LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 197, 9 May 1918, Page 6

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

I THE SOCIAL EVIL FROM WOMAN'S POINT OF VIEW. ' A DEMAND FOR EQUALITY OF TKBATiIHiN'T. Sir,—You will, I trusC fcllow me sufficient spaco to make ti few comments upon the recent raid on a house in Kelburn. It is obvious that a "houEe oi ill-tame" isaii impossible institution without male supporters. As it has been well said,'■l'whoever is responsible tor the house, it is the male frequonler who render that house infamous." Now, there is one great, vital, burning question, upon the true answer to which (if we but knew what that answer was!) the whole case'for or agttinst prostitution depends. That question, which all Governments and all peoples must inevitably face and answer as best they may, is this: Iβ it or is it not possible for men to live without irregular sexuoi gratification? If it is not possible, and if the law forces men to do without that which professional prostitution would .enable them to obtain, then it is obvious "Jhat the world will become an increasingly unsafe place for wointm and children in general.

it is all very well for sheltered women to regard the prostitute with contempt find abhorrence. The plain but awnil truth is that if it is impossible for men to live without irregular seximl intercourse then the sheltered, the chaste, the virtuous woman owes to the prostituto— and has throughout the ages oivcd to her, and will continue to owe to her—a debt that is simply incalculable, and which can never be adequately repaid. The Now Zealand Government, however, in refusing to authorise and legalise prostitution, has—unless it iB illogical or insincere—demonstrated ite conviction that it is, or siiouldbe, possible for men to live without such irregular intercourse. The present Government has done more than that , , it has passed new and special War Regulations to deal drastically with the illicit sexual traffic. But these new War iingulatioas, unhappily, discriminate unfairly between the m:ile and the female offender. As women, and on behalf of wotuj.n, we call upon the Government to amend its War Regulations, and to give to the law and the police the right and the power to deal as drastically with the male frequenters of an illicit house of ill-fame As they deal with the keepers of that house. If the women are arrested then let Hie men be arrested If the iiivfnps of the women are published, then publish the names ot the men. If the wunien suiter imprisonment, then let the 1 men be imprisoned also. But the law I will not be amended. The conclusion to k? drawn is, in our opinion, that the Government is afraid, of the implications of its own legislation: it is afraid to directly penalise men. Although the Government lias admitted (tacitly, through its legislation) that it is convinced that irregular sexual gratification is not necessary to sane and decent manhood, it is, in our opinion, afraid to carry that aumission to its logical conclusion, and to directly and drastically punish men found upon illicit premises. We aro aware that it may not always be possible to prove whether all men found upon such premises are there with illicit intentions, but we submit that all men found there should be arrested and tried, even although they should unhappily include our husbands, our brothers, or our sons. If the Government is raiily sincere in its' desire to cope with the illicit sexual traffic, it will tnki , those measures which will most effectually reduce that traffic to a minimum, ivoir, u'is obvious that the simplest and tlw surest way to do that is not only to penalise tho keepers of an illicit house, But to go further and to make the keeping of such a houso n commercially unproatablo enterprise. And the way to do that is to make the penalty for "visiting such a: house so heavy that no man—unless ho is intoxicated (which he need not bo) or drugged (which in New Zealand ho will hardly be) or temporarily insane with passionwould dare to take the risk of being found upon such premises. We submit that thoro is only oue alternative course for S sincero and honest Government to pursue, and that is to revise its judgment and to admit that irregular sexual intercourse is a necessity for men, and acting in consistence with vhat admission, to legalise and regulate professional prostitution. It should bo clearly understood that this letter is not written in order (o protest against the trial or tho punishment of womon who havo defied and broken the law. For while it is certain that that outrage and abuse of tho nosiest functions of womanhood, that defiling of the holy of holies of a woman's body—the very cradle of life—which prostitution really outails will inevitably hring its own peculiar and awful retribution. And while it may also bo woll to remember that what is dragged into tho light of publicity ia not necessarily the worst that may really be happening in our midst, yet it is also certain I bat tlin law must be enforced, and that those who wilfully break it must necessarily suffer its penalty. But what this lelle'r is written to most emphatically protest against is the patently unjust discrimination of the '.aw itself, which, while it arrests and ivios the women connected (even as occasional visitors) with an illicit- liou-:?, i::.-.!:« the visitiiiK of such ;; !iou«e by a man a perfectly legitimate episode, subject, apparently, to no penalty whatsoever, sue, porliaps the awkward accident of liav--IKR his name published or of being: possibly called at a witness at the mal of the women concerned. Dons the (jovcrnniont really expect that when women come to the realisation of the gro&s, and in our opinion, partisan liijustico of tho new War Regulations in

