The dissertation research project for which I am seeking an IDRF fellowship explores the boundaries of licit and illicit sexuality in late nineteenth-century Egypt as constructed through two interrelated social concepts - virginity and prostitution. My project will examine how these boundaries were defined, negotiated, debated and redefined in the interaction between state officials, intellectuals, and non-elite men and women. The time frame I chose for this exploration, between 1860 and 1900, encompasses the decades immediately proceeding and the ones immediately following the 1882 British occupation, and thus transcends the conventional rupture of the colonial occupation. Drawing on a range of sources, including police records, court records and periodicals, I expect my research project to contribute to the literature on gender relations and women's history in modem Egypt and to provide the basis for fruitful comparisons with other periods and other societies.