ABSTRACT
To the theoretical even more than to the applied sociologist, prostitution sets a profound problem: Why is it that a practice so thoroughly disapproved, so widely outlawed in the Western civilization, can yet flourish so universally? This chapter tries to give a sociological analysis-to describe the main features of the interrelational system binding prostitution to other institutions (particularly those involving sexual relations). Such an analysis, though brief and tentative, seems to carry us a long way toward explaining not only the heedless vitality of commercial promiscuity, but also the extreme disrepute in which it and its personnel are held. A frequent proposal for abolition under capitalism is that the salaries of working girls must be raised. When outlawed, prostitution falls into one peculiar category of crime—a type exceedingly hard to deal with—in which one of the willful parties is the ordinary law-abiding citizen.