their application, they will be content to take no notice, to make no protest, but to go on quieuy doing war work and making- sacrifices? The Government may reply that it is lloiug its best at a diilieult lime to tackle an extraordinarily difficult problem. Unfortunately, there are certain high enterprises in which the plea that one is "doing ones best will prove most effectually damning in the sight of the appraising gods! _Strong and subtle indeed must bo vhe Government or the man who undertakes the Herculean enterprise of cleaning out the Augean staliles of sexual vice. Strong and subtle, yes-but because of the human factor, because of the profound and complex passions of human nature, also just! Time and the courso of events may perhaps prove lo the Govcmmenc that any attempt to put an end to the ljlicifc sexual traffic by means ot legation which discriminates unjustly between the man and the woman ie foredoomed to failure. "If," said the man on the tram, "if women don't think it is fair, why don't they organise, nnd do something r but of all the futile chatter. . . •" Futile, doubtless. Unhappily, as a great writer has said, "Woman throughout tho ages scemn to have evinced a kind of fatal supineness and acquiescence. She has submitted herself to any kind of mastery, and every kind of authority. She has been supine to man's lust, and. obedient to his law, in a way that might well have made angels weep and God Himself despair!" But it ir unthinkable that woman will_ for ever be content to acquiesce in tlibso of man's laws which aro demonstrable , unfair. Tho justice that she cannot wrest from man by strength, she will no doubt presently win from him by wit! Meanwhile it seems strange and a litTle pitiTul that she should have either to wrest or to win justice from man, It 6eems strange and a little pitiful that woman's gift to humanity, that great gift which consists in her having, as the mother of the race, borne continuously from tho very beginning her share of the physical anguish which life, and especially highly-organised human life, entails (while man has borne his sharo but intermittently in war) should not, in man's sight, be considered worth the reward of α-n impartial justice. In conclusion, I. .should like to quote briefly from a modern writer upon social, subjects:— "... Secondly, we have in the bodysocial tho canker of prostitution. There is the conventional mode of.' stating this problem: I prefer to state it in the following terms:-That there are in our midst multitudes of men who, in order to obtain that sexual ease and gratification which is, or which they imagine to bo a necessity to them—in order to obtain that sexual ease and gratification, without tho risk, or at a minimum risk either of conferring life or, of incurring subsequent liability—and oven, in the case of married men, in order to snare their wives a series of indignities which they are, or which they imagine that (hey aro, otherwise incapable of sparing them—spend varying amounts of their substances, and of thoir energy and passion (energy which might otherwise be superb, passion which might be sublime) upon the harlot. Her of whom Lecky, tho historian, has said that she is 'the most mournful and the most awful fieuro in history,' who 'remains, while civilisations rise and fall, the eternal sacrifice of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people.' Thus do these multitudes of men avail themselvesof the supply which their eternal- demand has created. T have stated the problem in these terms because I am convinced that mun is primarily and essentially he who demands, and woman she who supplies. Just as I am convinced that the essen? tial and inherent instincts and inclinations of woman—notwithstanding many appearances to the contmry—have little to do either with the existence or the continuance of prostitution. Juet conditions of labour and an Adequate wage for women woricers will go far towards thinning the ranks of the paid, professional afisnngers of the incessant sexual urgency of man. , —I am, etc., THE TTOiS 1 . SEC. N.Z. NEO-FEMIN- ■ IST ASSOCIATION.