“…The strongest argument that speaks
Against the soul’s eternity is lust,
That wise man’s folly and the fool’s wisdom:
But to grow wild in loose lasciviousness,
Given up to heat and sensual appetite,
Nay to expose your health and strength and name,
Your precious time, and with that time the hope
Of due preferment, advantageous means
Of any worth end, to the stale use,
The common bosom, of a money-creature,
One that sells human flesh, a mangonist!”

-Malheureux in The Dutch Courtesan (I.i.81-91)

“List, then: a bawd, first for her profession or vocation, it is most worshipful of all the twelve companies; for as that trade is most honorable that sells the best commodities – as the draper is more worshipful than the pointmaker, the silkman more worshipful than the draper, and the goldsmith more honorable than both… so the bawd above all. Her shop has the best ware; for where these sell but cloth, satins, and jewels, she sells divine virtues as virginity, modesty, and such rare gems, and those not like a petty chapman, by retail, but like a great merchant, by wholesale…And who are her customers? Not base corn-cutters or sowgelders, but most rare wealthy knights and most bountiful lords are her customers. Again, whereas no trade or vocation profiteth but by the loss and displeasure of another – as the merchant thrives not but by the licentiousness of giddy and unsettled youth, the lawyer but by the vexation of his client, the physician but by the maladies of his patient – only my smooth-gumm’d bawd lives by others’ pleasure, and only grows rich by others’ rising. O merciful gain! O righteous income!… ‘tis most certain they must needs both live well and die well, since most commonly they live in Clerkenwell and die in Bridewell.”

-Cocledemoy in The Dutch Courtesan (I.ii.29-54)

The above quotations, taken from John Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan, reflect two opposing perceptions of prostitution -- one condemning the trade for its base exploitation of human lust, the other eulogizing its rightful place among London’s most honorable professions. Though Malheureux makes it a priority to deprecate deviant sexuality, while Cocledemoy seeks a humorous logic to legitimize it, curiously enough, they both call upon the language of commerce and trade to make their arguments. Taking a closer look at how these two quotations function alongside each other, we must ask ourselves, how and why this “exchange-based” logic appears the operative way to discuss sexuality in this particular culture. In other words, in a society that adamantly condemns sexual promiscuity and licentious behavior, why would Marston (through Cocledemoy) choose to "commodify" these behaviors in order to justify them, and in doing so, what does he implicate about the society he is trying to appeal to through such logic? Throughout this section, we will try to answer these questions, while carefully dissecting the relationship between “sex” and “commodity” in Early Modern England, calling upon the The Dutch Courtesan, along with Middleton’s, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, and Skelton’s “The Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng” to contextualize this relationship within the literature of the period.

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