gainst the injustice and
degradation now involved by our system of prostitution is so
profound that some have declared themselves ready to accept any
revolution of ideas which would bring about a more wholesome
transmutation of moral values. "Better indeed were a saturnalia
of _free_ men and women," exclaims Edward Carpenter (_Love's
Coming of Age_, p. 62), "than the spectacle which, as it is, our
great cities present at night."

Even those who would be quite content with as conservative a
treatment as possible of social institutions still cannot fail to
realize that prostitution is unsatisfactory, unless we are
content to make very humble claims of the sexual act. "The act of
prostitution," Godfrey declares (_The Science of Sex_, p. 202),
"may be physiologically complete, but it is complete in no other
sense. All the moral and intellectual factors which combine with
physical desire to form the perfect sexual attraction are absent.
All the higher elements of love--admiration, respect, honor, and
self-sacrificing devotion--are as foreign to prostitution as to
the egoistic act of masturbation. The principal drawbacks to the
morality of the act lie in its associations more than in the act
itself. Any affectional quality which a more or less promiscuous
connection might possess is at once destroyed by the intrusion of
the monetary element. In the resulting degradation the woman has
the largest share, since it makes her a pariah and involves her
in all the hardening and depraving influences of social
ostracism. But her degradation only serves to render her
influence on her partners more demoralizing. Prostitution," he
concludes, "has a strong tendency towards emphasizing the
naturally selfish attitude of men towards women, and encouraging
them in the delusion, born of unregulated passions, that the
sexual act itself is the aim and end of the sex life.
Prostitution can therefore make no claim to afford even a
temporary solution to the sex problem. It fulfils only that
mission which has made it a 'necessary evil'--the mission of
palliative to the physical rigors of celibacy and monogamy. It
does so at the cost of a considerable amount of physical and
moral deterioration, much of which is undoubtedly due to the
action of society in completing the degradation of the prostitute