Prostitution flourished amongst the ancients and also in the Middle Ages, especially after the Crusades (Chapter VI). I do not propose to write the history of prostitution; it is sufficient to be acquainted with that of the present day. I may, however, remark that among a number of primitive races, and in young and progressive nations, whose sexual life is still comparatively pure, prostitution is only feebly developed. It is especially to Napoleon I that we owe the present form of regulation and organization of prostitutes. Like all his legislation on marriage and sexual intercourse, this regulation is the living expression of his sentiments toward woman; oppression of the female sex, contempt of its rights, and degradation of its individuals to the state of articles of pleasure for men, and machines for reproduction.
Organization and Regulation of Prostitution.—We have just seen the social conditions under which prostitution becomes quite naturally organized, with its protectors and its proxenetism. There is another factor to be added—that of venereal disease. The infectious germs of syphilis and gonorrhea are usually met with in the genital organs of man and woman; so that every coitus between a healthy and an infected individual may infect the former. Hence the danger of the spread of infection increases with the number of mutations in sexual intercourse. If a woman offers herself systematically to all the men who wish for her, the probability that she will be infected by one of them increases in proportion to the number of clients.
In the second place, as soon as she is infected, the danger is increased by the number of men who have connection with her, for she will probably infect a large proportion of them.
While paying much attention to venereal diseases and their consequences, medicine has shown itself inconceivably blind in not comprehending the bearing of this elementary arithmetic. We must take into account the fact that the complete cure of syphilis is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove; that this disease is extremely infectious, at least during the first two years of its course; and that it extends to the blood and the whole organism, so that it may be communicated, not only by large visible sores, but by small excoriations hidden in the mucous membrane of the vagina or the mouth, etc.
We must also remember that gonorrhea is less painful in woman than in man, and that, even in the latter, it ceases to be painful when it becomes chronic. We may add that the microbes (the gonococci) are very difficult to reach in all the recesses of the mucous membrane of the sexual organs in which they are hidden, and that in women they penetrate as far as the womb, when a cure becomes almost impossible.
If we consider that the sexual organs of woman form deep and hidden cavities which it is very difficult to examine thoroughly, in spite of all the apparatus of modern surgery, and that the mouth in prostitutes is also frequently contaminated by unnatural manipulations; lastly, that no part of their body is absolutely indemnified, it is easy to understand the great danger of infection in public prostitution.
Recognizing the danger of venereal disease, the regulation of prostitution was instituted by medical men with the good intention of eliminating or of diminishing its danger, since they regarded its suppression as impossible. This system consists in the official supervision and inscription of every woman who prostitutes herself. She is given an official form which obliges her to submit to medical examination once a week or once a fortnight, under the penalty of being arrested and punished.
To facilitate medical control, regulation generally endeavors to lodge prostitutes in brothels or lupanars, under the direction of a proxenet. In theory, the brothel is not exactly considered as a State institution of public health; the word toleration being used in this connection, signifying that it is regarded as a tolerated evil. Nevertheless, this distinction only rests on uncertain and subtle characters. To tolerate, to license, to organize, to recognize and favor, to protect and recommend are notions which merge into one another insensibly. As soon as the State tolerates prostitution and brothels, it is obliged to enter into official contracts with prostitutes and proxenetism; therefore, it recognizes them. Moreover, the services which it renders must be paid for. It is therefore necessary that prostitutes and proxenets should pay their tribute to the State and to the doctors: but "the one who pays commands."
No doubt this proverb must not be taken to the letter, nevertheless the one who pays always exerts a certain pressure on the one who receives, and for this reason proxenets and inscribed prostitutes have some idea that they form part of an official institution, which raises their position not only in their own eyes but in those of the irreflective masses. I will cite two examples which show how effectively the public organization of a vicious social anomaly confuses ideas in persons of limited intelligence.
One of my friends was engaged in combating the official regulation of prostitution. A woman, who misunderstood his object, came to him complaining bitterly of the loose life her daughter was leading, and asked him if he could not help her by placing her in a brothel licensed by the State; she would then be under the care of a paternal government!