Parastatal Sexarchy / Sexarquia Parastatal: Mitigated Regulation and Prostitution's World Making

The commercial sale of sex is not legal in Rio de Janeiro. It is rather better to say that it’s not necessarily illegal. This chapter delves into the history and sociology of prostitution in Rio de Janeiro, exploring how the city has constructed a system that one of its major critics once labeled “mitigated regulation.” Prostitution is simultaneously regulated, prohibited, and tolerated in Rio—confusing and undermining the typical social-scientific and legal understandings of sex work as operating under abolitionist, prohibitionist, regulatory, or decriminalized regimes. Based upon in-depth historiographic and ethnographic research, the chapter analyzes how prostitution might best be described as parastatally regulated, with state security forces (extra)officially regulating and profiting from the city’s main sex work venues. The chapter concludes with an overview of how sex work has changed throughout twenty-first-century Rio and how security forces have adapted.