Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 by Havelock Ellis is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Present Social Attitude Towards Prostitution
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" 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. 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.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, It is true that the monetary side of prostitution would still exist. But it is possible to exaggerate its importance. It must 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 they see the symbol of the intimate dependence of our luxurious And if this attitude is cruel even in speech it is still more cruel in action, whatever attempts may be made to disguise its cruelty.Canon Lyttelton's remarks may be taken to refer chiefly to young men of the upper middle class. Concerning what is perhaps the usual attitude of lower middle class people towards prostitution, I may quote from a remarkable communication which has reached me from Australia: "What are the views of a young man brought up in a middle-class Christian English family on prostitutes? Take my father, for instance. He first mentioned prostitutes to me, if I remember rightly, when speaking of his life before marriage. And he spoke of them as he would speak of a horse he had hired, paid for, and dismissed from his mind when it had rendered him service. Although my mother was so kind and good she spoke of abandoned women with disgust and scorn as of some unclean animal. As it flatters vanity and pride to be able with good countenance and universal consent to look down on something, I soon grasped the situation and adopted an attitude which is, in the main, that of most As the emotional and physical results of ungratified excitement are not infrequently more serious in women than in men, the betrothed women in these cases are equally justified in seeking relief from other men, and the vicious circle of absurdity might thus be completed.From the point of view of the modern moralist there is another consideration which was altogether overlooked in the conventional and traditional morality we have inherited, and was indeed practically non-existent in the ancient days when that morality was still a living reality. Women are no longer divided only into the two groups of wives who are to be honored, and prostitutes who are the dishonored guardians of that honor; there is a large third class of women who are neither wives nor prostitutes. But this elementary
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