In the early years of the Turkish republic, numerous policy and other proposals were circulated in an effort to curb prostitution. While some, such as the 1920 law that banned excessive spending at weddings, sought to encourage marriage, others targeted existing practices, such as the "oturak alemi", a party for young men to initiate them into ‘manhood’ by hiring local prostitutes to serve alcohol, danced, etc.. Depicted by local authorities as a widespread practice in the central Anatolian provinces, this ‘tradition’ was seen by some as the lead cause of crime and the primary avenue for transmission of syphilis and other diseases; they thus demanded its abolition to ‘save’ the nation and its youth. Approaches targeting foreigners were also promoted, such as a strict policy that relied on nationality and passport laws in order to ban the entry of ‘suspect’ foreign women or to facilitate their deportation. Meanwhile, alternative policies suggested that the keys to this matter could be found in the moral and occupational rehabilitation of women engaged in sex work. This approach promoted opening boarding facilities that would provide education, training, and the acquisition of employable skills needed to attain a better life and livelihood. These competing plans and proposals shaped governmental policies, leading to bans on secret prostitution and promoting a legalized and regulated sex work regime within the republic. This paper employs archival sources, legal records, and data from the medico-social geographies and newspapers of the 1920s and 1930s to examine this question of prostitution in Turkey and how state leaders conceptualized is suppression.