these _Studies_). They must find some outlet. But it
is only the
prostitute who can be relied upon, through her
interests and
training, to overcome the natural repulsion to such
actions, and
gratify desires which, without gratification, might
take on other
and more dangerous forms.
Although Woods Hutchinson quotes with approval the
declaration of a
friend, "Out of thousands I have never seen one with good table manners,"
there is still a real sense in which the prostitute
represents, however
inadequately, the attraction of civilization. "There was no house in
which I could habitually see a lady's face and hear a
lady's voice," wrote
the novelist Anthony Trollope in his _Autobiography_,
concerning his early
life in London. "No allurement to decent respectability came in my way. It
seems to me that in such circumstances the temptations of loose life will
almost certainly prevail with a young man. The
temptation at any rate
prevailed with me." In every great city, it has been said, there are
thousands of men who have no right to call any woman but a barmaid by her
Christian name.[210] All the brilliant fever of
civilization pulses round
them in the streets but their lips never touch it. It is the prostitute
who incarnates this fascination of the city, far better than the virginal
woman, even if intimacy with her were within reach. The prostitute
represents it because she herself feels it, because she has even
sacrificed her woman's honor in the effort to identify herself with it.
She has unbridled feminine instincts, she is a mistress of the feminine
arts of adornment, she can speak to him concerning the mysteries of
womanhood and the luxuries of sex with an immediate
freedom and knowledge
the innocent maiden cloistered in her home would be
incapable of. She
appeals to him by no means only because she can gratify the lower desires
of sex, but also because she is, in her way, an artist, an expert in the
art of feminine exploitation, a leader of feminine
fashions. For she is
this, and there are, as Simmel has stated in his
_Philosophie der Mode_,
good psychological reasons why she always should be
this. Her uncertain
social position makes all that is conventional and
established hateful to
her, while her temperament makes perpetual novelty
delightful. In new
fashions she finds "an æsthetic form of that instinct of destruction which
seems peculiar to all pariah existences, in so far as
they are not
completely enslaved in spirit."
"However surprising it may seem to some," a modern writer
remarks, "prostitutes must be put on the same level as artists.
Both use their gifts and talents for the joy and
pleasure of
others, and, as a rule, for payment. What is the
essential
difference between a singer who gives pleasure to
hearers by her
throat and a prostitute who gives pleasure to those
who seek her
by another part of her body? All art works on the
senses." He
refers to the significant fact that actors, and
especially
actresses, were formerly regarded much as
prostitutes are now (R.
Hellmann, _Ueber Geschlechtsfreiheit_, pp. 245-252).
Bernaldo de Quirós and Llanas Aguilaniedo (_La Mala
Vida en
Madrid_, p. 242) trace the same influence still
lower in the
social scale. They are describing the more squalid
kind of _café
chantant_, in which, in Spain and elsewhere, the
most vicious and
degenerate feminine creatures become waitresses (and
occasionally
singers and dancers), playing the part of amiable
and
distinguished _hetairæ_ to the public of carmen and
shop-boys who
frequent these resorts. "Dressed with what seems to the youth
irreproachable taste, with hair elaborately
prepared, and clean
face adorned with flowers or trinkets, affable and
at times
haughty, superior in charm and in finery to the
other women he is
able to know, the waitresses become the most
elevated example of
the _femme galante_ whom he is able to contemplate
and talk to,
the courtesan of his sphere."
But while to the simple, ignorant, and hungry youth the prostitute appeals
as the embodiment of many of the refinements and
perversities of
civilization, on many more complex and civilized men she exerts an
attraction of an almost reverse kind. She appeals by her fresh and natural
coarseness, her frank familiarity with the crudest facts of life; and so
lifts them for a moment out of the withering atmosphere of artificial
thought and unreal sentiment in which so many civilized persons are
compelled to spend the greater part of their lives. They feel in the words
which the royal friend of a woman of this temperament is said to have used
in explaining her incomprehensible influence over him:
"She is so
splendidly vulgar!"
