How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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attains the semblance of a sexual triumph, a sexual union, whereas, as a matter of fact, the only result has been a business relationship. The prostitute is the product of patriarchal civilizations which deny 'sexual maturity to adolescents, and place insuperable obstacles in the way of normal sexual expression and contacts to young adults. Therefore we have the seeming paradox of a civilization that hunts down the prostitute, and simultaneously builds her brothel for her. Everyone knows that prostitution is anti-social, but prostitution must be winked at unless young adults are given the opportunities for the early choice of a mate, and the free choice of a love-object (which runs against the patriarchal grain, because patriarchal men still consider women chattels, and value an intact hymen more highly than a normal mental attitude). From the prostitute’s point of view, the sale of her sexual constitution amounts to the arrogation of masculine privileges. Often prostitution represents no more than a poor girl’s desire for the finery which was denied her in childhood. She is usually frigid with her client, but allows herself the luxury of passion with her pimp. In our great cities, where morals are regulated by the police, the prostitute pays dearly for her freedom from the constraint of bourgeois morality, unless she can make her way into the “ kept woman ” class. The risk of venereal infection is a constant liability in her profession, the possibility of victimization by unscrupulous police agents, the danger of blackmail, together with the tendency to drift into the shadowy by-ways of alcoholism and drug addiction (which are no more than side-shows within side-shows), make her masculine prerogatives of choosing her own mate when and where she wills, rather dear. The only solution of the problem of prostitution lies in the education of our children to a more normal attitude toward sex, the gradual abrogation of patriarchal ideas, the support of young married couples by their parents, or even their subsidizing by the State. Such a course