Contemporary accounts from 400 years of history 1500-1900 (Dickens, Tolstoy, Hardy, and many others wrote extensively on this in the 19th).
Historical records of the Lancet Medical journal from the 19th century ...
And the Historical records of the catholic church from the 12th century.
and the historical GDP which shows this is very much in line with what we find in modern poor societies at these GDP levels like El Salvador, Haiti, and Somalia...
There is no scarcity of women, lower gdp figures don't limit how much is available like iron or timber. or food ...GDP just determines the price of their labour and the poverty that will push them to trade that labour.
and your response amounts to: "Nuh Ugh"
Seriously every single piece of evidence we have says that 1100-1900 a single digit percentage of women were employed in prostitution and maybe a very low double digit percentage had engaged in it at some point in their lives. (And yes how people manage to feed themselves and keep themselves alive absolutely seems like the kind of matter of material necessity than can be extrapolated backwards)
We have bawdy authors from the 16th century painting this picture, senitmental authors from the 17th, moral reformer authors form the 19th, quite impressive records from all these eras including very early records from the 11th century...
and what I consistently find is people just deny it because they don't want to believe it.
Seriously every single piece of evidence we have says that 1100-1900 a single digit percentage of women were employed in prostitution and maybe a very low double digit percentage had engaged in it at some point in their lives. (And yes how people manage to feed themselves and keep themselves alive absolutely seems like the kind of matter of material necessity than can be extrapolated backwards)
A single digit percentage of the total population or a single digit percentage of the urban population? Big difference in a 80+% rural society.
I'm not convinced learned city-dwellers' (or soldiers') writings are representative of the rest of the population. I think if you don't live in a city and you have the resources to spare to get yourself a woman to fuck who you don't want to have kids with, you buy (or otherwise obtain) yourself a slave, and have her spinning cloth or do chores around the farm or be otherwise productive the rest of the time. At least she won't necessarily by definition be completely negatively productive for you, the way going to a prostitute is. Prostitutes are for people who are either rich enough that paying one doesn't affect them, or so broken-down that they don't care about tomorrow.
Historical records aren't great at keeping count of most any numbers. This isn't their failure at all - it was impossible, given the technology at the time, but using them as if they were reliable is folly. Using them to pretend statistics are on your side while other people must just not want to believe Fax and Lodjik is as rude as it's wrong.
Thankfully, you mention modern societies that exist in today's day and age - a time where statistics are much easier to keep and much better kept in general. We have NGO's doing their best to figure out how many sex workers there are in any given place[1]. Judging by what they imply about the three countries you mention..
El Salvador would have prostitution prevalent at 0.3% of the population, or +-0.6% of women. Haiti has it twice as prevalent, at 0.6% of Haitians, or +-1.2% of its women. Somalia is Islamic and it shows: estimates are a prevalence of 0.06%, or +-0.12% of its women.
Note how the above numbers assume there are zero men and boys prostituting themselves, which is tragically optimistic. Note how even the place with the biggest numbers - Haiti - doesn't even have half the prevalence London would have, if your sources are correct. It's not even a fourth!
To reiterate: this is still a lot of people either way. It also concerned many people in the past. There is no shortage of authors writing cheerily about the whores they'd be banging just to throw money around. I'm not at all in doubt that prostitution is ahistorically uncommon in the modern era, perhaps only trending upward slightly with how easy (and safe!) the internet really makes it.
But implying that it was so prevalent that a normal young woman might be one ruined outfit away from being forced into prostitution is, certainly, taking things too far. Women could, and did, do other work. They could and did support themselves if they were lucky and skilled enough. And yes, those women pushed into cities by the spectre of Robert Malthus driving them there certainly ended up whoring themselves out quite often. This is still a thoroughly far cry from implying that it was the fate of any woman who didn't luck out or get married immediately, and I'd rather not pretend my view is one born out of thin air either.
Indeed, the etymology of the word spinster implies that an absolute majority of unmarried women, historically, supported themselves by working wool. Domestic service seems to me more likely to be the next-largest source of employment than prostitution.
While I agree that the OP was a florid Kulakism, the idea of impoverished women having only a single vocation to support themselves is probably anachronistic. It's not spinner OR full time prostitute, it's probably more like spinner that also takes cash for sex from a couple men to make ends meet.
