Un mondo senza Wanda. Opinione maschile e legge Merlin (1948-1958)

A world without Wanda. Male opinion and the Merlin law (1948-1958)
This essay focuses on opinions about the abolition of regulated prostitution expressed by certain sections of Italy’s male population (doctors, politicians, lawyers, and journalists) in the 1950s. The Merlin law, presented in 1948 and finally approved in 1958, closed down the brothels after ten years of controversy, which ranged far beyond prostitution to embrace much wider issues, such as public morality, sexuality, and the balance of power between genders. Based on various types of sources – parliamentary proceedings, weekly publications, law journals and scientific literature – the study focuses in particular upon the reasonings that the men put forward in favour of the law, or against it. The construction of male discourse on prostitution – on the basis of the parliamentary debates – is analysed using certain keys of interpretation which are of particular importance for the study of contemporary masculinity, such as male misogyny, scientific definitions of female identity and roles, the relationship between processes of modernization and gender identities, and the profound ambivalences of the basic principles of sexual morality espoused both by the moralist conservative camp, and by the progressive, secular one.