Anarchism and Other Essays
indirectly and directly the main cause. Thus he finds that a large
percentage of prostitutes is recruited from the servant class,
although the latter have less care and greater security. On the
other hand, Mr. Ellis does not deny that the daily routine, the
drudgery, the monotony of the servant girl's lot, and especially the
fact that she may never partake of the companionship and joy of a
home, is no mean factor in forcing her to seek recreation and
forgetfulness in the gaiety and glimmer of prostitution. In other
words, the servant girl, being treated as a drudge, never having the
right to herself, and worn out by the caprices of her mistress, can
find an outlet, like the factory or shopgirl, only in prostitution.
The most amusing side of the question now before the public is the
indignation of our "good, respectable people," especially the various
Christian gentlemen, who are always to be found in the front ranks of
every crusade. Is it that they are absolutely ignorant of the
history of religion, and especially of the Christian religion? Or is
it that they hope to blind the present generation to the part played
in the past by the Church in relation to prostitution? Whatever
their reason, they should be the last to cry out against the
unfortunate victims of today, since it is known to every intelligent
student that prostitution is of religious origin, maintained and
fostered for many centuries, not as a shame but as a virtue, hailed
as such by the Gods themselves.
"It would seem that the origin of prostitution is to be found
primarily in a religious custom, religion, the great conserver of
social tradition, preserving in a transformed shape a primitive
freedom that was passing out of the general social life. The typical
example is that recorded by Herodotus, in the fifth century before
Christ, at the Temple of Mylitta, the Babylonian Venus, where every
woman, once in her life, had to come and give herself to the first
stranger, who threw a coin in her lap, to worship the goddess. Very
similar customs existed in other parts of Western Asia, in North
Africa, in Cyprus, and other islands of the Eastern Mediterranean,
and also in Greece, where the temple of Aphrodite on the fort at
Corinth possessed over a thousand hierodules, dedicated to the
service of the goddess.
"The theory that religious prostitution developed, as a general rule,
out of the belief that the generative activity of human beings
possessed a mysterious and sacred influence in promoting the
fertility of Nature, is maintained by all authoritative writers on
the subject. Gradually, however, and when prostitution became an
organized institution under priestly influence, religious
prostitution developed utilitarian sides, thus helping to increase
public revenue.
"The rise of Christianity to political power produced little change
in policy. The leading fathers of the Church tolerated prostitution.
Brothels under municipal protection are found in the thirteenth
century. They constituted a sort of public service, the directors of
them being considered almost as public servants."[3]
To this must be added the following from Dr. Sanger's work:
"Pope Clement II. issued a bull that prostitutes would be tolerated
if they pay a certain amount of their earnings to the Church.
"Pope Sixtus IV. was more practical; from one single brothel, which
he himself had built, he received an income of 20,000 ducats."
In modern times the Church is a little more careful in that
direction. At least she does not openly demand tribute from
prostitutes. She finds it much more profitable to go in for real
estate, like Trinity Church, for instance, to rent out death traps at
an exorbitant price to those who live off and by prostitution.
Much as I should like to, my space will not admit speaking of
prostitution in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and during the Middle Ages. The
conditions in the latter period are particularly interesting,
inasmuch as prostitution was organized into guilds, presided over by
a brothel Queen. These guilds employed strikes as a medium of
improving their condition and keeping a standard price. Certainly
that is more practical a method than the one used by the modern wage
slave in society.
It would be one-sided and extremely superficial to maintain that the
economic factor is the only cause of prostitution. There are others
no less important and vital. That, too, our reformers know, but dare
discuss even less than the institution that saps the very life out of
both men and women. I refer to the sex question, the very mention of
which causes most people moral spasms.
It is a conceded fact that woman is being reared as a sex commodity,
and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and
importance of sex. Everything dealing with the subject is
suppressed, and persons who attempt to bring light into this terrible
darkness are persecuted and thrown into prison. Yet it is
nevertheless true that so long as a girl is not to know how to take
care of herself, not to know the function of the most important part
of her life, we need not be surprised if she becomes an easy prey to
prostitution, or to any other form of a relationship which degrades
her to the position of an object for mere sex gratification.
It is due to this ignorance that the entire life and nature of the
girl is thwarted and crippled. We have long ago taken it as a
self-evident fact that the boy may follow the call of the wild; that
is to say, that the boy may, as soon has his sex nature asserts
itself, satisfy that nature; but our moralists are scandalized at the
very thought that the nature of a girl should assert itself. To the
moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the
woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.
