By sociological and legal definition a prostitute is an individual who indiscriminately provides sexual relations in return for money payments. The practical interpretation of the term emphasizes the fact that a prostitute accepts a sexual relation with almost anyone, stranger or acquaintance, who offers to pay, and that the payment is in currency rather than in goods or services.
It is impractical to confine the term to those persons who derive their whole living or any particular part of it from prostitution, for a very high number of the females who engage in such activities do so as a minor adjunct to their regular occupations. The person who is specifically paid for a single sexual relation is, for that particular occasion, a prostitute.
The definition requires that payment for a sexual relation be in currency and be made for each particular contact. If the term prostitution were to be applied to all sexual acts for which either participant received some valuable consideration, it would be impossible to draw a line between the most obvious sort of commercialized prostitution and the relationships of every husband and wife. The girl who has to be taken to dinner or to an evening’s entertainment before she will agree to intercourse with her boy friend or fiancé is engaged in a more commercialized relationship than she would like to admit. The gifts that are bestowed by males of all social levels upon girls with whom they keep company may be cloaked with fine sentiments, but they are, to a considerable degree, payment for the intercourse that is expected.
At lower social levels there is often an elaborate arrangement by which the girl in the pre-marital or extra-marital relation is provided with stockings, dresses, fur coats, and other materials of value, for sexual relations which would be immediately stopped if the male failed to provide such gifts as the girl considered commensurate with her contribution, and with his ability to pay. In some lower levels it is quite customary for the male to share his pay envelope with the girl from whom he is securing regular intercourse, and at all social levels there may be some sort of regular contribution to the support of the girl’s home, if the sexual relation is continued over any period of time. It is difficult to characterize such relationships as prostitution. It is even more misleading to apply the term to the case of the wife who demands payment in coin of the realm each time she engages in intercourse with her husband (and such arrangements are recorded in the histories). But it is only rarely that there is any difficulty in recognizing the situations that do deserve to be called prostitution.
There are four types of prostitution. The commonest involves heterosexual relations for which the female is paid. This is the type of prostitution with which the present chapter is concerned.
There is, however, a homosexual prostitution among males who provide sexual relations for other males; and such homosexual prostitutes are, in many large cities, not far inferior in number to the females who are engaged in heterosexual prostitution. Male homosexual prostitutes less often derive their main income from such activities, and less often engage in prostitution for any long period of years.
There is also a heterosexual prostitution in which females pay males for sexual relations, but this situation is not common.
The rarest of the four types of prostitution involves females who are paid for the homosexual relations with which they supply other females.
Any extensive treatment of the subject should cover all four types of prostitution, and should analyze the basic elements in all of them. But the present chapter is not concerned with prostitution as a social institution, nor with prostitutes. Those subjects will provide the material for a later volume. The present chapter deals only with the behavior of the males who pay female prostitutes for a portion of their sexual outlet.
Data on the part which intercourse with prostitutes plays in the sexual lives of males in various segments of the population have already been detailed in this volume in tables and charts, and in discussions in the text, as follows:
There is a widespread opinion, both in the public at large and among social scientists, that prostitution provides the major source of non-marital sexual outlet for most of the male population. However, though it may play a more important part in the sexual patterns of some other countries, in the United States the number of males who go to prostitutes is not so high as is generally believed, and the frequencies with which they go are very much lower than almost anyone has realized.
There have been very few attempts to obtain statistical data on the incidence of contacts with prostitutes (Eddy 1928, Taylor 1934, Reitman in Robinson 1936, Bromley and Britten 1938), and these data have been inadequate. Similarly, it would appear that the frequencies of such contacts in any large segment of the population have never been investigated (although there are reports on isolated cases), and this is astounding in view of the tremendous interest that so many agencies have had in controlling the frequencies of such contacts. Law enforcement officers, the reports of vice societies, popular sex books and pamphlets, novels, and even the best of the literature written in this country have made prostitution appear much more significant than it actually proves to be in the total sexual life of the American male.
We find that about 69 per cent of the total white male population ultimately has some experience with prostitutes (Figure 153). Many of these males, however, never have more than a single experience or two, and not more than 15 or 20 per cent of them ever have such relations more often than a few times a year, over as much as a five-year period in their lives. This means that there is nearly a third (31%) of the population that never has any sort of sexual contact with prostitutes. There are, of course, a few males who never have heterosexual relations except with prostitutes, but this happens very rarely.
