<< Significance of Prostitution >>

The world’s literature contains hundreds of volumes whose authors have attempted to assay the social significance of prostitution. For an activity which contributes no more than this does to the sexual outlet of the male population, it is amazing that it should have been given such widespread consideration. Some of the attention which the subject has received, and certainly many of the books that have been written about it, have undoubtedly been inspired by erotic interest; but a major part of the interest has centered around this question of the social significance of prostitution. The extent of the attention which the subject still receives in this country today is, as we have shown, all out of proportion to its significance in the lives of most males, and this makes one skeptical of using the older literature as a source of information on the place of prostitution in past generations and past centuries. Certainly the older accounts would make it appear that prostitution was much more important in the life of the male who lived any time between the dawn of history and World War I than we have evidence of its having been since then.

There has always been a considerable relation between prostitution and other underworld activities, including gambling, bootlegging, dope peddling, robbery, and other activities. A very high percentage of the prostitutes rob their clients whenever the opportunity affords. Often strong-arm robbery, assault, and occasionally murder are involved. These activities, more than the sexual relations themselves, have concerned law enforcement officers and all others who have been interested in maintaining orderly communities. The relation of prostitution and venereal disease has supplied the argument most often used in recent decades for the suppression of organized prostitution (e.g., W. S. Hall 1907, 1909, Exner 1914, Bigelow 1916, Coppens and Spalding 1921, U. S. Public Health Service 1921, 1937, Forel 1922, Martindale 1925, Eddy 1928, Meyer 1929, Dickerson 1930, Weatherhead 1932, Rice 1933, Ruland and Rattler 1934, Ellis 1936, Robinson in Robinson 1936, Stone and Stone 1937, Haire 1937, Clarke 1938, Rosanoff 1938, Crisp 1939, Kirkendall 1940, Snow 1941, Bowman 1942, Dickerson 1944, 1946, Koch and Wilbur 1944, Popenoe 1946, McPartland 1947). This is not the place to discuss the scientific data which are available on these social problems.

Throughout history, there have been few social institutions which have been objects of as continuous condemnation and concentrated attack as the institution of heterosexual prostitution; and this undoubtedly reflects a widespread judgment that there are basic faults in the institution. On the other hand, prostitution continues to exist, and one may well ask why men continue to go to prostitutes. It is probable that prostitution is no exception to the economic laws, and it continues to exist because there is a sufficient demand for what it offers (see, for instance, Forel 1922, Weather-head 1932, Ellis 1936, Benjamin 1939, Paris in Hunt 1944, Popenoe 1944, Sadler and Sadler 1944).

First of all, men go to prostitutes because they have insufficient sexual outlets in other directions, or because prostitution provides types of sexual activity which are not so readily available elsewhere. Many men go to prostitutes to find the variety that sexual experience with a new partner may offer. Some men go because they feel that the danger of contracting venereal disease from a prostitute is actually less than it would be with a girl who was not in an organized house of prostitution. Some males experiment with prostitution just to discover what it means. In many cases some social psychology is involved as groups of males go together to look for prostitutes.

At all social levels men go to prostitutes because it is simpler to secure a sexual partner commercially than it is to secure a sexual partner by courting a girl who would not accept pay. Even at lower social levels, where most males find it remarkably simple to make frequent contacts with girls who are not prostitutes, there are still occasions when they desire intercourse immediately and find it much simpler to obtain it from a prostitute. As for college-bred males, a great majority of them are utterly ineffective in securing intercourse from any girl whom they have not dated for long periods of time and at considerable expense; and in some cases, their only chance to secure coital experience is with a prostitute. This is, of course, particularly true if the male is away from home in a strange town.

Hundreds of males have insisted that intercourse with a prostitute is cheaper than intercourse with any other girl. The cost of dating a girl, especially at the upper social level, may mount considerably through the weeks and months, or even years, that it may take to arrive at the first intercourse. There are flowers, candy, “coke dates,” dinner engagements, parties, evening entertainments, moving pictures, theatres, night clubs, dances, picnics, week-end house parties, car rides, longer trips, and all sorts of other expensive entertainment to be paid for, and gifts to be made to the girl on her birthday, at Christmas, and on innumerable other special occasions. Finally, after all this the girl may break off the whole affair as soon as she realizes that the male is interested in intercourse. Before the recent war the average cost of a sexual relation with a prostitute was one to five dollars. This was less than the cost of a single supper date with a girl who was not a prostitute; and even at the inflated prices of prostitution which prevailed during the war, the cost did not amount to more than many a soldier or sailor was obliged to spend on another girl from whom he might or might not be able to obtain the intercourse which he wanted.

