Throughout 1910s and 1920s, some women just who functioned at minimum-wage employment through the day would supplement her meager paychecks by encounter up with male suitors overnight. They’d swap company and sex in exchange for either a clothing allowance or leasing income. These types of lady, clarifies Brents, never described themselves as prostitutes.
“When anyone imagine intercourse perform, they assume of a bad, drug-addicted woman residing the street with a pimp, upon her success,” claims Brents, whom co-authored “the condition of sexual intercourse: vacation, Sex and Sin during the New United states Heartland.” “Actually, the community was extremely varied and students making use of these web sites happen to be but another instance of this sort of range.”