Ultimately, something between 3.5 and 4 per cent of the total outlet of the total male population (single and married) is drawn from relations with female prostitutes (Tables 96, 97, Figures 126, 127). This is not a very large portion of the total outlet. Nocturnal emissions are more important (Chapter 15), and the homosexual accounts for two or three times as many orgasms among males (Chapter 21). Only petting to climax (Chapter 16) and animal intercourse (Chapter 22) account for smaller parts of the outlet. In the college group, where intercourse with prostitutes is at its lowest, the homosexual may provide ten to twenty times as much of the outlet as prostitutes do. Many groups interested in controlling non-marital sexual activities have centered their attention upon prostitution when, in actuality, it accounts for less than a tenth of the non-marital outlet of the male population. Intercourse with prostitutes is much more important socially than it is as a means of outlet.
Among single males, the percentage of the total outlet derived from contacts with prostitutes increases markedly with age (Table 65, Figure 78), beginning at 3.7 per cent in the late teens, rising to nearly 10 per cent by age 30, and going still higher for those relatively few males who are still unmarried in the later years. For married males (Table 65, Figure 78), hardly more than 1 per cent of the outlet is derived from extra-marital intercourse with prostitutes, and this lowers the average for all males, single and married.
Prostitutes provide only about a tenth of the male’s total pre-marital intercourse: 8.6 per cent between ages 16 and 20, 13.3 per cent between 21 and 25, and even more of the pre-marital intercourse of the males who are still unmarried at later ages (Tables 64, 65). It is to be noted that an increasing proportion of the extra-marital intercourse comes from prostitutes as the male grows older. This is partly due to his decreasing ability to find sexual partners, particularly partners of attractive, younger ages. It is also due, however, to the fact that the older male finally reaches the point where he considers it simpler to go to prostitutes than to try to court and win the favors of a girl who is not a prostitute.
Figure 153. Intercourse with prostitutes: accumulative incidence in total U. S. population
Showing percent of total population that has ever had intercourse with prostitutes by each of the indicated ages. All data based on total population, irrespective of marital status, and corrected for the U. S. Census distribution.
In the same fashion, and for the same reasons, intercourse with prostitutes supplies an increasing proportion of the outlet of the males who have been previously married, but who are now widowed, separated from their wives, or divorced (Table 65, Figure 78).
Among married males, prostitutes provide about 11 per cent of the extra-marital outlet between ages 16 and 20, over 16 per cent of that outlet by age 30, and 22 per cent of the extra-marital outlet at age 55 (Tables 64, 65). This apparent increase, however, is not due to any increase in actual frequencies, but to the fact that the total outlet drops steadily through the years, while intercourse with prostitutes is maintained with more or less constant frequencies over a period of several decades.
The incidence and frequency figures vary tremendously for different segments of the population, and it is misleading to discuss the place of prostitution in the population as a whole. Contacts with prostitutes are most frequently had by males of the lowest social levels. By 25 years of age, 74 per cent of the males who never went beyond grade school have had some intercourse with prostitutes (Table 87), while only 54 per cent of the males of the high school level, and only 28 per cent of the males of the college level, have had such experience. Among single males of the group that never goes beyond the eighth grade, as much as 6 per cent of the total sexual outlet is derived from prostitutes in the late teens, 14.3 per cent by the late twenties, and 23.4 per cent by the late thirties, if the male is not yet married by that time (Table 96). Among the boys who go to high school the figures start at 3 per cent in the late teens and climb to 10.3 per cent in the middle thirties. For males of the college level less than 1 per cent of the total sexual outlet is derived from prostitutes in the late teens, and only 3 per cent in the late twenties. This is one of the most striking differences between the patterns of college males and the patterns of all other groups.
Figure 154. Intercourse with prostitutes: accumulative incidence in three educational levels
Showing percent of each population that has ever had intercourse with prostitutes by each of the indicated ages. All data based on total population, irrespective of marital status.
