Note 174 — Chapter III

There are persons who are born with psychic defects. These persons adapt themselves to their environment only with difficulty, and have a smaller chance than others to succeed in our present society, where the fundamental principle is the warfare of all against all. Hence they are more likely to seek for means that others do not employ (prostitution, for example). If the defect of a woman has relation especially to the sexual sphere, so that she feels, for example, extraordinary sexual desires, the danger of her becoming a prostitute is very great.174 Even when the environment in which such persons live is very favorable, it is nevertheless certain that their actions will be different from those of others, though it does not at all follow that they will infallibly become prostitutes. It is certain that these morbid cases are rare in general, and very rare among prostitutes.175 Parent-Duchatelet says: “Finally there are girls who give themselves up to prostitution in consequence of a licentiousness which one can explain only by the action of a mental disease …; but in general these Messalinas are rare; I have only found one opinion upon this fact, and it has been abundantly confirmed by my own researches.”176