Prostitution In Europe

Abraham Flexner's Prostitution in Europe opens as a hard-headed, evidence-driven inquiry into one of the most contested social problems of the modern city. Commissioned by the Bureau of Social Hygiene, the study rejects moral panic in favor of comparative research, firsthand observation, and public-policy analysis drawn from major European centers. Flexner shows how prostitution is transformed by urban growth: in the anonymous metropolis, family and neighborhood restraints weaken, concealment becomes easier, and the line between "known" prostitutes and women who sell sex intermittently grows increasingly blurred. He argues for a broad definition of prostitution based on barter, promiscuity, and emotional indifference, including hidden forms among women in ordinary work as well as socially polished arrangements. At the same time, he distinguishes prostitution from informal unions marked by affection or responsibility. The book emphasizes that prostitution is often unstable and reversible, and that regulation has failed to curb venereal disease, despite repeated claims to the contrary. Its central concern is how social conditions, disease, crime, and economic waste make prostitution a public issue demanding realistic reform. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.