Confessions of an English Maid

During the course of the years in which I have been more or less closely associated with other prostitutes I have frequently listened to explanations as to just what this one or that owed her degradation; the particular villainy to which she attributed her advent into a life of shame. The usual story is one of seduction by a lover under the inevitable extenuating circumstance of “before I really knew anything,” with the occasional variation, “he put something in my drink, and when I came too...” or, “he was stronger than I was and I couldn't do anything.” In these glib stories, in which none but the inconsequential details vary, the man is always to blame and the girl is never a willing accomplice. She is always, by artifice, force or deception, and subsequent abandonment, the victim of some man's depravity.

I confess that I have listened to these tales and even witnessed a few tears of self-pity, with a certain amount of skepticism. In thinking back over my own life I can find nothing which would serve as a valid excuse to shift upon somebody else the responsibility of my own condition, nor can I in justice accuse any man of having instigated my moral degradation, although the number of those who have taken advantage of my voluntary delinquency is legion. True, were I to hypocritically search for some contributing factor with which to justify myself in my own mind or in the minds of others, I might place some blame upon the environment under which I was raised as a child, yet, a conscientious analysis of my subsequent life leads me to no other conclusion than that had these conditions been entirely normal I would still, just as water seeks its level, have drifted into a life analogous to that in which you find me.