ARGENTINA: Back to the Bordello

After a police roundup jailed 300 homosexuals in one night last week, Buenos Aires' well-coached press promptly drew the moral the government wanted: sex-deviation was on the increase in Argentina, and the obvious answer to the problem was legalized prostitution. One newspaper also blamed the country's 1936 ban on licensed bordellos for "the recrudescence of shameful attacks on women." A few days later, Strongman Juan Perón cracked open the 1936 law with a decree authorizing provincial and local authorities to permit brothels "in suitable places."* Whether or not Perón was sincere in billing the decree as a remedy for...

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