Women's Wild Oats: Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards

by C. Gasquoine Hartley

VII

I want now, in a final section of this chapter, to consider, as fully as the limits of my space will allow, the outside facts of prostitution—that is, the popular view on the subject.

Externally, prostitution exhibits two factors: lust in men and a dependent condition among women, which makes them surrender themselves as victims to this lust. This is the accepted, sentimental, and picturesque description: a sort of compound of sinfulness and pathos, making a draught, if the truth is faced, not always altogether unpleasing to women, a fact which surely accounts for the excitement and veiled pleasurable curiosity with which the subject usually is approached. For the lust, men are held responsible, and the chaste characters of women are held up in contrast. Now, it is this view of the matter which affords prostitution one of its most certain opportunities of permanency: also it gives women, when they attack it, all the pleasing satisfaction of virtue that is realized without effort. At the same time, it explains why they object to repressive measures that are framed to end it.

During the agitation, for instance, for the repeal of the 40 D Act, women and women-like men wallowed in righteousness. Never did I hear more nonsense talked than at the meetings I attended on this subject. Women's instinctive attitude had a unique chance of displaying itself, and one wondered at the combined prudery and sentiment with which the subject was approached, while the most offensive part of their conventionalism was the sex-obsession, which was clotted, like cream turned sour, on all their judgments.

Consider again the controversy that has raged with regard to the providing of prophylactic outfits to our men in the Army and Navy. One would think this was a simple matter. Precautions taken before, or within a short time after contact, enormously lessen the dangers of infection.[141:1] And yet prophylaxis is objected to on the grounds that it is immoral: that it invites to sexual indulgence by providing immunity from infection. It is also held to give rise to a false security.

Really, it is difficult to have patience. Huge sums are being spent in treating these diseases after they have been contracted, but we must not give our young men the means whereby they may be prevented from being contracted. Such miserable prejudice would be funny, unless one remembers the unconscious cause which gives it so burning a strength.

Some months ago, during the war, I attended a conference to protest against the giving of prophylactic outfits to the overseas troops. It was called and conducted by ladies, the incarnation of all the virtues, effervescing in the most appalling sentimentality I have ever come across, even at meetings of women met to discuss the morals of men. Interminable floods of gush! They talked of nothing but purity, its beauty, its healthfulness, its moral uplifting to the soul of the young man—its Devil knows what. Venereal diseases were nature's punishment for impurity; to provide prophylaxis was to insult the pure youth, to hurry on to sin the youth who was not pure. Such was the pleasing doctrine slowly and solidly defended, while the real problem of how to prevent the spread of venereal diseases—especially how to stop the birth of infected children, was lost in white clouds of virtue. And many of these women themselves were mothers! When I remonstrated, attempted to show that the one fact to go for was the prevention of infection as in that way only could the spread of the plague be stayed and the innocent saved from suffering with the sinner, I was charged, denounced, and cut to pieces. I am sure that every one of those good women pitied me—as a matter of fact, one speaker said frankly that she was very sorry for my son; plainly they were very doubtful of my virtue. Since that day I have noted that very few invitations to attend Women's Conferences have been sent to me.

This shelving of the real facts, of course, is unconscious on the part of women. The lust of men as the true cause of evil is the one popular and accepted view of the situation, and from this it follows that the prostitute is the man's victim, and as such must be protected. This is highly pleasing; a view depending, as it does, on the moral superiority of women, which stands them as Amazons of purity on the glorious mountain heights of virtue, from where they must send down climbing ropes and ladders, in the form of moral warnings and carefully edited sexual instruction, possibly made pleasing by cinemas and theater illustrations, to pull men up out of the deep valleys of vice.