Among all married males, it is never more than 1.7 per cent of the total sexual outlet which is derived from prostitutes in any particular age period (Table 97) and, again, it is the married male of the college level who draws the lowest percentage of his outlet from professional sources.
The actual frequencies of intercourse with prostitutes begin at very low levels in the early adolescent years, but they do begin there. Law enforcement officers are especially interested in trying to prevent young boys from having such relations, and it is very difficult to get a prostitute to admit that she has ever had relations with any boy under 18. But nearly 8 per cent of the males who have contributed to the present study have reported that they had such relations before or by the time they were 15 years of age. Frequencies of contacts steadily rise until they average about once in three weeks (0.3 per week) for the total population of unmarried males in their thirties (Table 65, Figure 77). For those males who actually have such relations, the frequencies start in the earliest adolescent years at once in four weeks and rise to twice in three weeks (0.6 per week) by the thirties. If these calculations are broken down by social levels (Table 87, Figure 102), the active frequencies for those boys who never go beyond the eighth grade in school start at about once in three weeks and rise to once in two weeks or twice in three weeks. For the boys who go to high school but not beyond, the frequencies (of the active population) start at some lower level and rise to once in four weeks by age 20, once in three weeks by age 25, and somewhat higher in the later years for the males who remain unmarried. For the males who belong to the college level, those who have any intercourse at all with prostitutes average only once in six to ten weeks, unless they remain unmarried past the age of 25, when the frequencies rise rather considerably.
Between 16 and 20, males of the grade school level have intercourse with prostitutes 9 times as often, and males of the high school level have it more than 4 times as often as males of the college level (Table 87, Figure 102). By the early thirties, males of the grade school level have intercourse with prostitutes about 36 times as frequently as males of the college level. Making the comparisons by occupational classes, the record is that males of classes 2 and 3 (the laboring group and the semi-skilled workmen) and possibly class 4 (the skilled workmen) have 5 to 10 times as many contacts with prostitutes during their late teens as males of occupational class 7 (the future professional group) (Table 113, Figure 102). The differences become even greater in later years. Public health officials who are interested in controlling the spread of venereal disease might profitably give maximum attention to educating the groups which have the most frequent contacts with prostitutes and with other girls.
For the population taken as a whole, including single and married males of all social levels and of all ages above adolescence, the mean average frequency of intercourse with prostitutes is 0.093 per week, which is a little less than 5 times per year. With this average figure, which has been very carefully calculated on the basis of all of our available data, it is possible to estimate the average number of contacts that are being made with prostitutes in any particular city or state, per week or per year. Infrequent as such contacts are in relation to the total sexual activity of the average male, they amount to a good deal in absolute frequencies in any population as a whole.
In the total U. S. population 34.3 per cent (calculated from U. S. Census 1940) consists of males who arc above the age of onset of adolescence and under the age of impotence and, therefore, eligible for intercourse with prostitutes. The frequencies of contacts per million of total population should then total close to 1,659,000 per year. In terms of the town of 100,000 inhabitants, the contacts average about 3,190 per week. If the police force in such a community fails to make that many arrests each week for association with prostitutes, this may be taken as a measure of the difficulty of facing the actualities of human behavior. With such data, it should be possible to sense the magnitude of the problem of eliminating prostitution. And yet contacts with prostitutes, as just noted, represent only a small part of the non-marital (and therefore largely taboo or illegal) sexual activity of the community.
In view of the efforts that have been made in the last decade or two to control heterosexual prostitution, it is important to note that the data show (Table 100, Figures 113, 114) that the percentage of males in each social level who are frequenting prostitutes today is almost precisely the same as the percentage which had such experience twenty or more years ago (Chapter 11). While there are considerable differences in frequencies for males of the different social levels which may live together in the same town, there are practically no differences between the males of two generations which are as far apart as the two world wars.
The frequencies of contacts with prostitutes have, however, been significantly reduced, undoubtedly as a result of the educational campaigns and the legal moves which have more recently been made against prostitution. The present-day male is making such contacts only two-thirds, or even half, as often as the older generation did (Table 104). In compensation, however, there has been a definite increase in the amount of intercourse with girls who are not prostitutes, and the totals for pre-marital intercourse have not been materially changed.
