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Purpose: to determine whether the attitudes of prostitutes towards their bodies differs from that of other women. Method: the Body Image Questionnaire, taken from Schilder's book, Psychotherapy, and a psychiatric interview. Material: thirty cases from the Women's Prison Ward at Bellevue Hospital, convicted of prostitution or admitting its practice over months or years, compared with thirty control cases selected among other women prisoners (not psychotic, defective or psychoneurotic) receiving medical or surgical treatment and some alcoholics and reactive depressions (without history of prostitution or epilepsy or severe psychoneurosis). The responses of the two groups are given statistically.
Conclusions: very little difference was revealed in the attitudes of the two groups toward their body image. As Schilder stressed in The Image and Appearance of the Human Body, the average person tends to retain his body image and to deny or minimize deviations from the normal even after organic injury.
In contrast, Curran and Frosch found that where excessive attention was given to certain parts of the body, severe personality disorders were present. Since this is not the case with prostitutes, it is suggested that socioeconomic factors seem to be of much greater significance than neurosis in the causation of prostitution. The authors suggest further studies, using this method, of neurotic females, both prostitute and non-prostitute.