9. Some artists didn’t just stop at sleeping with working girls but courted controversy by living with them
Many gentlemen made use of the services of the many working girls lining the streets of Victorian England. In most cases, they kept such liaisons discreet, especially if they were married or of a certain social standing. A select few men, however, liked to be open about their friendships with ‘women of the night’. As the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti believed, simply sleeping with a prostitute was commonplace and far from scandalous. Befriending such a lady, however, was definitely taboo-breaking and so, for artists such as himself, the perfect way of gaining popular notoriety and attention.
At the same time, many arty, creative types believed that making friends with sex workers was socially transgressive and an effective, albeit a radical, means of breaking down the stifling class divisions of the Victorian era. Few artists and poets went as far as Rosetti and invited working girls to live with them. However, even William Gladstone, the three-time Prime Minister, invited working girls back to his house. The political titan was convinced he could ‘save’ these ‘fallen women’ from a life of sin and would preach to them and pray with them. According to some biographers, however, Gladstone might have got a kick out of being so close to sex workers and from resisting temptation.
