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Although these efforts have often enjoyed social approval, they have never been coupled with laws regulating prostitution, as was the case in many Latin American cities. On occasion, this has resulted in the indirect management of brothels by the authorities. In spite of these efforts, however, after almost a century and a half of direct police intervention, prostitution in Rio de Janeiro continues to be widespread, sharing spaces and interests with a series of other urban actors.
Prostitution began to interest Brazilian historians as part of a renewal of historiography that took place in the s and which focused on the years between and , an era considered to have been of fundamental importance in the creation of modern, urban, capitalist Brazil.
Anthropology and sociology became interested in prostitution in Rio from the late s on and ethnographic studies have created a panorama of sex work in the city over the last thirty years.
This has greatly improved our understanding of sex as it is sold in Rio, but unfortunately, like the historians, anthropologists and sociologists have generated relatively little information regarding the period stretching from to Because of this unevenly focused scholarship, the history of prostitution in Rio is unbalanced. We know quite a bit about the years stretching from to , as well as from the late s on.
