Porgy is the story of a crippled beggar's unconquerable love for Bess, a lady of easy virtue.

Morland got his first real look at the sea when he ran off to Margate and stayed with a rich lady of easy virtue.

Meanwhile, he had become somewhat of an innocent lady-killer, but an experience with an anonymous married lady of easy virtue brought its not uncommon legacy of revulsion and bitterness.

Some commentators have thought that she was a lady of easy virtue, from the epithet free; and indeed the violence of her love and jealousy seems to favour the suspicion: but let us not be too severe; free may signify no more than that she was of a cheerful disposition, and thus of the same temper with her lover: concordes animæ!

No longer was it possible on the street to speak to a lady of easy virtue without causing comment.