also be said that an indifference to sexual
relationships, a tendency to attach no personal value to them, is often a
predisposing cause in the adoption of a prostitute's career; the general
mental shallowness of prostitutes may well be accompanied by shallowness
of physical emotion. On the other hand, many prostitutes, at all events
early in their careers, appear to show a marked degree of sensuality, and
to women of coarse sexual fibre the career of prostitution has not been
without attractions from this point of view; the gratification of physical
desire is known to act as a motive in some cases and is clearly indicated
in others.[181] This is scarcely surprising when we remember that
prostitutes are in a very large proportion of cases remarkably robust and
healthy persons in general respects.[182] They withstand without
difficulty the risks of their profession, and though under its influence
the manifestations of sexual feeling can scarcely fail to become modified
or perverted in course of time, that is no proof of the original absence
of sexual sensibility. It is not even a proof of its loss, for the real
sexual nature of the normal prostitute, and her possibilities of sexual
ardor, are chiefly manifested, not in her professional relations with her
clients, but in her relations with her "fancy boy" or "bully."[183] It is
quite true that the conditions of her life often make it practically
advantageous to the prostitute to have attached to her a man who is
devoted to her interests and will defend them if necessary, but that is
only a secondary, occasional, and subsidiary advantage of the "fancy boy,"
so far as prostitutes generally are concerned. She is attracted to him
primarily because he appeals to her personally and she wants him for
herself. The motive of her attachment is, above all, erotic, in the full
sense, involving not merely sexual relations but possession and common
interests, a permanent and intimate life led together. "You know that what
one does in the way of business cannot fill one's heart," said a German
prostitute; "Why should we not have a husband like other women? I, too,
need love. If that were not so we should not want a bully." And he, on his
part, reciprocates this feeling and is by no means merely moved by
self-interest.[184]

One of my correspondents, who has had much experience of
prostitutes, not only in Britain, but also in Germany, France,
Belgium and Holland, has found th