The prostitution in cafés, scent shops, glove shops, etc., constitutes a slightly higher grade. As regards danger of venereal infection this is as great as anywhere, but the girls are rather more independent and lead a more natural life. It is precisely because these places are not under legal protection, that the patrons or protectors of prostitutes cannot employ the terrorism of licensed proxenets.
The free prostitutes of the streets are about on the same level. They are not dependent on proxenetism, but only on their protector and proprietor, which is a trifle less degrading. What degrades them most of all is police inscription, obligatory medical inspection, and the miserable system of solicitation on the pavement. It is necessary to have lost all feeling of modesty, and to possess a cynical audacity to become a street prostitute.
Prostitutes who only practice occasionally and have not the courage to solicit, nor to be inscribed by the police, belong to a higher level. But in countries where regulation is in force they always run the risk of being arrested by the police and put on the inscription list. These private prostitutes constitute the intermediate stage between prostitution properly so-called, and venal concubinage, which we shall speak of later.
The army of prostitutes is partly composed of pathological individuals. Alcohol and vicious habits increase their abnormal tendencies, so that their behavior leaves nothing wanting in the way of temper, impulsiveness, cynicism and insolence. This is seen every day in hospitals for venereal disease. As soon as a prostitute finds her physical condition improve after a few days in hospital, sexual abstinence arouses her appetite to such an extent that she indulges in lesbian love with her companions, or shows herself naked at the windows, etc. Some prostitutes of better quality suffer at first from the scandalous tone of the brothel, but they generally become used to it, and end with adopting it themselves. Honest women, infected accidentally or by their husbands, suffer martyrdom when they are sent to the venereal divisions of hospitals.
The Fate of Prostitutes.—What becomes of prostitutes in the course of time? They cannot remain very long in the brothels for they only accept young and fine-looking girls. It would be interesting to follow the fate of all these women. At all events nothing is more absurd than the common saying that the suppression of brothels increases prostitution in the streets, and that their introduction suppresses it. It is obvious that, as the women in brothels have to be continually renewed, they must be continually thrown onto the streets. No doubt many prostitutes die at an early age from the results of alcohol and syphilis. The only resource left to many, when they are ejected from the brothels, is to solicit in the streets or to join clandestine brothels or taverns of the same nature.
The most profligate, those who look upon their profession from the artistic or the commercial points of view, know how to advance themselves and become "Madames"; but these are comparatively few in number. Some end in suicide or lunatic asylums.
As a last resource, when no man will have anything to do with them, many of them take to the lowest occupations, such as cleaning lavatories, etc. At Munich it used to be proverbial that the class of "Radiweiber" and "Nussweiber" (old women selling nuts etc., at the street corners) were mostly recruited from old prostitutes. Occasionally a better class prostitute succeeds in getting married.
If we consider without prejudice the miserable life of a prostitute, we cannot hear the term "fille de joie" without a feeling of sadness and indignation, for it conveys such bitter and tragic irony. If we could ourselves experience the true state of mind which is hidden behind the smiles and songs of so many miserable singers at café concerts, and behind the brazen artifices of many prostitutes; if we could learn their past life and the cause of their fall, no man with a spark of pity or sympathy for his fellows could relish with a light heart a "joy" bought at such a price. For those who read German, I recommend on this subject: Tagebuch einer Verlornen, by Marguerite Böhme. (Berlin: Fontane, 1905.)
Prostitution and Sexual Perversion.—If it is true that many prostitutes have a pathological heredity, it is still more sure that they often have to submit to the fancies of pathological clients. The numerous sexual anomalies, of which we have spoken in Chapter VIII, are closely connected with prostitution. The refinement of modern civilization is so complete that it supplies localities and women for the special use of each pathological form of the sexual appetite.
So far we have only spoken of female prostitutes, and we have seen how they conform to the customs of sadists, masochists, etc. They allow themselves to be maltreated by the former, and maltreat the latter; or else they play at exhibitions symbolical of cruelty or humiliation.