(Not) respectable women. Gender allegories on female sexuality in Christian morality. Contributions to an epistemic discussion on prostitution

Abstract

This work addresses the historical construction of Western Christian sexual morality from an epistemological perspective regarding female sexuality considered normal or deviated, specifically highlighting the historical degradation of the profession of prostitution. To do this, classic texts that demonstrate this construction are examined and, in the case of Chile, it is historically exemplified with some 19th century literature from La Revista Católica, published in the country from 1843 to 2022. The study seeks to demonstrate how, through the centuries, and specifically in the 19th century, the church confined female sexuality to the space of marriage, generating a dichotomy with other types of historical expression of female sexuality, such as commercial, which was pushed to the margins of the abject and sin, as a synonym of social and moral degradation.