In illustration of this aspect of the appeal of
prostitution, I
may quote a passage in which the novelist, Hermant,
in his
_Confession d'un Enfant d'Hier_ (Lettre VII), has
set down the
reasons which may lead the super-refined child of a
cultured age,
yet by no means radically or completely vicious, to
find
satisfaction in commerce with prostitutes: "As long as my heart
was not touched the object of my satisfaction was
completely
indifferent to me. I was, moreover, a great lover of
absolute
liberty, which is only possible in the circle of
these anonymous
creatures and in their reserved dwelling. There
everything became
permissible. With other women, however low we may
seek them,
certain convenances must be observed, a kind of
protocol. To
these one can say everything: one is protected by
incognito and
assured that nothing will be divulged. I profited by
this
freedom, which suited my age, but with a perverse
fancy which was
not characteristic of my years. I scarcely know
where I found
what I said to them, for it was the opposite of my
tastes, which
were simple, and, if I may venture to say so,
classic. It is true
that, in matters of love, unrestrained naturalism
always tends to
perversion, a fact that can only seem paradoxical at
first sight.
Primitive peoples have many traits in common with
degenerates. It
was, however, only in words that I was unbridled;
and that was
the only occasion on which I can recollect seriously
lying. But
that necessity, which I then experienced, of
expelling a lower
depth of ignoble instincts, seems to me
characteristic and
humiliating. I may add that even in the midst of
these
dissipations I retained a certain reserve. The
contacts to which
I exposed myself failed to soil me; nothing was left
when I had
crossed the threshold. I have always retained, from
that forcible
and indifferent commerce, the habit of attributing
no consequence
to the action of the flesh. The amorous function,
which religion
and morality have surrounded with mystery or
seasoned with sin,
seems to me a function like any other, a little
vile, but
agreeable, and one to which the usual epilogue is
too long....
This kind of companionship only lasted for a short
time." This
analysis of the attitude of a certain common type of
civilized
modern man seems to be just, but it may perhaps
occur to some
readers that a commerce which led to "the action of the flesh"
being regarded as of no consequence can scarcely be
said to have
left no taint.
In a somewhat similar manner, Henri de Régnier, in
his novel,
_Les Rencontres de Monsieur Bréot_ (p. 50),
represents Bercaillé
as deliberately preferring to take his pleasures
with
servant-girls rather than with ladies, for pleasure
was, to his
mind, a kind of service, which could well be
accommodated with
the services they are accustomed to give; and then
they are
robust and agreeable, they possess the _naïveté_
which is always
charming in the common people, and they are not apt
to be
repelled by those little accidents which might
offend the
fastidious sensibilities of delicately bred ladies.
Bloch, who has especially emphasized this side of
the appeal of
prostitution (_Das Sexualleben unserer Zeit_, pp.
359-362),
refers to the delicate and sensitive young Danish
writer, J.P.
Jakobsen, who seems to have acutely felt the
contrast between the
higher and more habitual impulses, and the
occasional outburst of
what he felt to be lower instincts; in his _Niels
Lyhne_ he
describes the kind of double life in which a man is
true for a
fortnight to the god he worships, and is then
overcome by other
powers which madly bear him in their grip towards
what he feels
to be humiliating, perverse, and filthy. "At such moments," Bloch
remarks, "the man is another being. The 'two souls'
in the breast
become a reality. Is that the famous scholar, the
lofty idealist,
the fine-souled æsthetician, the artist who has
given us so many
splendid and pure works in poetry and painting? We
no longer
recognize him, for at such moments another being has
come to the
surface, another nature is moving within him, and
with the power
of an elementary force is impelling him towards
things at which
his 'upper consciousness,' the civilized man within
him, would
shudder." Bloch believes that we are here concerned with a kind
of normal masculine masochism, which prostitution
serves to
gratify.
_IV. The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution._
We have now surveyed the complex fact of prostitution in some of its most
various and typical aspects, seeking to realise,
intelligently and
sympathetically, the fundamental part it plays as an
elementary
constituent of our marriage system. Finally we have to consider the
grounds on which prostitution now appears to a large and growing number of
persons not only an unsatisfactory method of sexual
gratification but a
radically bad method.