That this is no mere statement is proved by the fact that marriage
for monetary considerations is perfectly legitimate, sanctified by
law and public opinion, while any other union is condemned and
repudiated. Yet a prostitute, if properly defined, means nothing
else than "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated
to gain."[4]
"Those women are prostitutes who sell their bodies for the exercise
of the sexual act and make of this a profession."[5]
In fact, Banger goes further; he maintains that the act of
prostitution is "intrinsically equal to that of a man or woman who
contracts a marriage for economic reasons."
Of course, marriage is the goal of every girl, but as thousands of
girls cannot marry, our stupid social customs condemn them either to
a life of celibacy or prostitution. Human nature asserts itself
regardless of all laws, nor is there any plausible reason why nature
should adapt itself to a perverted conception of morality.
Society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his
general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman
are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor and of all
that is good and noble in a human being. This double standard of
morality has played no little part in the creation and perpetuation
of prostitution. It involves the keeping of the young in absolute
ignorance on sex matters, which alleged "innocence," together with an
overwrought and stifled sex nature, helps to bring about a state of
affairs that our Puritans are so anxious to avoid or prevent.
Not that the gratification of sex must needs lead to prostitution; it
is the cruel, heartless, criminal persecution of those who dare
divert from the beaten paths, which is responsible for it.
Girls, mere children, work in crowded, over-heated rooms ten to
twelve hours daily at a machine, which tends to keep them in a
constant over-excited sex state. Many of these girls have no home or
comforts of any kind; therefore the street or some place of cheap
amusement is the only means of forgetting their daily routine. This
naturally brings them into close proximity with the other sex. It is
hard to say which of the two factors brings the girl's over-sexed
condition to a climax, but it is certainly the most natural thing
that a climax should result. That is the first step toward
prostitution. Nor is the girl to be held responsible for it. On the
contrary, it is altogether the fault of society, the fault of our
lack of understanding, of our lack of appreciation of life in the
making; especially is it the criminal fault of our moralists, who
condemn a girl for all eternity, because she has gone from the "path
of virtue"; that is, because her first sex experience has taken place
without the sanction of the Church.
The girl feels herself a complete outcast, with the doors of home and
society closed in her face. Her entire training and tradition is
such that the girl herself feels depraved and fallen, and therefore
has no ground to stand upon, or any hold that will lift her up,
instead of dragging her down. Thus society creates the victims that
it afterwards vainly attempts to get rid of. The meanest, most
depraved and decrepit man still considers himself too good to take as
his wife the woman whose grace he was quite willing to buy, even
though he might thereby save her from a life of horror. Nor can she
turn to her own sister for help. In her stupidity the latter deems
herself too pure and chaste, not realizing that her own position is
in many respects even more deplorable than her sister's of the
street.
"The wife who married for money, compared with the prostitute," says
Havelock Ellis, "is the true scab. She is paid less, gives much more
in return in labor and care, and is absolutely bound to her master.
The prostitute never signs away the right over her own person, she
retains her freedom and personal rights, nor is she always compelled
to submit to a man's embrace."
Nor does the better-than-thou woman realize the apologist claim of
Lecky that "though she may be the supreme type of vice, she is also
the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, happy homes
would be polluted, unnatural and harmful practice would abound."
Moralists are ever ready to sacrifice one-half of the human race for
the sake of some miserable institution which they can not outgrow.
As a matter of fact, prostitution is no more a safeguard for the
purity of the home than rigid laws are a safeguard against
prostitution. Fully fifty per cent. of married men are patrons of
brothels. It is through this virtuous element that the married
women--nay, even the children--are infected with venereal diseases.
Yet society has not a word of condemnation for the man, while no law
is too monstrous to be set in motion against the helpless victim.
She is not only preyed upon by those who use her, but she is also
absolutely at the mercy of every policeman and miserable detective on
the beat, the officials at the station house, the authorities in
every prison.
In a recent book by a woman who was for twelve years the mistress of
a "house," are to be found the following figures: "The authorities
compelled me to pay every month fines between $14.70 to $29.70, the
girls would pay from $5.70 to $9.70 to the police." Considering that
the writer did her business in a small city, that the amounts she
gives do not include extra bribes and fines, one can readily see the
tremendous revenue the police department derives from the blood money
of its victims, whom it will not even protect. Woe to those who
refuse to pay their toll; they would be rounded up like cattle, "if
only to make a favorable impression upon the good citizens of the
city, or if the powers needed extra money on the side. For the
warped mind who believes that a fallen woman is incapable of human
emotion it would be impossible to realize the grief, the disgrace,