This paper examines the dramatically different way in which male and female artists portray the same act - an '
indecent proposal'
of money for sexual favors. To facilitate the comparison,
artists are all Dutch painters active in the 1600s. Judith Leyster's "The Proposition" is used as the key female illustration of an indecent
proposal, while a number of her male contemporaries (Baburen, Honthorst, Molenaer, Ter Borch, Vermeer) are examined for the male perspective.