of sexual feeling can scarcely fail to become modified or perverted in course of time, that is no proof of the original absence of sexual sensibility.  It is not even a proof of its loss, for the real sexual nature of the normal prostitute, and her possibilities of sexual ardor, are chiefly manifested, not in her professional relations with her clients, but in her relations with her “fancy boy” or “bully."[183] It is quite true that the conditions of her life often make it practically advantageous to the prostitute to have attached to her a man who is devoted to her interests and will defend them if necessary, but that is only a secondary, occasional, and subsidiary advantage of the “fancy boy,” so far as prostitutes generally are concerned.  She is attracted to him primarily because he appeals to her personally and she wants him for herself.  The motive of her attachment is, above all, erotic, in the full sense, involving not merely sexual relations but possession and common interests, a permanent and intimate life led together.  “You know that what one does in the way of business cannot fill one’s heart,” said a German prostitute; “Why should we not have a husband like other women?  I, too, need love.  If that were not so we should not want a bully.”  And he, on his part, reciprocates this feeling and is by no means merely moved by self-interest.[184]

One of my correspondents, who has had much experience of prostitutes, not only in Britain, but also in Germany, France, Belgium and Holland, has found that the normal manifestations of sexual feeling are much more common in British than in continental prostitutes.  “I should say,” he writes, “that in normal coitus foreign women are generally unconscious of sexual excitement.  I don’t think I have ever known a foreign woman who had any semblance of orgasm.  British women, on the other hand, if a man is moderately kind, and shows that he has some feelings beyond mere sensual gratification, often abandon themselves to the wildest delights of sexual excitement.  Of course in this life, as in others, there is keen competition, and a woman, to vie with her competitors, must please her gentlemen friends; but a man of the world can always distinguish between real and simulated passion.” (It is possible, however, that he may be most successful in arousing the feelings of his own fellow-country women.) On the other hand, this writer finds that the foreign women are more anxious to provide for the enjoyment of their temporary consorts and to ascertain what pleases them.  “The foreigner seems to make it the business of her life to discover some abnormal mode of sexual gratification for her consort.”  For their own pleasure also foreign prostitutes frequently ask for cunnilinctus, in preference to normal coitus, while anal coitus is also common.  The difference evidently is that the British women, when they seek gratification, find it in normal coitus, while the foreign women prefer more abnormal methods.