"Hun vides ikke at have andet erhverv end erhverv ved utugt": En undersøgelse af sædelighedspolitiets praksis i reguleringen af prostitution og usædelighed i København, 1906-40.

The purpose of this thesis is to show how the Morality Police in Copenhagen regulated prostitution and sexual promiscuity from 1906-1940. The final decades of the nineteenth century saw intense discussion on how to cope with the danger of the widespread venereal diseases. Prostitutes were seen as disease carriers and at the same time, prostitution was considered immoral and scandalous. The solution to both the problem of the dissemination of sexually transmitted diseases and the grounds of public morality and decency were resolved through regulation of the sale of sex. This implied regular medical examinations and strict rules laid down for the behavior of the prostitutes. However in 1906 a new legislation concerning public indecency and venereal diseases, Lov af 30te Marts 1906 om Modarbejdelse af offentlig Usædelighed og venerisk Smitte, was passed by the Danish Parliament. The Law of 1906 was adopted as a break with the previous system which had received criticism for police arbitrariness and legal issues. In this thesis The Law of 1906 is being analyzed to illustrate how the legislation was interpreted and used in practice by the Morality Police in Copenhagen from 1906-1940. In the analysis of both the legislation and police practice, exemplified in different kinds of material, “Beretningerne” and “Rapporterne” this thesis demonstrates a link between women, venereal diseases, sexual promiscuity, vagrancy, and prostitution. According to The Law of 1906 prostitution was not illegal, but the legislation forbade vagrancy. My investigation shows that it was illegal to sustain oneself by prostitution and therefore women who made a living as a prostitute came afoul of the law.