Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
act they are accomplishing. No sentiment, no calculation, pushes
them into a man's arms. They let themselves go without reflexion
and without motive, in an almost animal manner, from indifference
and without pleasure." He was acquainted with forty-five girls
between the ages of twelve and seventeen who were deflowered by
chance strangers whom they never met again; they lost their
virginity, in Dumas's phrase, as they lost their milk-teeth, and
could give no plausible account of the loss. A girl of fifteen,
mentioned by Commenge, living with her parents who supplied all
her wants, lost her virginity by casually meeting a man who
offered her two francs if she would go with him; she did so
without demur and soon begun to accost men on her own account. A
girl of fourteen, also living comfortably with her parents,
sacrificed her virginity at a fair in return for a glass of beer,
and henceforth begun to associate with prostitutes. Another girl
of the same age, at a local fête, wishing to go round on the
hobby horse, spontaneously offered herself to the man directing
the machinery for the pleasure of a ride. Yet another girl, of
fifteen, at another fête, offered her virginity in return for the
same momentary joy (Commenge, _Prostitution Clandestine_, 1897,
pp. 101 et seq.). In the United States, Dr. W. Travis Gibb,
examining physician to the New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, bears similar testimony to the fact that in
a fairly large proportion of "rape" cases the child is the
willing victim. "It is horribly pathetic," he says (_Medical
Record_, April 20, 1907), "to learn how far a nickel or a quarter
will go towards purchasing the virtue of these children."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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