5 Ways Sex Work Shows Up in Fashion History: May 27, 2024

It’s Day 28 of my Spring Challenge!

As a reminder, this challenge means that either you get an email in your inbox 5 times per week until May 31st (which means I get a set of luxurious, vintage jammies) OR I have to donate $5 to a charity I hate for every week that I miss the goal.

Series #5: 5 Ways Sex Work Shows Up in Fashion History

This wasn’t the planned issue for today, but it won’t leave my head and I’d rather write it for today than leave it for tomorrow where it can gain more time to simmer and then boil over in my head.

Warning: this issue contains certain slurs and discussion of widowhood and sex work. I am aware these are painful topics for many. Please keep yourself and your health first and do not read this if it may hurt you.

This is a bit of a cheat issue because this trend isn’t actually about how sex work impacted fashion. It does, however, go the other way - how culture changed sex worker fashion, albeit in small pockets and temporarily.

So let’s discuss: Widowhood in 19th Century Calcutta, India

This isn’t a theory that I immediately knew I was right about. Even now, I’m not 100% sure. There was just a hint in my brain and luckily, I’ve found some articles supporting it.

But, I’m going about this all jumbled. So, let’s start at the very beginning.

My Introduction to This Topic

When I was around 7, I heard an old Hindi term for “widower” - “randhwa”. It’s not a term that’s commonly used now, other than in slang, but it was in common enough usage in the older movies and texts that I would come across as a child.

Interestingly, the female version of this particular word was nowhere to be found. A year or two later, I found it by chance - the term was “randi”. The only translation given was “prostitute.” It wasn’t even translated as “widow”, but of course, the roots are plain to see.

Even for a 9-year-old, the implication was obvious - widows were left with nowhere to go and turned to sex work out of desperation.

What boggled my mind was that when I brought it up to a few older family members, it seemed like that connection hadn’t been made by them - people older than me and with a much better grasp of Hindi, history, and culture.

Even years later, that connection has never really left my head.

Widowhood in 19th Century India

Hindu widowhood in India carries with it the burden of social ostracism. I would love to say that it’s entirely gone, but it really isn’t.

In very traditional Hindu societies, widows are required to wear white, rough fabrics all their lives, with no adornment or makeup. Even the food they eat is regulated, removing any foods that create too much “heat”. In some cultures, their heads are shorn as well.

In the 19th century, a once-limited practice began gaining a foothold in Hindu and especially Bengali families - that of sati, a ritual whereby a widow sits on her husband’s funeral pyre and burns with him. We won’t get into the why and wherefore (though, obviously, it was all financial).

To us, it is obviously inhumane. But it took some time for a law to come into effect against it. And then, in 1830, the practice was finally outlawed, despite opposition from several families (…again, obviously it was all about the money).

Not wanting to face criminal charges, families were still faced with the problem of what to do with these “superfluous women”. These were women who could inherit their husband’s property and take it away from the “actual” family of the deceased, but wouldn’t give birth to more children or have a husband to pay for the food they ate as family members.

Simple solution: turn them out, without anything at all, except their white sarees.

And what happens to women who are turned out without anything at all except the clothes on their backs?

You already know the answer.

Changes in Sex Work Wear

My brain reasoned, that if widows were driven to sex work due to not having a penny to their own name, they clearly weren’t going to be decked out in the attire we associate with sex work today, such as loud colors and bling.

Which left them with their widows’ clothes: white.

So, I asked - is there a subculture in India where white signals sex work?

And…yes and no. Full disclaimer: I haven’t found a lot of academic research on this. I am going by a few articles I’ve found in newspapers, some artwork, and my own hunch.

Unsurprisingly, white as a color for sex work was most seen in Calcutta, Bengal. This was the state where sati numbers had been amongst the highest in the country. Obviously, the number of widows now being turned out was also going to be high.

A survey found that out of 12,000 sex workers, 10,000 were Hindu widows. Most were minors.

Women wearing white sarees with a black border were seen milling outside temples as sex workers. The term for them was almost bordering on cruel: sundari - meaning “the beautiful one”.

Paintings, lithographs, chromolithographs, and photographs of these sundaris were sold near the temples as well, to tourists and other interested men. These were in studied, often erotic poses for people to collect and to satiate a curiosity about the lives of sex workers.

These pictures were clearly intended to titillate - the widows depicted continued to wear white, but they’re also posed with items “proper” widows wouldn’t be: betel leaves, gold jewelry, even makeup.

As some sundaris gained careers in other spheres, such as music and theater, photographs show that many of them continued their distinct black-and-white look - owning their widows’ status and daring society to cast them out once again.

Overall, this was a small trend: confined to certain regions and a certain time, dying out by the early 20th century. Sex work continues to be associated with loud colors across the world.

But widowhood, and the practices associated with it, clearly made enough of a mark to create a shorthand associating it with sex work - a relationship that continues to this day and that we hear in our day-to-day language.

Such a simple word that I’ve heard used today and what a wealth of pain and stories behind it.

Subscribe to receive insider info on hidden gems that will make you look good and feel great.

Want to chat about fashion/history/literally anything else? Here’s my Calendly!

xoxo,

Simran