The movement of antagonism towards prostitution
manifests itself most
conspicuously, as might beforehand have been
anticipated, by a feeling of
repugnance towards the most ancient and typical, once
the most credited
and best established prostitutional manifestation, the brothel. The growth
of this repugnance is not confined to one or two
countries but is
international, and may thus be regarded as corresponding to a real
tendency in our civilization. It is equally pronounced in prostitutes
themselves and in the people who are their clients. The distaste on the
one side increases the distaste on the other. Since only the most helpless
or the most stupid prostitutes are nowadays willing to accept the
servitude of the brothel, the brothel-keeper is forced to resort to
extraordinary methods for entrapping victims, and even to take part in
that cosmopolitan trade in "white slaves" which exists solely to feed
brothels.[211] This state of things has a natural
reaction in prejudicing
the clients of prostitution against an institution which is going out of
fashion and out of credit. An even more fundamental
antipathy is
engendered by the fact that the brothel fails to respond to the high
degree of personal freedom and variety which
civilization produces, and
always demands even when it fails to produce. On one
side the prostitute
is disinclined to enter into a slavery which usually
fails even to bring
her any reward; on the other side her client feels it as part of the
fascination of prostitution under civilized conditions that he shall enjoy
a freedom and choice the brothel cannot provide.[212]
Thus it comes about
that brothels which once contained nearly all the women who made it a
business to minister to the sexual needs of men, now
contain only a
decreasing minority, and that the transformation of
cloistered
prostitution into free prostitution is approved by many social reformers
as a gain to the cause of morality.[213]
The decay of brothels, whether as cause or as effect,
has been associated
with a vast increase of prostitution outside brothels.
But the repugnance
to brothels in many essential respects also applies to prostitution
generally, and, as we shall see, it is exerting a
profoundly modifying
influence on that prostitution.
The changing feeling in regard to prostitution seems to express itself
mainly in two ways. On the one hand there are those who, without desiring
to abolish prostitution, resent the abnegation which
accompanies it, and
are disgusted by its sordid aspects. They may have no
moral scruples
against prostitution, and they know no reason why a
woman should not
freely do as she will with her own person. But they
believe that, if
prostitution is necessary, the relationships of men with prostitutes
should be humane and agreeable to each party, and not
degrading to either.
It must be remembered that under the conditions of
civilized urban life,
the discipline of work is often too severe, and the
excitements of urban
existence too constant, to render an abandonment to orgy a desirable
recreation. The gross form of orgy appeals, not to the town-dweller but to
the peasant, and to the sailor or soldier who reaches
the town after long
periods of dreary routine and emotional abstinence. It is a mistake, even,
to suppose that the attraction of prostitution is
inevitably associated
with the fulfilment of the sexual act. So far is this
from being the case
that the most attractive prostitute may be a woman who, possessing few
sexual needs of her own, desires to please by the charm of her
personality; these are among those who most often find good husbands.
There are many men who are even well content merely to have a few hours'
free intimacy with an agreeable woman, without any
further favor, although
that may be open to them. For a very large number of men under urban
conditions of existence the prostitute is ceasing to be the degraded
instrument of a moment's lustful desire; they seek an
agreeable human
person with whom they may find relaxation from the daily stress or routine
of life. When an act of prostitution is thus put on a
humane basis,
although it by no means thereby becomes conducive to the best development
of either party, it at least ceases to be hopelessly
degrading. Otherwise
it would not have been possible for religious
prostitution to flourish for
so long in ancient days among honorable women of good
birth on the shores
of the Mediterranean, even in regions like Lydia, where the position of
women was peculiarly high.[214]
It is true that the monetary side of prostitution would still exist. But
it is possible to exaggerate its importance. It must be pointed out that,
though it is usual to speak of the prostitute as a woman who "sells
herself," this is rather a crude and inexact way of expressing, in its
typical form, the relationship of a prostitute to her
client. A prostitute
is not a commodity with a market-price, like a loaf or a leg of mutton.
