One of the most infamous eras of prostitution was that of Victorian Age. Sims (1910) cited Babylonian temple prostitution as equivalent to the plight of girls at the turn of the 20th century. As in all times the street children of the Victorian age survived by thievery and prostitution (Rush, 1980, p.63). Of nearly 2,600 prostitutes arrested in Paris 1,500 were minors (Bebel, cited in Rush). America traders on the West Coast purchased small Chinese girls and young American girls to resell by the evening. Rush wrote about the fate of many young English girls:
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The pain of rape for young girls was never a reason to limit sexual activity with them; as Rush (1980, pps. 60-61) indicated,
"Pain became an essential ingredient for pleasurable sex.. .and since the defloration of very young virgins can be excruciating, Victorians were obsessed with a 'defloration mania.' The screams of children became indispensable, shrill torture was the 'essence of delight' and many gentleman would not silence a single note.
Such a process netted the child into permanent prostitution. The result is that in nine cases out of ten, or ninety-nine out of a hundred, the child, who is usually under fifteen, frightened and friendless, her head aching. ..and full of pain and horror, gives up all hope, and in a week she is one of the attractions of the house." (quoted in Edholm, 1893, p.20).
As late as the 1900s some people still believed that venereal disease could be cured "by means of sexual intercourse with children" (Eliade, sited in deMause, 1982, p.58) but many child prostitutes were syphilitic by age eighteen (Rush, 1980).
The brothels of 1875 - - Mary Jeffries ran the most exclusive brothel in the Victorian Era. Her chief assistant was a Mrs. Travers. She kidnapped children by offering to watch them while the parents went to gather luggage or buy tickets. Jeifries catered to nobility. "There was no form of sexual vice for which this murderess did not cater" (Terrot, 1960, p.91). Stead (Tenot, 1960, p.54), writing for the Pall Mall Gazette, described one of her houses,
"Flogging or birching goes on in brothels to a much greater degree than is generally believed. One of Mrs. Jeffrles' rooms was fitted up like a torture chamber... There were rings in the ceiling for hanging women and children up by the wrists, ladders for strapping them down at any angle, as well as the ordinary stretcher to which the victim is fastened so as to be unable to move. The instruments of flagellation included the ordinary birch, whips, holly branches and wire-thonged cat-o'-nine-tails."
Every once in a while the plight of child prostitutes catches and mo-mentarily holds the public awareness and consciousness. The Victorians were captured by reporters like Stead (Rush, 1980), and books such as Trafficking in Young Girls or War on the White Slave Trade (Sims, 1910) and Traffic in Girls and Florence Crittenton Missions (Edholm, 1893). Ennew 1986) pointed out that during the Victorian era the upswell of public sentiment/awareness for the sexual plight of children, coexisting with their exploitation, supports the contention that the present level of con-cern and activity regarding child prostitution is not unprecedented. However, left unsaid about these waves of consciousness is the entire ocean of blame for the victim surging behind it.
Adapted from:
Joseph , Cathy.
Scarlet Wounding: Issues of Child
Prostitution. In The Journal of
Psychohistory. V. 23 No. 1 Summer 1995
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