A gentleman recently related in the presence of the writer that several years since he was with a very attractive young prostitute, who boasted to him of having received $110 on that single day. Overcome with disgust at such a striking proof that harlots must be promiscuous, he has never visited one since. "The supposition that a prostitute submits to but one act of prostitution every day is ridiculously small. No woman could pay her board, dress, and live in the expensive manner common among the class, upon the money she would receive from one visitor daily; even two visitors is a very low estimate, and four is very far from an unreasonably large one".
By frequent douches, astringent washes, and perfumes, the careful harlot may deceive her paramour into the belief that she is all that his fancy and passion could desire; but chronic and filthy discharges flow profusely from the whole tribe, and the arts of the toilette only conceal the external evidences of their disorders. A very good damper to the longing of one who desires to go into a brothel would be to stand outside for a time and observe the kind of men whom he is to follow silly fops, diseased and rotten men, worn-out old men, married men, unmarriageable men.
While we have been so positive in proclaiming that loose women are diseased and loathsome, yet we do not wish to be understood as being too severe on these poor creatures. It is a hard thing at best for any woman, more especially if unequipped for it, to be compelled to earn her own living in competition with men who are often brutal to her; and circumstances and disposition make it harder for some than for others. These prostitutes are not soulless creatures, and their hearts are by no means barren of good. Many of them, indeed, have kind and honest natures, are self sacrificing in their devotion to each other when trouble or sickness comes, and often have as good sentiments as many other more fortunate girls. A baptism of suffering and sorrow has added much to their large heartedness, and the spirit of mirth and revelry which is assumed when they have "company" is merely a thin veneer to their real feelings.
There is no one for whom we should have so much sympathy and compassion as for a fallen woman who are Sanger, "History of Prostitution," p. 599. grets her position and multitudes of them are in that condition. But the idea that one can cohabit with a clean harlot one who has not been exposed to the embraces of diseased men may be absolutely set aside as absurd. No self respecting man who fully appreciates the risks would expose himself to such dangers, which are perhaps greater than the risk of eating mushrooms gathered by ignorant hands.
It is well to remember that at certain stages of gonorrhoea the voluptuous desires of some patients are inordinately intensified. The point of importance in this connection is that a most dangerous class of diseased men, with abnormally strong sexual appetites, are going about without conscience, supervision, or legal restraint, and using these very women whom so many men feel safe in patronizing.
Though harlots are so extremely unsafe, it is even more dangerous, as a rule, to fornicate with women clandestinely; for they act in ignorance, without precautions, and secretly, while their word is obviously untrustworthy.
A short time ago the writer saw a married man who came complaining of an irritation and discharge from his penis, for which he could not acoount, as he had been with no woman except a "perfectly honorable married lady" with whom he was in the habit of consorting. From this "perfectly honorable married lady", however, he had acquired a gonorrhoea, and with his indisposition to submit to treatment for the proper length of time he will probably never recover from its effects.
Venereal diseases are exceedingly grave, and are practically sure to be acquired by every man who indulges to any considerable extent in illicit intercourse. They are, then, practically diseases of choice and selection, which a man really elects to acquire when he puts himself in the way of them.
If the prostitute were suffering from any of the infectious fevers, such as small-pox, scarlet fever, or measles, the visitor would flee precipitately; and yet any of these are far less harmful in their results, as a rule, than the venereal diseases. The peculiarity of these affections is that their course is long drawn out over a period of years or a lifetime, except in those cases which have a fortunate outcome. Unless the signs of disease were very well marked, the layman could not by any possibility recognize them in a woman, even after the most minute inspection; nor, in fact, could the most skilful physician without careful microscopical examination, repeated at intervals over a period of considerable length