The freedom and power of citizens was buttressed by the exclusionary effects on non-citizens. My reading of Apollodoros’ Against Neaira ([Dem.] 59) in Chapter 5 exemplifies the practical results of the ideology of freedom on all levels of Athenian society. The case calls into question the limits of citizenship and demonstrates how a status transgression can impair the jury’s own power. The prosecution speech alleges that Neaira, a resident foreigner, is guilty of pretending to be a citizen. As a foreign, female sex laborer, Neaira represents the antithesis of the model citizen. Neaira’s arrogation of citizenship privileges, however, gives her a measure of positive freedom and power. In contrast to other readings, I show that power struggles are crucial to analyzing the prosecution’s arguments. The prosecution attempts to show that instead of doing “whatever she wishes,” Neaira deserves to be subject to others doing “whatever they wish” to her. Apollodoros’ characterization of her transgressions as destabilizing citizenship indicates the centrality of autonomy and power to citizen identity. Hence, the importance of positive freedom was not simply theoretical, but practical.

Chapter 5, “The Politics of Sexual Labor,” describes the various manifestations of and shifting attitudes toward sex work in the archipelago, from the “flower and willow world” of bygone times to today’s “soaplands.” Leaving behind centuries of thriving “pleasure quarters” – whose most prominent courtesans and geisha were the object of countless works of art and literature – the modern nation-state increasingly attempted not to suppress the trade but to control and manage it. Though the Anti-Prostitution Law was implemented in 1956, its impact on the sex industry in Japan has remained contested; given the weak legal barriers to what is a segregated prostitution system, customers continue to flock to a range of establishments brimming with sexual services and catering to numerous fantasies

The program to eliminate female prostitution (1959–1966) is the subject of Chapter 3, which examines the broad negotiation that occurred amongst revolutionary representatives, leadership, and prostitutes themselves, all of whom made claims to women’s bodies and labor. The chapter also argues that regional reformers helped initiate the anti-prostitution campaign, operating freely and without state support until 1962, when the Ministry of the Interior assumed greater control. These revolutionary representatives adopted a flexible definition of prostituta, one that allowed them to target for reform the behavior and labor of all Cuban women. Furthermore, the methods for reforming these women were premised on a belief in the superiority of elite, white cultural norms and contrasted with the more repressive methods for reforming marginalized men, at least until 1966. During the five years of the campaign, this chapter shows, the government transitioned from viewing prostitutes as victims of capitalism to “criminal manifestations” who rejected the Revolution’s economic opportunities. When Fidel announced the successful end of the campaign in 1966, his pronouncement overlooked the persistence of prostitution and the continued resistance of women who challenged government claims that citizenship was to be earned by subverting economic autonomy to the state (or to their husbands).