Didn't Victorian England have a huge amount of prostitutes? You know

[applegrove]

because women were encouraged not to know themselves. Because sex was supposed to be sacred within marriage but not is a self-knowledge way.

That made some women married. And some poor, perhaps married, & prostitutes.

Why would the USA want to follow that model?

[JuniperLea]

1. Jack the Ripper

Must have been a Repug:)

Seems to me there were an awful lot of bawdy prostitute stories that came out of that era.

[applegrove]

3. No - yes - there was a lot of bawdy stuff that came out from different

cultures at different times. I mean the political economy. Were there not upwards of 2 Million prostitutes in London? When the rich were ostentatious and the poor - terribly poor but with no land to work.

You know..like you find today in some cultures with equality issues. Does not more poverty mean more women forced into prostitution?

Why do the neocons go on and on about Victorianna and totally ignore the social ills that sort of thinking resulted in?

[JuniperLea]

7. You nailed it

me thinks.



"Why do the neocons go on and on about Victorianna and totally ignore the social ills that sort of thinking resulted in?"

[aquart]

2. Victorian ENGLAND? Hell, Chicago whores had a directory!

They had their own newspaper. Even my ancient, circumspect Britannica said there was, like, one brothel for every hundred citizens.

Don't think it had anything much to do with women knowing themselves. Had a lot to do with what work they could get.

One streetwalker organized the profits of the other girls, so they would have money to make it thru the winters.

First buildings built after the fire were the whorehouses.

[applegrove]

12. Yes - and it was matriarchal - which is why I like the discussion

of legalizing prostitution today in Canada - because it makes it matriarchal and somewhat safe. And in Canada - people can get jobs. There is much choice. The problem is the drugs and abuse at home and the like. Make it matriarchal and the number of predators involved go down - perhaps.

But no. I'm talking political economy and jobs for the very poor & desperate.

Neocons so desperately want to teach "desperation" to the underclass in the USA. No other reason for their actions and "talking points" in the first few days after Katrina.

They look forward (in their own deluded minds) to mass emigration of economic refugees to places outside the USA (à la Victorian England). Don't they know what desperation means economically? Of course they do - but should we not warn the freepers about rates of prostitution in societies that loose their middle class and upward mobility?

And in victorian england - (I just heard this on the CBC) it was not about a relationship sexually - but duty & rights. Inequality. So marriages lasted for other reasons but men also went outside marriage in huge numbers to get their needs met.

We talk about the growing in-equality and how the USA is falling. But what does that really, really mean? We can place the USA on a list of countries - nearby mexico & russia. Further from the rest of the West now-so more than ever.

What does such inequality really mean.

[Clark2008]

28. Making it matriarchal doesn't make it a good life for women.

Despite any thoughts of sexual freedom, selling one's self to men isn't good for the old self-esteem.

I understand your thoughts on the rest of the subject, however. I just wanted to point out that legalizing it doesn't make it better for women.

[bobbieinok]

29. didn't Boortz say Katrina poor and black should WORK as prostitutes??

[JJackFlash]

4. They had to feed themselves

That was life without a safety net, social darwinism, you know, "the good old days" that repugnicans are so eager to return us to. You couldn't trust the food, either, with no govt regulations.

[applegrove]

14. Exactly. It was the norm all over the west. When there was no social

safety net. If you were either rich or poor. If you were poor you either married, became a maid (at slave wages) or a prostitute.

I would like to know - if women have more choice now to work - will that be taken away too? I mean if a woman is supposed to be in the home - will that not diminish all the jobs women do do - if they are have nots? Why is it that women in less developed countries today are forced into prostitution? Can you not get a job in the philippines if you are a woman? If jobs become so scarce (and competition with temporary workers so high) do the jobs then revert back to the men?

I would wonder what rates of prostitution are in countries with poverty & inequality rates across the board.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Right, and a maid who displeased her employer or who became

pregnant as a result of being raped by a member of the employer's family, "lost her character" and was fired without references. Since she could not get a new job as a maid without a favorable letter of recommendation from her previous employer, her only recourse was prostitution or pickpocketing.

[jwirr]

5. sssssssssshhhhhh! You are not supposed to talk about

those kind of things. Mistresses - not prostitutes!:sarcasm:

[applegrove]

16. Does divorce or ability to get a divorce save women from prostitution?

[jwirr]

22. If we are going back to the victorian era I would say no.

Today it depends on the situation. If you get a divorce and you are already in poverty it is only going to get worse. If you have a deadbeat who has been pulling you down economically then yes divorce would save you.