She is much more on a level with people belonging to the professional
classes, who accept fees in return for services
rendered; the amount of
the fee varies, on the one hand in accordance with
professional standing,
on the other hand in accordance with the client's means, and under special
circumstances may be graciously dispensed with
altogether. Prostitution
places on a venal basis intimate relationships which
ought to spring up
from natural love, and in so doing degrades them. But
strictly speaking
there is in such a case no "sale." To speak of a prostitute "selling
herself" is scarcely even a pardonable rhetorical exaggeration; it is both
inexact and unjust.[215]
This tendency in an advanced civilization towards
the
humanization of prostitution is the reverse process,
we may note,
to that which takes place at an earlier stage of
civilization
when the ancient conception of the religious dignity
of
prostitution begins to fall into disrepute. When men
cease to
reverence women who are prostitutes in the service
of a goddess
they set up in their place prostitutes who are
merely abject
slaves, flattering themselves that they are thereby
working in
the cause of "progress" and "morality." On the shores of the
Mediterranean this process took place more than two
thousand
years ago, and is associated with the name of Solon.
To-day we
may see the same process going on in India. In some
parts of
India (as at Jejuri, near Poonah) first born girls
are dedicated
to Khandoba or other gods; they are married to the
god and termed
_muralis_. They serve in the temple, sweep it, and
wash the holy
vessels, also they dance, sing and prostitute
themselves. They
are forbidden to marry, and they live in the homes
of their
parents, brothers, or sisters; being consecrated to
religious
service, they are untouched by degradation.
Nowadays, however,
Indian "reformers," in the name of "civilization and science,"
seek to persuade the _muralis_ that they are
"plunged in a career
of degradation." No doubt in time the would-be
moralists will
drive the _muralis_ out of their temples and their
homes, deprive
them of all self-respect, and convert them into
wretched
outcasts, all in the cause of "science and
civilization" (see,
e.g., an article by Mrs. Kashibai Deodhar, _The New
Reformer_,
October, 1907). So it is that early reformers create
for the
reformers of a later day the task of humanizing
prostitution
afresh.
There can be no doubt that this more humane
conception of
prostitution is to-day beginning to be realized in
the actual
civilized life of Europe. Thus in writing of
prostitution in
Paris, Dr. Robert Michels ("Erotische Streifzüge,"
_Mutterschutz_, 1906, Heft 9, p. 368) remarks:
"While in Germany
the prostitute is generally considered as an
'outcast' creature,
and treated accordingly, an instrument of masculine
lust to be
used and thrown away, and whom one would under no
circumstances
recognize in public, in France the prostitute plays
in many
respects the part which once give significance and
fame to the
_hetairæ_ of Athens." And after describing the
consideration and
respect which the Parisian prostitute is often able
to require of
her friends, and the non-sexual relation of
comradeship which she
can enter into with other men, the writer continues:
"A girl who
certainly yields herself for money, but by no means
for the first
comer's money, and who, in addition to her 'business
friends,'
feels the need of, so to say, non-sexual companions
with whom she
can associate in a free comrade-like way, and by
whom she is
treated and valued as a free human being, is not
wholly lost for
the moral worth of humanity." All prostitution is bad, Michels
concludes, but we should have reason to congratulate
ourselves if
love-relationships of this Parisian species
represented the
lowest known form of extra-conjugal sexuality. (As
bearing on the
relative consideration accorded to prostitutes I may
mention that
a Paris prostitute remarked to a friend of mine that
Englishmen
would ask her questions which no Frenchman would
venture to ask.)
It is not, however, only in Paris, although here
more markedly
and prominently, that this humanizing change in
prostitution is
beginning to make itself felt. It is manifested, for
instance, in
the greater openness of a man's sexual life. "While he formerly
slinked into a brothel in a remote street," Dr.
Willy Hellpach
remarks (_Nervosität und Kultur_, p. 169), "he now walks abroad
with his 'liaison,' visiting the theatres and cafés,
without
indeed any anxiety to meet his acquaintances, but
with no
embarrassment on that point. The thing is becoming
more
commonplace, more--natural." It is also, Hellpach proceeds to
point out, thus becoming more moral also, and much
unwholesome
prudery and pruriency is being done away with.
In England, where change is slow, this tendency to
the
humanization of prostitution may be less pronounced.
But it
certainly exists. In the middle of the last century
Lecky wrote
(_History of European Morals_, vol. ii, p. 285) that
habitual
prostitution "is in no other European country so