Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, British, French and Italian colonial and mandatory powers imposed a system of regulated prostitution, which included licensing of prostitutes and brothels and strict medical and police supervision. This system often encountered local resistance, and in some cases, such as Palestine, it was abolished shortly after World War I. In others, it outlasted colonial rule. Historiographies of regulation often focus on local resistance, and the imposed nature of regulation. The proposed paper focuses on the Egyptian case and demonstrates that local resistance was far from unanimous. In fact, it was hotly debated within the Egyptian medical community. First, regulation was still considered to be a safe measure against venereal disease. Pro-regulation doctors recognized its flaws, but insisted that it could be improved. Abolitionists, on their part, argued that since most prostitutes evaded inspection anyway, abolition would terminate the shame of state-authorized vice. Second, regulationists and abolitionists debated the danger to the public once prostitutes left licensed brothels. Here the question of what led women to prostitution, and whether their rehabilitation was ever possible was central. Third, medical doctors discussed sex education and its ability to deter young men from frequenting prostitutes. Here the sexuality of unmarried men took central stage. Focusing on medical debates on prostitution, then, the proposed lecture will examine the role of doctors in interwar Egypt in molding public policy, as well as their understanding of sexuality, individual bodies and the national body as a whole.