In this thesis, the regulation of prostitution in Uppsala during the 1880’s is investigated with the aim of finding out more about the living circumstances of the women who were considered or suspected of being licentious or prostitutes. The theoretical framework drawn upon for analyzing and understanding the living circumstances of these women is Carole Pateman’s The Sexual Contract. The paper consists of three parts: first, an overview of the source material. Second, a collective biography of 103 women who had notes made about them during the 1880’s. Third, a case study where five women were followed from the cradle to the grave.  What was discovered was that the archives from this period in Uppsala are inconsistent and difficult to understand. Many of the women who had their names recorded in the source material were not prostitutes but rather women who in some way or another got caught by the authorities for perceived suspicious behaviour. Some underwent gynaecological examination and were never mentioned again. Others remained under the control of the authorities for decades, even when they were no longer regarded as being prostitutes. The conclusion is that, despite many of these women sharing similar backgrounds, their living circumstances both before and after their time being under the eyes of the authorities varied. This sheds a new and nuanced light both on earlier research about women regulated in prostitution during this time, how the authorities in Uppsala were administering women that were deviating from the norm, and how these women were perceived by contemporary society.

Prostitution som företeelse engagerar och väcker känslor, både bland individer och offentliga aktörer. I detta arbete belyser vi utvecklingen av samhällets syn på prostitutionen genom att analysera den period då den i Sverige var offentligt reglementerad och kontrollerad, 1859 – 1918. Denna tidsperiod rymmer avgörande skiftningar i offentligsamhällets syn på prostitution, en företeelse som tidigare under historien setts som en allvarlig försyndelse i sig. Reglementeringen infördes som ett smittskyddsprojekt där målet var att hejda spridningen av framför allt syfilis. Reglementeringen kom dock även att präglas av moraliska aspekter innan det, efter förnyade utredningar, konstaterades att den spelat ut sin roll för att hejda den veneriska smittspridningen. Prostitutionen kom då att regleras i andra lagrum. Studiens syfte är att, genom en kvalitativ litteraturstudie, kartlägga vilka lagar, regler och påföljder som omgärdat hanteringen av prostitutionen under den studerade perioden, hur statens och hälso-och sjukvårdens syn på prostitution sett ut och inverkat på lagstiftningen samt hur reglementeringssystemet kan förstås utifrån teorierna om stigma och det ideala offret. Arbetets huvudsakliga slutsatser är att det, i litteraturen, går att återfinna tydliga förändringar i offentligsamhällets attityder mot prostitution under den studerade perioden. I periodens början sågs prostitutionen huvudsakligen som ett sanitärt problem, men kom sedermera alltmer att betraktas som ett socialt. Vidare har vi kunnat påvisa att reglementeringssystemet väl låter sig förstås utifrån Erving Goffmans teori om stigma, men att den prostituerade kvinnans status som offer enligt Nils Christies teori om det ideala offret är mer komplex och mångfacetterad. / Prostitution as a phenomenon engages and evokes feelings, both among individuals and public actors. In this work, we illustrate the development of public society's view of prostitution by analysing the period when it was publicly regulated and controlled in Sweden, 1859 – 1918. This period contains crucial shifts in society's view of prostitution, a phenomenon previously in history seen as a serious offence in and of itself. The regulations were introduced as an infection prevention project with the goal to stop the spread primarily of syphilis. However, the regulations also came to be characterised by moral aspects before, after renewed investigations, it was stated that it had played its role in halting the spread of venereal disease and prostitution came to be regulated by other legislation. The purpose of the study is to identify, through a qualitative literature study, what laws, rules and penalties that surrounded the handling of prostitution during the studied period, what the state’s and health care system’s views on prostitution were and how they influenced the legislation and how the regulatory system can be understood based on the theories of stigma and the ideal victim. The essay’s main conclusions are that, in literature, it is possible to identify clear changes in the public society's attitudes towards prostitution during the period studied. At the beginning of the period, prostitution was mainly seen as a sanitary problem, but eventually it became viewed as a more social one. Furthermore, we have been able to demonstrate that the system of regulation can be understood on the basis of Erving Goffman's theory of stigma, but that the status of the female prostitute as victim according to Nils Christie's theory of the ideal victim is more complex and multifaceted.