as their looks faded, they knew they didn’t have many years to make money independent of debt, money that would give them enough to survive after retirement.
Non-the-less guidebooks and other published works warned men against the manipulative nature of many courtesans. One guidebook author Hershatter quotes (Sun Yusheng) warned: “The false emotions and fake love of the prostitute, which resemble the beautiful relations between lovers, in actuality will lead one to lose one’s soul and break one’s heart” (p. 128). Holding the courtesan solely responsible is unfair. Any man who expects to trade love for money should know he is the first to set himself up for heartbreak. But a man heart-broken by unreturned loved would often blame the courtesan, seeing her as the stereotype of the greedy, manipulative whore.
This book is an invaluable source of information on prostitution in a particular time and place in history (Shanghai, 20th century). Finally the lives of these women are told by a woman, and one who seeks to uncover the truth.
November 27, 2020
Solid but also much theoretically informed. 新文化史的典范，全程注意反思自己作为historian的局限性和文字材料的真实性。围绕娼妓业的各种问题都有讨论并与宏大主题灵活结合。12章结尾对于
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2024
The issue of modernity in China is discussed through the phenomenon of prostitution in Shanghai in the 20th century, from the late Qing Dynasty to the reform and opening up of China. Instead of treating prostitution as a mere historical fact, the discussion revolves around the interaction between three dimensions: historical facts, producers of historical facts, and interpreters of historical facts (the objects of historical record - the people who record history - ourselves), and discusses how the knowledge of prostitutes was formed, and how the narratives of prostitutes changed in the process of formation, and what perceptions of prostitutes are embodied behind them. Finally, it also touches on how different social groups have used prostitutes to add memory or nostalgia to their narratives. Once again, the complexity of history has left people lost for words between right and wrong value judgements.
February 15, 2023
很有意思的研究，可与安克强、叶凯蒂的专著对读。不足之处在于，作者对毛时代中国的娼妓问题基本略过，似乎50年代的妓女改造真的消除了这一社会现象。实则，毛时代公开的卖淫嫖娼现象固然受到极大压制，私下、隐秘的性交易则不绝如缕，下乡知青可为显例。
July 12, 2014
the prostitute as purveyor of history...excellent
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews