Acceso usuarios
Jill Kunnheim
In the mid-1960s three novels published within a year of one another in different Spanish American countries all had the brothel as their central image. An ambiguous image, the brothel owes its prominence at this moment to a polysemous quality allowing it to "contain" contradictory meanings. The house of prostitution has a paradoxical status; marginal to the dominant order, it is attractive, repellant, Other. The prostíbulo openly associates sexual, symbolic, and economic practices. Existing on the margins of society, it is a pseudo-forbidden territory for men that has become institutionalized as a consequence of its very prohibition. For women, the brothel might represent one of the few semi-sanctioned sites for the expression of female sexuality outside of marriage; it offers poor women an opportunity to participate in the service labor market but its social illegitimacy leaves these workers especially vulnerable to exploitation
