Suchergebnisse

En sommardag i Stockholm 1747 står snickarmästarens dotter Lena Cajsa Bohman inför rätta för olydnad mot sin far. Snart erkänner hon allvarligare brott. En härva av handel med unga flickor kring kopplerskan Lovisa von Plat rullas upp. Det utvecklar sig till en historia om makt, begär och girighet, om hemliga nätverk och köpslående på utvärdshus, jungfruburar och horbaler. Rättegångsprotokollen berättar om kvinnors villkor i en tid då all utomäktenskaplig sexualitet var förbjuden och ordet prostitution inte användes. Det väcker frågor om hur sexhandeln såg ut innan den definierats med ett särskilt begrepp. Vem betraktades som hora? Vilka konsekvenser fick det för en kvinna att dömas i rätten och av samhället? Med utgångspunkt i borgardottern Lena Cajsa Bohmans besynnerliga levnadsöde tar etnologen Rebecka Lennartsson läsaren med till Stockholm i en tid präglad av sinnlighet, supande och sträng religiositet. Med stöd i en mångfald källor, från polisarkiv och mantalslängder till memoarer och hatiska hordikter, utforskar författaren nattlöperskornas stad - en till delar okänd historia med paralleller till vår egen tid

"One summer day in Stockholm in 1747, the carpenter's daughter Lena Cajsa Bohman faces trial for disobedience to her father. Soon, she admits to more serious crimes. A tangle of trafficking of young women is revealed. It develops into a story of power and greed, of secret networks and trade with young women. The protocols reflects women's circumstances in a time when all extra-marital sexuality was forbidden and the word prostitution was not used.
In 18th century Stockholm, no distinction was made between prostitution and extramarital sexuality. All sexual intercourse outside of marriage was illegal for both women and men. Through the combination of a variety of material sources, from trial protocols to memoirs and hateful whore poems, we get a versatile picture of the commercial sexuality. The testimony of mamsell Bohman tells about how the trade was organized, who the profiteers, the women and the buying men were, where the trade took place and how women who provided sex för money were looked upon.
The overall aim is to investigate how the whore stigma remains over centuries. The stigma is extremely adaptable and constantly accommodates to new cultural and social contexts, laws, values and established truths. It is intertwined with dominant notions of good and evil, of honor and contempt. During the 18th century, the whore stigma was not yet linked to payment for sex. It could affect all women, but was crossed by other hierarchical social orders. Despite a rigid legal stance and a strong social control, the boundaries were more permeable than they would later become. There was a striking discrepancy between law, jurisprudence and the verdict of the mob in 18th century Stockholm - a city where the bourgeois daughter Lena Cajsa was able to admit to relations with the notorious Lovisa von Plat and a number of illegitimate sexual relations, but escape punishment and marry into nobility."

In this book, researchers from different disciplines take the reader on a stroll among forgotten, hidden and exposed rooms in 19th and 20th century's Stockholm. Confectioneries and kitchen entrances, brothels, shop windows and urinal tell of a lost city where boundaries between male and female, public and private, dirty and clean are both sharpened and challenged.