As documented in an 1895 newspaper, men and women in late Ottoman port city society felt highly ambivalent about their own gender roles and that of the other sex. They characterize their predicament as being caught between an emerging modern world with many ideals of how young people should develop, but finding their surroundings, the commercially minded port city, unsuited to these possibilities. Journals and nonfiction writing of the times predominantly attempts to dictate roles of modesty, productivity, and conformism especially for women. Only fiction writing, especially after the end of Hamidian censorship, reflect more on the challenges to female fulfilment, but with the exception of some erotic novels ultimately reaffirm patriarchal role models, albeit in a slightly modified way. While some men find an escape from limited role models by developing their body via gymnastics or utilize medical discourse to speak openly about sex, for women only belonging to the limited milieu of stage performers or extremely liberal and upper-class families offers a way out from the constraints of local society, and even then at the price of great personal strain.