Preferred Citation: Bernstein, Laurie. Berkeley: University of California Press, c Shabby sofas upholstered in scarlet, Dusty tassels of doorway hangings. Tradesman, gambler, officer, student In this room, with the glasses jingling. Hardly human, the hand that glided Over the nudes in this magazine. And the hand of a wanton scoundrel Pressed that bell-push covered with grime.
Across the thick pile of carpets, Jingling spurs, laughter muffled by doors. Can this house be truly a dwelling? Is this inhuman destiny ours? Aleksandr Blok, "Degradation" Throughout the nineteenth century, official opinion remained firmly on the side of licensing, with brothels located in around cities of the Russian empire at the turn of the century.
Shtiurmer, "Prostitutsiia v gorodakh," p. To these and other observers, the brothel fulfilled an important function: in the words of Alain Corbin: "to enclose in order to observe, to observe in order to know, to know in order to supervise and control. The appeal of brothels was their perceived ability both to cleanse the streets of prostitutes and prevent the spread of venereal disease. Brothels, wrote Veniamin Tarnovskii in Prostitution and Abolitionism, help reduce street crime and curtail the disgraceful sight of street prostitutes beckoning and seducing clients from doorways.
According to him, "undoubtedly the more women there are in licensed brothels, the less they will in general commit misdemeanors and crimes, in particular, assaults against public morality. Brothels' advocates believed that public houses lent themselves more readily than street prostitution to strict medical surveillance.
Since committee doctors conducted their examinations of brothel prostitutes in the brothel itself, residents could not evade medical supervision as easily as odinochki. In this spirit, the Riga medical-police committee forbade a woman from leaving her brothel without official permission.
