Company. A man often finds himself alone—as I did that evening.
Need. It has been pointed out that the so-called sexual drive of young men, at least, is on the order of five times as great as that of young ladies of equal age. This is a circumstance which, for some generations, our imbecile sires have endeavored to deny or conceal. Obviously, their absurd activities in that direction lie at the very heart of the insane condition of the modern mind. Since men have five times the passion of women in their youth, our sex mores must be revised, and soon, five hundred per centum, or we shall all go wacky. It may have happened to us already, in fact.
It has been pointed out that, with the increase of age, this enormous sex discrepancy tends to diminish. The woman of thirty-five will have undergone an augmentation of desire—her mate a decrease. In an unpublished work, I tentatively suggested that—this being the biological fact—a new sex convention might be devised whereby relations between all women of more than, say, thirty-five—whether married or single—and all unmarried males of less than, say, twenty-one, would be publicly regarded as rising out of "innocent necessity" and not counted as in any way unchaste, or unfaithful, or otherwise compromising. The notion seemed inspirational to me. It would at once provide a remedy for a truly desperate situation now existing unrecognized among both sexes at certain diverse ages—and it would give useful and socially beneficial occupation to a slew of wives and single women in America who at present have nothing to do at all. It would provide boys and young men with experienced tutors—women who knew what was in the books but were able to enjoy themselves, to boot—and it might, indeed, revive the now-drooping flower of love in the whole land. My friends, however, after reading my feuilleton, advised me not to publish it, on the fantastic grounds that it would be regarded as frivolous!
But to go on with the random reasons:
Variety. It is a point upon which I feel no comment whatever should be needed.
Obedience. This term has its limitations for the intended meaning. The word "command" might serve, but it also has connotations not here intended.
In a marriage ceremony, it is true, the wife agrees, as a rule, to "obey" her husband—and he, her. However, in perhaps half of American marriages, obedience drops out of the relationship the moment the preacher closes his prayer book. In perhaps a quarter, the husband becomes the serf of the wife—who has customs galore and the weight of American advertising to back her in her commands of what he must do, earn, obtain, provide, and so on.
Yet the sexual deed itself is one which, if there be command or obedience, requires that the command come from the male, the obedience from the female. (Male aggression, female passivity, the scientists insanely term it.) This circumstance, however loathsome to feminists, is—again—a simple fact of nature: a man is physiologically incapable of being commanded to make love. He cannot simulate. In acts so fundamental to his heart, mind, spirit, and soul as those related to sex, it is therefore not only psychologically evident, but physically plain, that a certain degree of obedience, or receptivity to command, or, if you prefer, co-operation, is necessary on the part of the woman. Without it, love-making, when possible at all, is at best a mere reflex.
Such is the condition of millions of women today, however—and not surprising, either, in view of the times and the customs—that they are inclined to refuse male address, and to whine, scold, heckle, disobey, begrudge, demean, belittle, routinize, particularize, censor, evade, scorn, shame, humiliate, et cetera, before or during or after sexual relations. This leaves the male relentlessly insatiate. Geared by Nature for cohabitation with a willing—nay, an enthusiastic—partner, he finds himself bedded with a cold and prissy marmot of a woman. It drenches his self-esteem, decays his manliness, and either reduces him to the shy, stammering estate of millions of our Milquetoasts or else sets him in a permanent rage against life so that he is ready to turn communist, or Ku-Kluxer, to take to drink, or to beat his children.
Prostitutes provide the only dependable respite from this dilemma, which man currently even somewhat allows himself. Inasmuch as they are sexually in the employ of the man, they will, if worthy of their hire, not critically submit to, but genially participate in his caprices. By this method, millions of otherwise lost men keep alive somewhere within themselves at least a flicker of honest, male self-respect. Now and then—if only a night a year—and only for a price—they are obeyed by a woman.