Selling Sex in Istanbul

chapter 11 Selling Sex in Istanbul Mark David Wyers Introduction Historically, prostitution has always existed in Istanbul, which was the capital of the Ottoman Empire and is situated on the Bosphorus Strait between the Black Sea and Marmara Sea, but the most salient feature of sold sex there may well be the silence that often surrounds it. Unlike in many other European countries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the issue of prostitution was never incorporated into vocal and influential feminist movements as a symbol of the oppression of women in Turkey. Of course, while there was a bur- geoning women’s movement in Istanbul in the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Turkey (which was founded in 1923), and while there were isolated calls for the abolition of regulated prostitution, women’s lobbying power over state policy did not materialize until quite recently and even now it is limited; and, as sex work in Turkey has long been a taboo issue, an ngo dedicated to the support of sex workers was not founded until the mid-2000s. Consequent- ly, since it is largely such organizations that carry out research on prostitution, there is a relative lack of source material available for the researcher for more recent times regarding sold sex. In academia, there has been a similar silence; only in the past five years or so has the subject begun to receive scholarly attention from historians. Additionally, the state committee responsible for oversee- ing the system of licensed sex work in Istanbul does not share its data for the most part and there is a lack of governmental transparency, particularly under the current conservative ruling party which is self-avowedly dedicated to pro- moting “family values” over women’s (and workers’) rights. Notably, women’s movements in Turkey today, still struggling as they are to acquire large-scale legitimacy in the eyes of the public, have also been reluc- tant to vocally address such a taboo issue, and even within these movements there is some ambivalence arising from traditions of “virtue” which are inti- mately bound up with conceptualizations of female sexuality. In recent years, this shroud of silence surrounding sex work has begun to fall away, however, even if slightly, and increasing numbers of women’s groups and the transgen- der community, including sex workers themselves, have begun to raise their voices. This was largely made possible by the efforts of two sex workers, Ayşe © Mark David Wyers, 2017 | doi 10.1163/9789004346253_012 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.Mark David Wyers - 9789004346253 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:10:32AM via free access Selling Sex in Istanbul 279 Tükrücü and Saliha Ermez, who attempted to run for parliament in 2007; while their bid was unsuccessful, they did help bring sex work into the open as an issue demanding attention. Taking into consideration these limitations, this overview has drawn upon the material available in the Ottoman archive in Istanbul for the earlier period of Istanbul, and also the growing number of studies which have been conduct- ed utilizing those sources. The Republican archive in Ankara, which contains far less information, was also consulted, as well as the archive of the League of Nations in Geneva, as the League’s Body of Experts carried out studies on Istanbul due to the fact that in the early twentieth century, Istanbul had ac- quired a global reputation, deservedly or not, as a major centre for prostitution. A survey of Turkish newspapers provided further materials regarding the early years of the republic when the regulated system was adopted from its Ot- toman predecessor, and recent studies on sex work in contemporary Istanbul were also consulted. For the sake of clarity, this overview of prostitution in Istanbul is roughly di- vided into three time periods: 1600–1880, 1881–1950, and 1951-present. The first time period represents the era prior to the time when the Ottoman authorities instituted a system of regulated prostitution, a period best defined as prohibi- tionist marked by periods of tolerance and suppression. The next time period bridges the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Repub- lic of Turkey in 1923, and represents the era in which sold sex in Istanbul was brought under state control via a system of regulation. In the final time period, large-scale internal migration and the opening up of the Turkish economy to global capital had a large impact on the unfolding of prostitution in Istanbul, and in recent years there has been increased agitation for recognition of the rights of sex workers. This shift has gone hand in hand with government at- tempts to quietly dismantle the state-regulated system of prostitution that has been in place for over a century. This tri-bloc time frame, while artificial in the sense that changes do not happen so abruptly, nonetheless makes it possible to identify and examine moments of continuity and rupture as regards prostitution in Istanbul over roughly the last 400 years. Disciplining “Vice” in the City of Sultans Prostitution in Ottoman Istanbul, which was a bustling multi-ethnic, multi- religious city, underwent periods of suppression and toleration, but it was a regular feature of the urban landscape and was carried out by women from all religious backgrounds. Under the Sultanic Code of Law promulgated in 1530, in Mark David Wyers - 9789004346253 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:10:32AM via free access <UN> 280 Wyers the early years of the Ottoman Empire prostitution was subject to what could be called a “sin tax” which required that the “gypsies of Istanbul, Edirne Plo- vdiv and Sofia pay a fixed tax of one hundred aqches per month for each of their women who perform acts contrary to Sharia [Islamic law].”1 Sharia strict- ly forbade sexual relations outside of marriage, so this tax indicated a tacit recognition that these women, as prostitutes, were regularly engaging in acts that ran contrary to theological doctrine and making money from their clients. This practice would soon be discontinued, however;2 a code of law for prostitution was introduced stating that such “undesirable” women could be chastised and then banished from a town if they did not correct their behaviour.3 In this way, even though a prostitute would have been culpable as having committed fornication (zinā), which under the Ottoman system of kanun law entailed the payment of a fine, she was in fact a separate legal subject bound to regulations that differed from those that applied to “virtuous” women who committed adultery; if a woman who was not a prostitute was found guilty of engaging in sexual relations outside the confines of marriage, she was technically subject to a monetary fine, not banished.4 This blurring of the status of prostitutes thus granted them a form of recognition, and exempting prostitutes from pe- cuniary punishment made it possible for the authorities to avoid being placed in the morally awkward position of “taxing” prostitution. This is not to say, however, that the presence of prostitutes in Istanbul was broadly tolerated. As indicated by court records, throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, prostitutes were regularly banished from Istanbul to the interior of Anatolia or islands in the Mediterranean, and imprisonment was 1 2 3 4 1 Colin Imber, Ebu’s-su’ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition (Edinburgh, 1997), p. 45. 2 The suppression of prostitution under Suleiman the Magnificent, also known as the Law- giver, and Selim ii coincided with a trend towards religious conservatism in the Porte. Lesley Pierce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York, 1993), p. 272. 3 Uriel Heyd, Studies in Ottoman Law (Oxford, 1973), p. 130. 4 During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, a new system of laws (known as kanun) was drawn up which often paralleled Sharia but differed greatly in terms of punishment. While Sharia prescribed corporal punishment for sexual crimes, kanun stipulated that fines would be paid based on the gender, class, and religious background of the offender. This was partly a matter of practicality, as Sharia law made it quite difficult to prove the guilt of a suspected offender, requiring numerous witnesses and strict punishments for the crime of bearing false witness. Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500–1900 (Berkeley, 2006), pp. 59–60. Mark David Wyers - 9789004346253 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:10:32AM via free access <UN> Selling Sex in Istanbul 281 also used as a form of discipline, in addition to capital punishment, although executions were quite rare.5 The ownership of domestic slaves, which was common practice among the wealthy and elite in Ottoman society,6 was also implicated in practices of prostitution in Istanbul. Under Islamic law, men were entitled to an unlimited number of female slaves, with whom they were entitled to have sexual relations, although religious law encouraged slave owners to eventually free them and treat them well; it should be pointed out, however, that women could own female but not male slaves, while men could own both. On wealthy Ottoman estates, female slaves served as domestic servants, maids, and nurses, and also as concubines,7 and while sex between a master and female slave was viewed as legitimate, the procuring of slaves for the purpose of prostitution was ex- pressly forbidden by Islamic law.8 One such practice was the purchase of a slave at a certain price for the purpose of sexual gratification; the buyer would then sell that slave back to the owner at a slightly lower price, resulting in a profit for the original seller.

Load more