Reddit has a Shitty Ask History section for intentionally stupid questions. Some are funny, some aren’t. This one is a damn good serious question!
I’ve been reading Suttree by Cormac McCarthy, and it seems like back in the ’50s to ’70s there was a brothel district in every city. This impression doesn’t just come from Suttree, but also from other literature like The Stand by Stephen King and Catch-22.Now, it seems like they don’t really exist anymore, or if they do exist, they’re very hard to find.
I got the same impression from reading older novels. A respectable whorehouse is a major part of Cannery Row, written in the 30s.
I guess real whorehouses were gone before my adult life. In the 70s I lived in areas where whorehouses “should” have existed, and I worked night desk in motels where I dealt with whores all the time. Once I shared a house with an OU student who was a high-class escort**. If whorehouses were common, I would have been well situated to see them or hear about them! Whores wouldn’t have been using motels if they had a proper brothel.
** Footnote: She didn’t look like what you’d imagine. She was a veterinary student, scholarly in appearance and manner but well-endowed. Her clients were OKC bankers and petroleum types who wanted good conversation and affection more than a good fuck.