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Notes -
I've given you 3 types of evidence:
Contemporary accounts from 400 years of history 1500-1900 (Dickens, Tolstoy, Hardy, and many others wrote extensively on this in the 19th).
Historical records of the Lancet Medical journal from the 19th century ...
And the Historical records of the catholic church from the 12th century.
and the historical GDP which shows this is very much in line with what we find in modern poor societies at these GDP levels like El Salvador, Haiti, and Somalia...
There is no scarcity of women, lower gdp figures don't limit how much is available like iron or timber. or food ...GDP just determines the price of their labour and the poverty that will push them to trade that labour.
and your response amounts to: "Nuh Ugh"
Seriously every single piece of evidence we have says that 1100-1900 a single digit percentage of women were employed in prostitution and maybe a very low double digit percentage had engaged in it at some point in their lives. (And yes how people manage to feed themselves and keep themselves alive absolutely seems like the kind of matter of material necessity than can be extrapolated backwards)
We have bawdy authors from the 16th century painting this picture, senitmental authors from the 17th, moral reformer authors form the 19th, quite impressive records from all these eras including very early records from the 11th century...
and what I consistently find is people just deny it because they don't want to believe it.
A single digit percentage of the total population or a single digit percentage of the urban population? Big difference in a 80+% rural society.
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I'm not convinced learned city-dwellers' (or soldiers') writings are representative of the rest of the population. I think if you don't live in a city and you have the resources to spare to get yourself a woman to fuck who you don't want to have kids with, you buy (or otherwise obtain) yourself a slave, and have her spinning cloth or do chores around the farm or be otherwise productive the rest of the time. At least she won't necessarily by definition be completely negatively productive for you, the way going to a prostitute is. Prostitutes are for people who are either rich enough that paying one doesn't affect them, or so broken-down that they don't care about tomorrow.
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Historical records aren't great at keeping count of most any numbers. This isn't their failure at all - it was impossible, given the technology at the time, but using them as if they were reliable is folly. Using them to pretend statistics are on your side while other people must just not want to believe Fax and Lodjik is as rude as it's wrong.
Thankfully, you mention modern societies that exist in today's day and age - a time where statistics are much easier to keep and much better kept in general. We have NGO's doing their best to figure out how many sex workers there are in any given place[1]. Judging by what they imply about the three countries you mention..
El Salvador would have prostitution prevalent at 0.3% of the population, or +-0.6% of women. Haiti has it twice as prevalent, at 0.6% of Haitians, or +-1.2% of its women. Somalia is Islamic and it shows: estimates are a prevalence of 0.06%, or +-0.12% of its women.
Note how the above numbers assume there are zero men and boys prostituting themselves, which is tragically optimistic. Note how even the place with the biggest numbers - Haiti - doesn't even have half the prevalence London would have, if your sources are correct. It's not even a fourth!
To reiterate: this is still a lot of people either way. It also concerned many people in the past. There is no shortage of authors writing cheerily about the whores they'd be banging just to throw money around. I'm not at all in doubt that prostitution is ahistorically uncommon in the modern era, perhaps only trending upward slightly with how easy (and safe!) the internet really makes it.
But implying that it was so prevalent that a normal young woman might be one ruined outfit away from being forced into prostitution is, certainly, taking things too far. Women could, and did, do other work. They could and did support themselves if they were lucky and skilled enough. And yes, those women pushed into cities by the spectre of Robert Malthus driving them there certainly ended up whoring themselves out quite often. This is still a thoroughly far cry from implying that it was the fate of any woman who didn't luck out or get married immediately, and I'd rather not pretend my view is one born out of thin air either.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20190604174922/http://www.aidsinfoonline.org/gam/stock/shared/dv/PivotData_2018_7_22_636678151733621264.htm
EDIT: formatting
Indeed, the etymology of the word spinster implies that an absolute majority of unmarried women, historically, supported themselves by working wool. Domestic service seems to me more likely to be the next-largest source of employment than prostitution.
While I agree that the OP was a florid Kulakism, the idea of impoverished women having only a single vocation to support themselves is probably anachronistic. It's not spinner OR full time prostitute, it's probably more like spinner that also takes cash for sex from a couple men to make ends meet.
Also it could be euphemism. See AccountantTok.
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