Dangerous Pleasures

This pioneering work examines prostitution in Shanghai from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawn mostly from the daughters and wives of the working poor and declassé elites, prostitutes in Shanghai were near the bottom of class and gender hierarchies. Yet they were central figures in Shanghai urban life, entering the historical record whenever others wanted to appreciate, castigate, count, regulate, cure, pathologize, warn about, rescue, eliminate, or deploy them as a symbol in a larger social panorama. Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many ways: as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity. For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity. Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the "larger" meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives? Hershatter makes use of a broad range of materials: guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers. Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.

A widow and stay at home mother of five children, Annie Miller struggles with the difficult realities of her life, until she wins the grand prize in a contest sponsored by The Channel, a network that caters to women's fantasies, a prize that includes a week at a luxurious spa and a chance to program and experience her own personal sexual fantasies. Original.

"Renee Matthews is starting over. Free of a demanding ex-husband who left her feeling worthless, she's ready for a purely physical connection, on her terms..." --P. [4] of cover.

Collected here, in DANGEROUS PLEASURES for the first time, are Patrick Gale's most brilliant pieces of short fiction. His subjects are wide-ranging and various - curious childhood loyalties, long-hidden unsettling mem- ories, newly discovered joys, dislocated relationaships, overwhelming, thrilling passions.

"Strong-willed and independent, Paisley Nichols is used to taking care of herself. But when an insane mage begins tracking her every move and threatening her at every turn, she has no choice but to put her life in the hands of a demon ..."--Page 4 of cover.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh has captivated millions with her sizzling tales. Paige Galbraithe has always wondered if the dark, cool and mysterious Abram Mustafa is hiding a wicked side... a side that will allow her to explore the kind of pleasure she has only dreamed of. For Abram, Paige is the only woman he has ever loved. But Abram faces the greatest test of his life when his father kidnaps Paige. With Paige's life now in danger, Abram knows that his plans for escape from the only home he has ever known have become more imperative than ever. And for Paige, with her freedom taken from her, she must learn to trust Abram with more than her fantasies. She must trust him with her life... and her heart.

The Dark-Hunters are ancient warriors who have sworn to protect mankind and the fate of the world is in their hands. . . He is solitude. He is darkness. He is the ruler of the night. Yet Kyrian of Thrace has just woken up handcuffed to his worst nightmare: An accountant. Worse, she's being hunted by one of the most lethal vampires out there. And if Amanda Devereaux goes down, then he does too. But it's not just their lives that are hanging in the balance. Kyrian and Amanda are all that stands between humanity and oblivion. Let's hope they win.