On Monday, The Daily Mail published a series of portraits originally taken for a rare French travel guide. The portrait subjects, all sex workers who were living in Paris at the time, appear alongside blurbs advertising their services to the travel guide's intended audience: Pretty Women of Paris advertised France's brothels by describing their sex workers as completely willing.
Despite the year being , they weren't shamed or vilified for having had numerous sexual partners. Since , under Napoleon, prostitution has been legal in France, with sex workers required to be legally registered with the government and to report for fortnightly health inspections with physicians.
The sex work industry in France remained largely unchanged until when the French National Assembly voted to punish those soliciting sex for money with a fine. Currently, sex work is still technically legal in France, though advertising one's sexual services can result in a fine, and buying a sex worker's services is also illegal.
In order to punish sex workers, the Sexuality, Poverty and Law Programme reports that many French police officers will simply arrest them for "public disorder, vagrancy, [or] loitering. In France, and in many other nations around the world, this disconnect in law has caused a problem for many of those who make their living through sex work.
It's usually difficult to maintain a steady income because they are unable to tell their customer bases that when and where and how they're available.
