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SALON NO.112: London, City of Sex Work

Streets of Sin

7.00pm Thursday 25th April 2024

The Horse Hospital
Colonade
London 
WC1N 1JD

Admission: Tickets £10.00 in advance only HERE

Stories from the history of the city's oldest profession.

Under Roman law, prostitution in Londinium was licensed and regulated as a legal business, a situation that has usually not been repeated since. 

Whores, harlots, courtesans, actressess,  street walkers, women of the night, prostitutes, escorts - the names may have changed but the presence of sex workers in the city has not. 

Historian of Sexuality JULIE PEAKMAN tells of the lives of women in the long eighteenth century, uncovering experiences of those involved in the sex trade, from renowned courtesans to downtrodden streetwalkers. Based on new research into court transcripts, asylum records, magazines, pamphlets, satires, songs, theatre plays and erotica, Julie undercuts the traditional image of the bawdy London in eighteenth century to expose the more sordid side, of women often ostracized and vilified for their sexual behaviour.
Does society need 'Bad Women' to justify the idea of 'Good Women’? Defying the accepted narratives of centuries of books about prostitution, The Naked Anthropologist LAURA AGUSTIN explores why women have sold sex. She has used both historical research into illuminated manuscripts, and imagination where there is no written history, to explore the lives of ordinary working women.  Her project 'The Medieval Female Proletariat'imagines six Southwark women whose occupations were common in the 14th century and for who prostitution - whether or not to sell sex, where and how - figured large in their choices.
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LAURA AGUSTÍN has been a writer, researcher and critical historian all her life. Author of 'Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry ', she has for many years focused on getting the stories out of women and others marginalised because of being poor, foreign, ‘different’ or doing jobs some folks think are Wrong, in the present and in the past. She is known as The Naked Anthropologist, referring to plain speaking about issues often treated euphemistically. She has qualified as a walking-tour guide in order to take this focus to the streets, where guided history walks rarely talk about the poor except as objects of charity. Hundreds of her posts and essays are available at www.lauraagustin.com.

JULIE PEAKMAN is an historian of eighteenth-century culture who specialises in the study sexuality and pornography. She is the author of 'Sexual Perversions, 1670-1890', 'Whore Biographies 1700-1825', The Development of Pornography in 18th Century England' amongst many other books inclding the upcoming 'Libertine London'.
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Our home, THE HORSE HOSPITAL, is a unique Grade II listed not for profit, independent arts venue within the only existing unspoilt example of a two-floor, purpose-built stable with public access in London. 

Built in 1797 by James Burton. the shell is constructed with London Stocks whilst the interior features a mock cobbled re-inforced concrete floor and ramps with slats to prevent the horses from slipping. Each floor has 5 cast iron pillars and several original iron tethering rings.