The Truth About Woman

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

Now all this is true, but is not all the truth. Remove the economic pressure and no woman will be driven, or be likely to be trapped, into entering the oldest profession in the world; but this does not say that she will not enter it. The establishment of a minimum wage will assuredly lighten the evil, but it will not end prostitution. The economic factor is by no means the only factor. It is quite true that poverty drives many women into the profession—that this should be so is one of the social crimes that must, and will, be remedied.

The real problem lies deeper than this. Want is not the incentive to the traffic of sex in the case of the dancer or chorus girl in regular employment, of the forewoman in a factory or shop who earns steady wages, or among numerous women belonging to much higher social positions. These women choose prostitution, they are not driven into it. It is necessary to insist upon this. The belief in the efficacy of economic reform amounts almost to a disease—a kind of unquestioning fanatical faith. Again and again I have been met by the assurance, made by men who should know better, as well as by women, that no woman would sell herself if economic causes were removed. Such opinion proves a very plain ignorance of the history and facts of prostitution. It is only a little more scientific than the view of the woman moral crusader, who believes that the "social evil" can easily be remedied by self-control on the part of men. One of the worst vices common to women at present is spiritual pride. One wonders if these short-cut reformers have ever been acquainted with a single member of this class they hope to repress by legal enactments or other measures, such as early marriage, better wages for women, moral education, the censorship of amusements, and so forth. It is not so simple. You see, what is needed is an understanding of the conditions, not from the reformer's standard of thought, but from that of the prostitute, which is a very different matter. How can any one hope to reform a class whose real lives, thoughts, and desires are unknown to them?

My effort to reach bed-rock facts had led me to seek first-hand information from these women, many of whom I have come to know intimately, and to like. I have learnt a great deal, much more than from all my close study of the problem as it is presented in books. Problems are never so simple in the working out as they appear in theories. Moral doctrines fall to pieces; even statistics and the estimates of expert investigators are apt to become curiously unreal in the light of a very little practical knowledge. I have learnt that there is no one type of prostitute, no one cause of the evil, no one remedy that will cure it.

And here, before I go further, I must in fairness state that I have been compelled to give up the view held by me, in common with most women, that men and their uncontrolled passions are chiefly responsible for this hideous traffic. It is so comfortable to place the sins of society on men's passions. But as an unbiassed inquirer I have learnt that seduction as a cause of prostitution requires very careful examination. We women have got to remember that if many of our fallen sisters have been seduced by men, at least an equal number of men have received their sexual initiation at the hands of our sex. This seduction of men by women is often the starting-point of a young man's association with courtesans. It is time to assert that, if women suffer through men's passion, men suffer no less from women's greed. I am inclined to accept the estimate of Lippert (Prostitution in Hamburg) that the principal motives to prostitution are "idleness, frivolity, and, above all, the love of finery." This last is, as I believe, a far more frequent and stronger factor in determining towards prostitution than actual want, and one, moreover, that is very deeply rooted in the feminine character. I do not wish to be cynical, but facts have forced on me the belief that the majority of prostitutes are simply doing for money what they originally did of their own will for excitement and the gain of some small personal gift.

There are, of course, many types among these unclassed women, as many as there are in any other class, probably even more. Yet, in one respect, I have found them curiously alike. Just as the members of any other trade have a special attitude towards their work, so prostitutes have, I think, a particular way of viewing their trade in sex. It is a mistake of sentiment to believe they have any real dislike to this traffic. Such distaste is felt by the unsuccessful and by others in periods of unprofitable business, but not, I think, otherwise. To me it has seemed in talking with them—as I have done very freely—that they regard the sexual embraces of their partners exactly in the light that I regard the process of the actual writing down of my books—as something, in itself unimportant and tiresome, but necessary to the end to be gained. This was first made clear to me in a conversation with a member of the higher demi-monde, a woman of education and considerable character. "After all," she said, "it is really a very small thing to do, and gives one very little trouble, and men are almost always generous."

This remarkable statement seems to me representative of the attitude of most prostitutes. They are much better paid, if at all successful, than they ever could be as workers. The sale of their sex opens up to them the same opportunities of gain that gambling on the stock-exchange or betting on the racecourse, for instance, opens up to men. It also offers the same joy of excitement, undoubtedly a very important factor. There are a considerable number of women who are drawn to and kept in the profession, not through necessity, but through neurosis.

There is no doubt that prostitution is very profitable to the clever trader. I was informed by one woman, for instance, that a certain country, whose name I had perhaps better withhold, "Is a Paradise for women." Quite a considerable fortune, either in money or jewels, may be reaped in a few months and sometimes in a few weeks. But the woman must keep her head; cleverness is more important even than beauty. I learnt that it was considered foolish to remain with the same partner for more than two nights, the oftener a change was made the greater the chance of gain. The richest presents are given as a rule by young boys or old men: some of these boys are as young as fifteen years.

Now the really extraordinary thing to me was that my informant had plainly no idea of my moral sensibility being shocked at these statements. Of course, if I had shown the least surprise or condemnation, she would at once have agreed with me—but I didn't. I was trying to see things as she saw them, and my interest caused her really to speak to me as she felt. I am certain of this, as was proved to me in a subsequent conversation, in which I was told the history of a girl friend, who had got into difficulties and been helped by my informant. (These women are almost always kind and generous to one another. I know of one case in which a woman who had been trapped into a bogus marriage and then deserted, afterwards helped with money the girl and bastard child, also left by the man who had deceived her.) The story was ended with this extraordinary remark, "It was all my friend's own fault, she was not particular who she went with; she would go with any man just because she took a fancy to him. I often told her how foolish she was, but she always said she could not help it."

It was then that I realised the immensity of the gulf which separated my outlook from that of this successful courtesan. To her to be not particular was to give oneself without a due return in money: to me——! Well, I needed all my control at that moment not to let her see what I felt. I have never been conscious of so deep a pity for any woman before, or felt so fierce an anger against social conditions that made this degradation of love possible. For, mark you, I know this woman well, have known her for years, and I can, and do, testify that in many directions apart from her trade, her virtue, her refinement and her character are equal, even if not superior, to my own. This is the greatest lesson I have learnt. The degradation of prostitution rests not with these women, but on us, the sheltered, happy women who have been content to ignore or despise them. Do you come to know these women (and this is very difficult) you are just as able to like them and in many ways to respect them, as you are to like and to respect any "straight" woman. You may hate their trade, you cannot justly hate them.

I would like here to bring forward as a chief cause of prostitution a factor which, though mentioned by many investigators,[327] has not, I think, been sufficiently recognised. To me it has been brought very forcibly home by my personal investigations. I mean sexual frigidity. This is surely the clearest explanation of the moral insensibility of the prostitute. I have not enough knowledge to say whether this is a natural condition, or whether it is acquired. I am certain, however, that it is present in those courtesans whom I have known. These women have never experienced passion. I believe that the traffic of love's supreme rite means less to them than it would do to me to shake hands with a man I disliked.