[jwirr]

6. Unfortunately this is not a past problem. Poverty forces many a

woman to do things she would never do if given the choice between a starving family and food.

[alcibiades_mystery]

8. John Fowles does some math on this in The French Lieutenant's Woman

He has a rough idea of the number of prostitutes in London alone, then tries to work out how many men must have been visiting these prostitutes and how often in order to support that economy. The number is astounding. Granted, this is a literary conceit and not straight history, but I'd suspect that the historians would probably concur. You also see the hint of this vast underground economy running throughout Victorian literature, from Dickens to Trollope, as it were ;-)

[3waygeek]

9. Not just in the Victorian era

During WW2, British & US officials met to discuss UK prostitutes. Apparently, they were quite numerous and persistent.

[applegrove]

17. Oh - with soldiers or army bases - that gets the sex market going.

Thailand & the Philippines because of US bases especially during Vietnam. Germany in the last 40 years. Now, apparently, former Zaire.

And I know that part of the idea behind closing down "open bordellos" was a fight against the economic power of the women who often ran them (at least in Kenya during colonialism). That legal - illegal argument is something else and has to do with health, security, safety.

But to isolate the issue to today. With inequality. I know Russia is coming at inequality from another way... from communism to inequality in the market. But what is prostitution like there? And places like Mexico - does the church cause or stop prostitution (either by anti-feminist doctrine, lack of divorce, or moral suation to stop such practices).

What is the is? How does it work. How will it work in the USA? If the neocons get their way.

[NYCGirl]

10. And the Victorians wrote some of the kinkiest pornography imaginable!

Makes lots of the stuff today seem tame.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345410041/103-9513278-6601437?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1853266159/103-9513278-6601437?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802151612/103-9513278-6601437?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

13. lol - that's what I was going to post!

[applegrove]

18. The USA has some pretty kinky erotica & porn producers too - that

is pretty normal.

[NYCGirl]

20. I believe the English like bondage a bit more than we as a country do.

And that's only the start with Victoriana.

[JJackFlash]

11. I think prostitution should be legal

it's the libertarian in me.
The law says it's about hygiene and safety, but of course it's really a morals law.

[HockeyMom]

15. My family from that time

I've spent 25 years researching my family in England. They were mostly dirt poor, until the turn of the century. What happened? Whereas in generations past, most of them had gang loads of children, my great-grandfather's family only had 3 (fertility problems?). Because of that, his parents were able to send him for advanced schooling (their daughters too - UNHEARD of then) and he rose out of poverty with an education. He himself also only had 2 kids and was able to emmigrate to America for a better life.

I think there was a correlation between family size and a middle class existence back then.

[applegrove]

19. I think too access to health & being able to afford to pay for something

from inside the bowels of a sheep to protect from having too many kids was an issue. Many never saw a doctor. I think if you are hungry - somehow you would spend your money on the parts of the sheep you could eat - if you could actually afford to buy. You would always make the choice to feed the kids you had - even if that meant more kids. Cycle of poverty as they say. And just like the invention of cheap soap let many people become healthier and freer of sickness, so to access to cheap forms of health care also reduced large families.

I don't think the freepers are at the point where they go conservative catholic and come out against birth control. They just want it to be painful & dangerous to kids or the un-married.

But what happens or how does prostitution as an economic thing happen in modern societies. In Africa (a widow) or other places where there is lack of social safety net.

[ArkDem]

21. Intelligent, thoughtful and well written post.

[The Magistrate]

23. They Did Indeed, Sir

One telling index is that roughly an eighth of all rooms for let in London in the mid-nineteenth century were rented by the hour....

[triguy46]

24. No other reason than abject poverty and no hope.

The sociology of Jack the Ripper is quite interesting. I recommend the Jack the Ripper book by Donald Rumbelow. He also does walking tours of east london for a cheap fiver, see: Londonwalks.com.

There was just no alternative. Horribly sad. Kids were a burden, usually orphaned or abandoned at very young ages. People living 12-15 in a room, having all to leave if a female brought a man in. They'd make a few pennies, go get a cuppa tea, then another john, go get a gin.

[Ms. Clio]

25. "Put a roof on England and it would be one great whorehouse"

Benjamin Disraeli, I think.

[applegrove]

26. The hero of the neocons. Benji.