The alternative is perversion or surrender.

To a man of means, who has money to spend, surrender is not very
difficult; he has but to follow the formula. Prostitution among the
upper classes does not offend the eye, and it reveals none of the sores
which deface prostitution as it is practised among the poor. Marriage,
too, does not sit heavily upon the rich. With the poor, however, shame
and surrender walk hand in hand.

To practise the baser forms of prostitution is to elbow all that is most
vile in society, and to sink to its level oneself. Then, to marry
afterwards without adequate means, is a continual act of self-abasement.
It is to be unable to maintain one's convictions, it is to be compelled
to fawn upon one's superiors, and this is more true in Spain than it is
elsewhere, as everything here must be obtained through personal
influence.

Suppose one does not submit? If you do not submit you are lost. You are
condemned irretrievably to perversions, to debility, to hysteria.

You will find yourself slinking about the other sex like a famished
wolf, you will live obsessed by lewd ideas, your mind will solace itself
with swindles and cheats wherewith to provide a solution of the riddle
of existence, you will become the mangy sheep that the shepherd sets
apart from the flock.

Ever since early youth, I have been clearly conscious of this dilemma,
and I have determined and said: "No; I choose the abnormal--give me
hysteria, but submission, never!"