Moreover, prostitution does not now occupy the thinking of males as it did in past generations. Males of the older generation visited houses of prostitution, not only in search of intercourse, but on sightseeing trips and in social groups as well. They were more often involved in the non-sexual activities that occurred in the established houses, such as drinking, gambling, etc. Present day prostitution is more often a matter of dealing with an individual girl who operates on her own. In practically every large city in the United States, those who are acquainted with conditions can locate prostitutes easily enough; but since organized houses have been eliminated in most of these cities, the stranger in town may have considerable difficulty in making such contacts. It is our impression, which will need more statistical support before it is established, that the number of girls who are now involved in prostitution is not materially smaller than the number which was so engaged ten or twenty years ago. Their manner of operation, however, has been materially changed, and the number of contacts they make per week has been appreciably reduced.
This is not the place to make any detailed study of the way in which prostitution is managed, how its contacts are made, and the types of relations which it offers. It is appropriate in this volume, however, to note certain situations that arise when persons of diverse social levels, the prostitute and her client, undertake to have sexual relations together. Most prostitutes originate in lower social levels, from which they have acquired lower level patterns of behavior (Chapter 10). These lower level attitudes still persist even after a girl goes into prostitution. Some of her trade comes from her own social level, and then her own patterns of coitus suffice; but a large part of her trade is, as we have seen, from the high school level, and a smaller but financially very significant part of it comes from the college level. In their pre-coital and coital techniques, both the high school and college groups want something that is usually foreign to the prostitute’s background. For the sake of her trade, she may agree to such overt activity as these males desire but, interesting to note, she still would refuse to use such techniques with her husband or boy friend.
Specifically, elaborated pre-coital petting, kissing, oral manipulation of the breast, and mouth-genital contacts are taboo in the level from which the girl comes (Chapter 10). The introduction of nudity in intercourse is often foreign to her previous experience. Variety in coital positions and, in fact, all techniques which involve anything except simple genital union may be, in her estimation, perversions, “freakish,” or “queer.” Even the prostitute who goes furthest in supplying variety for the upper level male, may never accept such things as normal or right. She may not be particularly worried about her own behavior—that is a necessary part of the business—but she does not respect the male who wants such things. There are, of course, exceptions. A few of the lower level prostitutes consider that a male should be allowed any sort of sexual activity for which he pays, and a few prostitutes become erotically interested in the full variety of activities in which they engage. There are a few who are better educated, with high school or even college backgrounds; and there are some who are physically energetic, mentally alert, and intelligent. They more readily accept and provide the variety of techniques which the upper level males find most satisfactory, and some of these girls may develop long-time relations which make them full-fledged mistresses.
The lower level prostitute more often learns to accept the high school or college male’s desire for nudity during intercourse, and his desire for intercourse in the light. These things are usual in relations with prostitutes today, although they were far from being so in past generations. In a certain number of cases, the prostitute may provide mouth-genital contacts.
The cheaper prostitute restricts each sexual relation to a minimum of time. This, again, is part of the pattern of her social level and is, of course, more convenient for her. In the days of established houses, contacts were often limited to five minutes or less, and extra payment was demanded for any extension of activity. The educated male’s interest in protracted relationships which involve social contacts and pre-coital petting is likely to go unsatisfied with most prostitutes. Only the occasional girl in the more expensive house of prostitution, or the still more expensive partner maintained by the financially richer male, has been willing to make a prolonged social performance of each contact.
As a result of the more recent drives against organized prostitution, many of the better houses have been closed. The poorest houses have been the ones that have most often survived. As noted previously, most prostitution has become a matter of an individual girl operating on her own. These girls often have no place to take the men except to the back alley, to their own very poor homes, or to the cheap hotels to which they have entrance. Consequently, the conditions under which the sex relations are now had are still less satisfactory to the upper level male than they were in the older generation. The sexually expert and socially more effective girl who remains in prostitution operates for very high fees and restricts her contacts to a very limited clientele with which she has had long-time acquaintance.
