Urban Desires: Practicing Pleasure in the 'City of Light,' 1848-1900.

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between public sexual activity and the transformation of Paris during the Second Empire (1852-1870) and early Third Republic (1870-1940). It argues that prostitutes and male homosexuals were central to the city’s everyday life. Urban administrators, including the Comte de Rambuteau, Baron Haussmann and others, built boulevards, parks, and public urinals so that goods and people could circulate throughout the city. Entrepreneurs took advantage of these developments to construct cafés and other establishments that developed into a consumer culture dependent on the encouragement of certain licit desires. The appropriation of these spaces by prostitutes and male homosexuals forced administrators, expert commentators, and the police to confront their inability to manage public space. This failure meant that Parisians who exited their homes in search of “proper” pleasures encountered evidence of illicit sexual activity in the course of their everyday lives. As they came face to face with prostitutes and homosexuals, Parisians had to decide whether to enjoy the sexual possibilities of Paris or reject them. By forcing everyone to confront this choice, prostitutes and homosexuals shaped the meaning of the capital and affected the experience of modern urban life. An examination of police reports, citizens’ complaints, and administrative documents alongside published works of memoir, sexology, literature, and urban commentary demonstrates how prostitutes and homosexuals influenced nineteenth-century urban culture. The first chapter shows that the use of the Tuileries garden by prostitutes and homosexuals challenged administrators’ ability to perpetuate a stable social order. Next, through an examination of the area around the Champs-Elysées, “Urban Desires” shows that the divide between the licit and illicit pleasures of Paris was thin at best. Chapter 3 argues that by blurring that boundary, prostitutes challenged middle-class men’s faith in their dominance of urban culture. The following chapter then shows how men and women who wished to enjoy the sexual possibilities of the city used drinking establishments to enjoy a culture of public sexuality. Finally, the project concludes by exploring how male homosexuals’ use of public urinals demonstrated the limits of official efforts to define the division between normal and pathological pleasures.