Introductory material

Prostitution and venereal disease the central problem of the sexual question — My belief in the possibility of the suppression of both — Only in recent years has the scientific attack on both begun — The plaie sociale — Internal and local treatment — The scientific literature of prostitution — Rosenbaum’s work on prostitution in antiquity — Aretino, Delgado, and Veniero on the prostitution of the renascence — Franckenaus’s first medical polemic against brothels — The commencement of the scientific study of prostitution and venereal diseases in the eighteenth century — Rétif de la Bretonne and his “Pornographe” — “Moral Control” — Parent-Duchatelet’s fundamental work — Analysis of this book — Contemporary works on prostitution in Paris, London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lisbon, Lyons, and Algiers — First employment of the term “male prostitution” — A peculiar species of souteneur — Prostitution in Hamburg — Dr. Lippert’s book — “Memoirs of a Prostitute,” the predecessor of the “Diary of a Lost Woman” — Gross-Hoffinger’s book on “Prostitution in Austria” — Demonstration of the connexion between prostitution and coercive marriage — Celebrated chapter on “Maidservants and Prostitution” — Schrank on prostitution in Vienna — Prostitution in Leipzig — In New York — General works on prostitution — Jeannel, Acton and Hügel — Books on secret prostitution, on prostitution of girls under age, on regulation and on brothels, and on the social importance of prostitution — Blaschko’s recent critical investigation on the subject of prostitution — Results of this investigation — Lombroso’s anthropological theory — The works of Tarnowsky and Ströhmberg, of Fiaux and von Düring.

Conception and definition of prostitution — Genuine and pseudo-prostitutes — Prostitution among primitive peoples — Religious prostitution as the germinal form of modern prostitution — This latter the product of the growth of large towns — Medieval conditions — Diminution in the number of brothels since that time — The demand for prostitutes — Relation between the number of prostitutes and the male population — The supply greater than the demand — Causes of the male demand for prostitutes — Prostitution as a product of civilization — Repression of primitive sexual instincts by civilization — The sexual supra- and sub-consciousness — Transient elemental activities of the sub-consciousness — Reports of J. P. Jakobsen and other writers on this subject — Gratification of these instincts by means of prostitution — This in part the product of the physiological masochism of men.

The numerous causes of prostitution — The anthropological theory and the doctrine of the congenital prostitute — Criticism of this view — Proof that many of the physical and mental peculiarities of prostitutes are acquired — The obliteration of the secondary and tertiary sexual characters in prostitutes — The nucleus of Lombroso’s theory — The economic factors of prostitution — Actual and relative poverty as a cause — Poverty a cause of prostitution in the mass — Women’s and children’s work — Prostitution as an accessory occupation — Insufficient wages — The inquiries of 1887 and 1903 on this subject — Examples — The large proportion of maidservants who become prostitutes — Explanation of this — Relative poverty of maidservants — Psychological factors of maidservant prostitution — Overcrowded dwellings — Families living in single rooms, and taking in lodgers for the night — Alcoholism — The traffic in girls — Sources of this — National and international preventive measures — Work done by the Jewish Committee to prevent the traffic in girls in Galatia — Measures taken in Buenos Ayres — The central police organization in Berlin for the suppression of the traffic in girls.

The localities of prostitution — Public prostitution — Street prostitution — Character and dangers of street prostitution — Still greater dangers of brothels — Brothels as centres of sexual corruption and perversity, and as foci of venereal infection — The high school of psychopathia sexualis — The brothel jargon — “Animierkneipen” — Dancing saloons, variety theatres, low music-halls, cabarets, and “Rummel” — “Pensions” and houses of accommodation — Massage institutes — Cafés with female attendants.

Appendix: The Half-World. — Origin of the name — The “Demi-Monde” of the younger Alexandre Dumas — Change undergone by the conception at the present day — Analogy with the Greek hetairæ — Connexion of the half-world with high life — Origin — The social influence of the “grandes cocottes” — The half-world in Germany — The international prostitute.