Men go to prostitutes because they can pay for the sexual relations and forget other responsibilities, whereas coitus with other girls may involve them socially and legally beyond anything which they care to undertake.

Men go to prostitutes to obtain types of sexual activity which they are unable to obtain easily elsewhere. Few prostitutes offer any variety of sexual techniques, but many of them do provide mouth-genital contacts. The prostitute offers the readiest source of experience for the sadist or the masochist, and for persons who have developed associations with non-sexual objects (fetishes) which have come to have sexual significance for them because of some contact they have had in the past. Most males who have participated in sexual activities in groups have found the opportunity to do so with prostitutes. Nearly all of the opportunity that males have to observe sexual activity is connected with prostitutes, and such experiences are in the history of many more persons than is ordinarily realized.

Some men go to prostitutes because they are more or less ineffective in securing sexual relations with other girls. This may be true of males who are unusually timid. Persons who are deformed physically, deaf, blind, severely crippled, spastic, or otherwise handicapped, often have considerable difficulty in finding heterosexual coitus. The matter may weigh heavily upon their minds and cause considerable psychic disturbance. There are instances where prostitutes have contributed to establishing these individuals in their own self esteem by providing their first sexual contacts.

Finally, at the lower social levels there are persons who are feebleminded, physically deformed, and so repulsive and offensive physically that no girl except a prostitute would have intercourse with them. Without such outlets, these individuals would become even more serious social problems than they already are.

The exclusively homosexual male, however, is not the person to be helped by a prostitute. There are numerous histories of such males being advised by clinicians, or led by some friend, or forced by some hilarious group of male companions into attempting intercourse with a prostitute. In a high proportion of such cases the male proves impotent, and his psychic problem is thereby intensified. Even when the intercourse is more or less successful, it is likely to prove distasteful because of the unesthetic conditions under which it is had. The introduction of the homosexual male to heterosexual experience should come through friendships which lead to affection and spontaneously erotic developments.

There is constant rumor of an increase in the frequency of forced intercourse or outright rape among the girls of a community where prostitution has been suppressed. We have no adequate data to prove the truth or falsity of such reports.

Neither are we convinced that there has been any sufficiently objective study of the place of prostitution in the spread of venereal disease, as compared with the spread of such disease through sexual contacts with lower level girls who are not prostitutes.

The significance of prostitution to the male who goes to the prostitute must depend very much upon the sort of person who is involved and the social background from which he comes. At lower social levels there are some who find intercourse with prostitutes distasteful, but in a much larger number of cases there are no objections to the type of relation that is had. In not a few cases, the male insists that intercourse with a prostitute is superior to intercourse with most other girls. The lower level male is not particularly concerned with the responsiveness or unresponsiveness of his female partner, and he is not interested in a particularly emotional experience in coitus, does not want any elaboration of pre-coital petting, and does not object esthetically to the sorts of situations under which most of the intercourse occurs. He likes a matter-of-fact performance in which there are no emotional and no social obligations incurred. Most often he prefers the prostitute, however, because she expects that there will be intercourse, and does not offer the objections that other girls, even his wife, may offer against sexual relations.

On the other hand, the upper level males who have contributed to the present study have almost unanimously agreed that intercourse with a prostitute is not nearly so satisfactory as the intercourse which may be had with other girls. This is undoubtedly the prime reason why most upper level males do not return to prostitutes more often than they do. The complaints turn largely around the fact that a sexual relation which is commercialized lacks the affection which makes a sexual relation significant in marriage, or even in non-marital relations with girls who are not prostitutes. The upper level male dislikes the limitation on petting in his relations with prostitutes. He commonly complains about the genital inadequacies of the prostitute, and this in most instances means that she is not responding erotically. In consequence, she does not stimulate the emotionally sensitive, upper level male. There is a fair number of upper level males who find themselves impotent in attempting intercourse with prostitutes, and this means that they are not psychically satisfied by the situation.

What effect intercourse with prostitutes may have upon the personality of the male who is involved, is a matter which will need careful investigation by a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist.

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