“Venereal Peril”: ‘Controlled’ Prostitution and French Regulationism Before 1945

The rise of “le péril vénérien” and the French regulationist system Venereal diseases were a significant social and medical problem through the mid-20th century. While syphilis had a long history, with its emergence in Europe around 1495 (Tognotti 2009), apprehensions surrounding venereal diseases didn’t surface until much later. Initially, these concerns were primarily directed at…

Representations and Discourses of Vietnamese and North African Women in French Colonial Postcards, Part II

Clothing in Postcards of Algerian and Moroccan Women In many ways, garments were a marker of disparity between Vietnamese and North African colonial portraiture. In Algeria and Morocco, postcards were often organized around the veiled—or rather, unveiled—woman, a theme central to Orientalist art and photography. Colonialist photographers, such as Jean Geiser, Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst…

Representations and Discourses of Indochinese and North African Women in French Colonial Postcards (1880s-1920s), Part I

In the opening of his influential book Orientalism, Edward Saïd exposed the dominance and hegemony of Western authors and artists in shaping and formulating the fundamental narratives about the ‘Orient’, emphasizing the binary and self-consolidating character of colonial discourse: A very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and…

“A Hallowed Institution”: The Bordel Militaire de Campagne (Mobile Field Brothels) and the Making of Military Prostitution in France Following World War One

Reflecting on the French system of military prostitution known as Bordels Militaires de Campagne (BMC, Mobile Field Brothels) during the First World War, Dr. Léon Bizard wrote in his memoirs (1925): It was a mêlée, a hard, dangerous, and disgusting business. Fifty, sixty, up to a hundred men of all colors and races to relieve…