Prostitution : a survey and a challenge / by Gladys Mary Hall, with an introduction by Charles E. Raven.

  • Hall, Gladys Mary.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Prostitution : a survey and a challenge / by Gladys Mary Hall, with an introduction by Charles E. Raven. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    even in countries where political enfranchisement was not the sequel to women's war-time effort. It brought economic need to many countries, which is still continuing. It brought post- war unemployment after a period of intense activity, with consequent wastage of superfluous energies. The Great War was also the precipitating cause of a general breakdown of accepted beliefs and tenets. It was the cause of immense strain and stress, both mental and physical, which, temporarily affecting behaviour, started certain habits of thought and conduct as a result. Many artificial barriers erected by social tradition were swept aside as mere impeding formalities—which some of them undoubtedly were. And in the train of the sweeping movement followed claims for personal freedom of action, almost feverish in their intensity, and a questioning of many sanctions and of most social values. Coincident with this social ferment was the newly awakened interest in psychology, and the discovery by the public of the idea of sex repression and its results. An immense army of amateur self- and hetero-analysts developed with amazing rapidity. uLads and lasses scarcely out of the nursery babbled of neuroses and repressions.1 Life progresses by trial and experiment, and here was tremendous experiment, which the ever-watchful, ever-ready spirit of commerce was immediately prepared to render less risky than it might be expected to be. Sex assumed a new and individual importance, particularly for women, whose accepted role of sexual submission to masculine needs appeared to be changing to one of challenging demand for the recognition of their own, demonstrated by many in a claim for, or a readiness to experience, sex adventures. Clearly, commercialized prostitution of the older type must be affected by these social developments, for the simple straight- forward object of these newer relationships, as of prostitution, is the use of the sex instinct for obtaining immediate personal gratification for one partner or both. Nor is it necessarily physical gratification which is sought. Many of the advocates of complete freedom in this field of human behaviour claim 1 Canon C. E. Raven, D.D., The Creator Spirit, p. 327.