(4 of 5)
The housewife's lot is perhaps not quite so grim as Miss Atkinson thinks, and the same may be said for that of the prostitute. Last week, the New York Times conducted a survey on prostitution and interviewed a 27-year-old blonde named Jackie, who lives in a luxurious apartment, dresses in Puccis, winters in Puerto Rico, and says of her life: "I love it." Is there some truth after all in that age-old legend of the good-time girl, the Sally Bowles of Cabaret or the girl played by Melina Mercouri in Never on Sunday! Most sociological and psychological studies reject the theatrical stereotype and offer no support at all for the kind of chauvinism expressed by H.L. Mencken: "The truth is that . . . the prostitute commonly likes her work and would not change places with a shopgirl or a waitress for anything in the world."
Whether prostitution is immoral or not, there remains the question of whether the Government can or should try to suppress whatever it considers immoral—in short, can sin be outlawed? Generally speaking, we acknowledge the state's right to make laws protecting the family and the safety of children. But as for sexual activity in private between consenting adults (in the jargon of the new permissiveness), the gradual trend has been toward the abandonment of official interference. For one thing, suppression has never worked well, even though punishments for prostitution have at times included mutilation and beheading. For another, the whole apparatus of vice squads, entrapments, bribes and the imprisonment of women who may well not have done any harm to anyone—all of this makes one feel that the police could be more usefully employed.
Legalized prostitution can produce its own complications and contradictions, however. In many European countries, for example, the individual sale of sex is not illegal, but brothels are. A combination of postwar idealism and the desire to prevent underworld exploitation of women brought about the closing of the bordellos that once flourished in France —and the closing brought the consequences that St. Thomas had foreseen. The prostitutes expelled from the once-regulated houses drifted out into the streets and continued the traditional business on their own. Reported cases of syphilis rose from 1,200 a year to 6,000. By now, even Marthe Richard, who once led the fight against the houses, admits that she "would not be against reopening if—I say if —women are not slaves in them." Laws on morals change slowly, however, and it is sometimes more practical for officials simply to evade them. Thus in Germany, which banned brothels in the 1920s, several major cities now have hotel-like Eros Centers, which are technically legal because the girls remain independent and just rent rooms there.