The world’s literature contains hundreds of volumes whose authors have attempted to assay the social significance of prostitution. For an activity which contributes no more than this does to the sexual outlet of the male population, it is amazing that it should have been given such widespread consideration. Some of the attention which the subject has received, and certainly many of the books that have been written about it, have undoubtedly been inspired by erotic interest; but a major part of the interest has centered around this question of the social significance of prostitution. The extent of the attention which the subject still receives in this country today is, as we have shown, all out of proportion to its significance in the lives of most males, and this makes one skeptical of using the older literature as a source of information on the place of prostitution in past generations and past centuries. Certainly the older accounts would make it appear that prostitution was much more important in the life of the male who lived any time between the dawn of history and World War I than we have evidence of its having been since then.
There has always been a considerable relation between prostitution and other underworld activities, including gambling, bootlegging, dope peddling, robbery, and other activities. A very high percentage of the prostitutes rob their clients whenever the opportunity affords. Often strong-arm robbery, assault, and occasionally murder are involved. These activities, more than the sexual relations themselves, have concerned law enforcement officers and all others who have been interested in maintaining orderly communities. The relation of prostitution and venereal disease has supplied the argument most often used in recent decades for the suppression of organized prostitution (e.g., W. S. Hall 1907, 1909, Exner 1914, Bigelow 1916, Coppens and Spalding 1921, U. S. Public Health Service 1921, 1937, Forel 1922, Martindale 1925, Eddy 1928, Meyer 1929, Dickerson 1930, Weatherhead 1932, Rice 1933, Ruland and Rattler 1934, Ellis 1936, Robinson in Robinson 1936, Stone and Stone 1937, Haire 1937, Clarke 1938, Rosanoff 1938, Crisp 1939. Kirkendall 1940, Snow 1941, Bowman 1942, Dickerson 1944, 1946, Koch and Wilbur 1944, Popenoe 1946, McPartland 1947). This is not the place to discuss the scientific data which are available on these social problems.
Throughout history, there have been few social institutions which have been objects of as continuous condemnation and concentrated attack as the institution of heterosexual prostitution; and this undoubtedly reflects a widespread judgment that there are basic faults in the institution. On the other hand, prostitution continues to exist, and one may well ask why men continue to go to prostitutes. It is probable that prostitution is no exception to the economic laws, and it continues to exist because there is a sufficient demand for what it offers (see, for instance, Forel 1922, Weatherhead 1932, Ellis 1936, Benjamin 1939, Faris in Hunt 1944, Popenoe 1944, Sadler and Sadler 1944).
First of all, men go to prostitutes because they have insufficient sexual outlets in other directions, or because prostitution provides types of sexual activity which are not so readily available elsewhere. Many men go to prostitutes to find the variety that sexual experience with a new partner may offer. Some men go because they feel that the danger of contracting venereal disease from a prostitute is actually less than it would be with a girl who was not in an organized house of prostitution. Some males experiment with prostitution just to discover what it means. In many cases some social psychology is involved as groups of males go together to look for prostitutes.
At all social levels men go to prostitutes because it is simpler to secure a sexual partner commercially than it is to secure a sexual partner by courting a girl who would not accept pay. Even at lower social levels, where most males find it remarkably simple to make frequent contacts with girls who are not prostitutes, there are still occasions when they desire intercourse immediately and find it much simpler to obtain it from a prostitute. As for college-bred males, a great majority of them are utterly ineffective in securing intercourse from any girl whom they have not dated for long periods of time and at considerable expense; and in some cases, their only chance to secure coital experience is with a prostitute. This is, of course, particularly true if the male is away from home in a strange town.
Hundreds of males have insisted that intercourse with a prostitute is cheaper than intercourse with any other girl. The cost of dating a girl, especially at the upper social level, may mount considerably through the weeks and months, or even years, that it may take to arrive at the first intercourse. There are flowers, candy, “coke dates,” dinner engagements, parties, evening entertainments, moving pictures, theatres, night clubs, dances, picnics, week-end house parties, car rides, longer trips, and all sorts of other expensive entertainment to be paid for, and gifts to be made to the girl on her birthday, at Christmas, and on innumerable other special occasions. Finally, after all this the girl may break off the whole affair as soon as she realizes that the male is interested in intercourse. Before the recent war the average cost of a sexual relation with a prostitute was one to five dollars. This was less than the cost of a single supper date with a girl who was not a prostitute; and even at the inflated prices of prostitution which prevailed during the war, the cost did not amount to more than many a soldier or sailor was obliged to spend on another girl from whom he might or might not be able to obtain the intercourse which he wanted.
