Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
(4) The employment of paid prostitutes for man's gratification keeps
in existence the unhappiest and most degraded class in the world.
Brutalized and worn by their abnormal life, treated with coarse
indignities which they cannot resent, deprived of their birthright
of genuine love, of wifehood and motherhood, stricken with disease
and doomed to an early death, thousands of the prettiest,
reddest-blooded, most promising young girls of our land, the girls
who ought to be bearing healthy children and rearing the future citizens
of the State, now walk the streets painted and gaudily bedecked, seeking
their miserable livelihood, and snaring the heedless and restless youth
of the cities, the "young men void of understanding," to their common
degradation. This human wastage is worse upon the race than war; and
all the more pathetic because it consists of girls scarcely past the
threshold of their maidenhood. When we consider further the
indescribably horrible cruelty of the "white-slave trade," which the
insatiable lust of men has brought into being, we may begin to realize
to what the absence of restraint upon this appetite has led.
It is quite conceivable that within the near future the venereal
diseases will be rendered entirely curable by the progress of medicine.
It is possible that some certain and harmless method of preventing
conception will be found and become so universally known that the
danger of unintentional childbirth will become practically nonexistent.
Such a situation would remove the most obvious reasons for
chastity, and would insure a rapid growth of free-love sentiment. It
would be pointed out that free love would do away with the shameful
existence of the paid prostitutes, and that thus all four of the basic
reasons above given for chastity would no longer exist. To discuss
such possibilities may seem premature. But as a matter of fact, even
now every one who indulges in "free" love hopes to escape disease and
conception. And there is an increasing propaganda insisting on the
removal of the old conventions and the permission of promiscuous love.
The spirit of adventure is in the air; and with even a good chance
of escaping the penalties, there are many who will seize their
opportunities for enjoyment, preferring a present pleasure with its
spice of risk to a dull negation of desire. We must then go on with
the argument and point out that even where these terrible results are
escaped, the way of free love is not the happiest way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account