Why did women pose for "those" postcards in Victorian times?

This is a bit of background I wrote for my as yet unpubished book, Sex Sells, which is about women in photography, on the stage, and in film from Victorian Time up to the 1960's.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND:  WOMEN AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

In Victorian and Edwardian times, if a woman was not of the upper classes and if she was unmarried, there was not a lot of opportunity available to her, either in education or in occupation. In her book, In Prison and Out,  Hesba Stretton describes the lot of a fictional orphaned girl thus:

"The mother was buried; and what was to become of Bess? No one was bound to take any care of her. She was old enough to see after herself. There was the workhouse open to her, if she chose to apply for admission; but if she entered it, it would be to be sent out to service as a workhouse girl, in the course of a few weeks or months, untrained and untaught, fit only for the miserable drudgery of the lowest service. There was not strength enough in her slight ill-fed frame to enable her to keep body and soul together at laundry-work, which was the only work she knew anything of. There was no home, however wretched, to give her shelter, if she continued to sell water-cresses in the streets." (1)

A woman in Europe could work as a hat maker, slaving from dawn to dusk and being poisoned by the chemicals used in the work, or take in sewing, or be a governess or a companion if she were refined enough. She could be a nurse, at that time not a highly regarded profession. Most of the work that a woman of lower social status could do was exhausting, poorly paid, and mind-numbingly dull. Even in America, an unwed woman was generally either a teacher or a drudge for her family.

No wonder, then, that many girls turned to prostitution, the stage, or other frowned-upon professions. In this atmosphere, it is easy to see how a fairly young and reasonably attractive woman might not be unhappy to take all or most of her clothes off for a camera.

As the 1920's approached, there was a new sense of freedom in the air. The "flappers" were intent on breaking the rigid rules of society. For some of them, posing for pictures may have been an act of defiance, another way to express this new liberty. There was a
"naturist" movement in Europe, aimed at making honest nudity acceptable. All of these things may have made it easier for photographers to find models (although there are still very few models who did not remain anonymous, for the laws were still very strict.)

Thus, we see that is was fairly easy to find subjects for the "naughty" postcards, many of which did not, in fact, even require nudity.