Mini-MEMS Lunch and Learn: Sex workers, But No Sex

This presentation, with Professor Susan McDonough, brings together two Mediterranean institutions, legalized prostitution and the notariat, to explore how the region's sex workers collaborated with notaries to establish their belonging within their communities.  Despite the social stigma surrounding prostitution and legal limitations on prostitutes' movements, prostitution was both legal and widespread in the Northern Mediterranean.  Equally widespread was the use of notaries: people in the Northern Mediterranean relied on notaries to document their debts, procuratorships, business arrangements, and final wishes.  Dr. McDonough will share some notarial documents from different Mediterranean archives and we can think together about what they suggest about sex workers' enmeshment in their communities.