In depicting contemporary panopticism, Roy Boyne has identified danger as the single most effective cause of surveillance, where “danger from our enemies, danger from those who might grow into our enemies, [and] danger from those who could not look after themselves” were different categories.1 The dangers posed by the vulnerable and the criminal are linked within the regime of surveillance that has been imposed on the sexually marginalized female prostitutes of Bengal, who are neither criminals nor victims and yet have been both criminalized and victimized by the medico-moral-legal code of surveillance that defines them. The prostitute as the site of work, sex, disease, power, desire, and pleasure has recently emerged from these contested constructions as a new political subject. The global epidemic of AIDS has forced a radical remapping of sexual boundaries, with prostitutes as the most likely group to contract and spread the disease. The concern for sexual health has given the prostitutes new visibility: from the familiar status of a marginal group of sexually aberrant women, they are now being considered a significant target for public health policy. In the post-1990 phase of modernization, the Indian state has been keen to include them in the welfare agenda and regulate their behavior through surveillance that marks their bodies as domains of sexual health and social discipline.