Men go to prostitutes because they can pay for the sexual relations and forget other responsibilities, whereas coitus with other girls may involve them socially and legally beyond anything which they care to undertake.
Men go to prostitutes to obtain types of sexual activity which they are unable to obtain easily elsewhere. Few prostitutes offer any variety of sexual techniques, but many of them do provide mouth-genital contacts. The prostitute offers the readiest source of experience for the sadist or the masochist, and for persons who have developed associations with nonsexual objects (fetishes) which have come to have sexual significance for them because of some contact they have had in the past. Most males who have participated in sexual activities in groups have found the opportunity to do so with prostitutes. Nearly all of the opportunity that males have to observe sexual activity is connected with prostitutes, and such experiences are in the history of many more persons than is ordinarily realized.
Some men go to prostitutes because they are more or less ineffective in securing sexual relations with other girls. This may be true of males who are unusually timid. Persons who are deformed physically, deaf, blind, severely crippled, spastic, or otherwise handicapped, often have considerable difficulty in finding heterosexual coitus. The matter may weigh heavily upon their minds and cause considerable psychic disturbance. There are instances where prostitutes have contributed to establishing these individuals in their own self esteem by providing their first sexual contacts.
Finally, at the lower social levels there are persons who are feebleminded, physically deformed, and so repulsive and offensive physically that no girl except a prostitute would have intercourse with them. Without such outlets, these individuals would become even more serious social problems than they already are.
The exclusively homosexual male, however, is not the person to be helped by a prostitute. There are numerous histories of such males being advised by clinicians, or led by some friend, or forced by some hilarious group of male companions into attempting intercourse with a prostitute. In a high proportion of such cases the male proves impotent, and his psychic problem is thereby intensified. Even when the intercourse is more or less successful, it is likely to prove distasteful because of the unesthetic conditions under which it is had. The introduction of the homosexual male to heterosexual experience should come through friendships which lead to affection and spontaneously erotic developments.
There is constant rumor of an increase in the frequency of forced intercourse or outright rape among the girls of a community where prostitution has been suppressed. We have no adequate data to prove the truth or falsity of such reports.
Neither are we convinced that there has been any sufficiently objective study of the place of prostitution in the spread of venereal disease, as compared with the spread of such disease through sexual contacts with lower level girls who are not prostitutes.
The significance of prostitution to the male who goes to the prostitute must depend very much upon the sort of person who is involved and the social background from which he comes. At lower social levels there are some who find intercourse with prostitutes distasteful, but in a much larger number of cases there are no objections to the type of relation that is had. In not a few cases, the male insists that intercourse with a prostitute is superior to intercourse with most other girls. The lower level male is not particularly concerned with the responsiveness or unresponsiveness of his female partner, and he is not interested in a particularly emotional experience in coitus, does not want any elaboration of pre-coital petting, and does not object esthetically to the sorts of situations under which most of the intercourse occurs. He likes a matter-of-fact performance in which there are no emotional and no social obligations incurred. Most often he prefers the prostitute, however, because she expects that there will be intercourse, and does not offer the objections that other girls, even his wife, may offer against sexual relations.
On the other hand, the upper level males who have contributed to the present study have almost unanimously agreed that intercourse with a prostitute is not nearly so satisfactory as the intercourse which may be had with other girls. This is undoubtedly the prime reason why most upper level males do not return to prostitutes more often than they do. The complaints turn largely around the fact that a sexual relation which is commercialized lacks the affection which makes a sexual relation significant in marriage, or even in non-marital relations with girls who are not prostitutes. The upper level male dislikes the limitation on petting in his relations with prostitutes. He commonly complains about the genital inadequacies of the prostitute, and this in most instances means that she is not responding erotically. In consequence, she does not stimulate the emotionally sensitive, upper level male. There is. a fair number of upper level males who find themselves impotent in attempting intercourse with prostitutes, and this means that they are not psychically satisfied by the situation.
What effect intercourse with prostitutes may have upon the personality of the male who is involved, is a matter which will need careful investigation by a qualified psychologist or psychiatrist.
