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What were societal attitudes towards prostitution

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What were societal attitudes towards prostitution

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Joyce,F.(2013) Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century: In search of the "Great Social Evil". Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research. 1(1).

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Joyce,F.(2013) Prostitution in the Nineteenth Century: In search of the "Great Social Evil". Reinvention: An International Journal of Undergraduate Research. 1(1).

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Poverty is this why they turned to prostitution

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Poverty is this why they turned to prostitution

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Remsen,A.(2016) Industrial Revolution - Prostitution The impact of the industrial revolution on prostitution. [online]. Available from: http://taapworld.wikispaces.com/industiral+-+Prostitution [accessed 28/10/16]

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Remsen,A.(2016) Industrial Revolution - Prostitution The impact of the industrial revolution on prostitution. [online]. Available from: http://taapworld.wikispaces.com/industiral+-+Prostitution [accessed 28/10/16]

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Women needing to work what effect did this have?

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Women needing to work what effect did this have?

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Wojtczak,H.(2009) British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance. Prostitution in the 1700s and 1800s. [online]. Available from: http://www.historyof women.org/pros.html [accessed 28/1016].

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Wojtczak,H.(2009) British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance. Prostitution in the 1700s and 1800s. [online]. Available from: http://www.historyof women.org/pros.html [accessed 28/1016].

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What was it really like to live in Whitechapel, London in 1888? - Jack The Ripper Tour

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What was it really like to live in Whitechapel, London in 1888? - Jack The Ripper Tour

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Gas lamp lit streets and foggy dark alleys didn't offer the residents of Whitechapel too much in the way of an inspiring backdrop by which to lead their lives. The area was steeped in poverty and all manner of crime and disease. Growing up in this part of London offered a challenge in itself; many children were seen as a strain on their parents' resources, and two in every ten died before reaching five years old.

Needless to say that Whitechapel offered a breeding ground for crime and poor behavioural habits, including murder, prostitution and violence. Vicious circles were rarely broken in such poor districts. The lack of work and money would lead women and girls to prostitution, a service in high demand by those wishing to escape their grim realities. The women, commonly referred to as 'unfortunates' owned only what they wore and carried in their pockets, their deeds would pay for their bed for the night. However, a lack of contraception meant that unorthodox abortions were performed in dirty facilities, including back streets. This, of course, fed into the circle of disease and many women would die of infection from these ill-performed surgeries, or from ingesting chemicals or poison.

While the streets were lined with the starving, penniless inhabitants of the drab and dark capital, the insides of the houses throughout the borough were no less uninviting. Many were makeshift brothels and offered a bed and a room to those wishing to escape and form a living. However, this was a dangerous trade, as disease was passed from person to person very quickly and doctors did not come cheap.

Housing was extremely over-crowded, with entire families or groups of strangers crammed into a single room for cooking, eating and sleeping. They would share beds or sleep on the floor, with rags covering broken windows and often flea or insect-infested rooms. These damp and cold conditions offered an ideal climate for further disease and sickness to multiply.

Surviving in the late 19th century came through 'sweated' labour, like tailoring, boot making, and making matchboxes. The premises would more than likely be in small, cramped, dusty rooms with little to no natural light. Horrible living and working conditions resulted in large amounts of the population turning to drink to cope. Pubs and music halls were many in number in the East End, and drink was cheap. All of Jack the Ripper's victims were addicted to alcohol; some believe this would have made them easier targets for the killer.

It is difficult to imagine such dank and fearful times, and to picture how it was people managed to spend their lives in them. However, they did, and this blog has hopefully given you some insight into the reality of life in Whitechapel, 1888.

Most of the street names have been changed in and around Whitechapel, however, with reference to old street maps it is possible to identify particular locations and landmarks. So why not get down to London and see for yourself some of the remains of 1888; in particular the locations of where Jack the Ripper's victims were found, all of which are visited on Jack the Ripper tours.

The Jack the Ripper Casebook

88 Whitechapel High Street, London, London Borough of Tower Hamlets E1 7QX, United Kingdom
*Disclaimer: The Jack the Ripper Tour contains graphic descriptions, stories and images that some people may find upsetting. Parental guidance is advised.

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What was it really like to live in Whitechapel, London in 1888?

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Gas lamp lit streets and foggy dark alleys didn't offer the residents of Whitechapel too much in the way of an inspiring backdrop by which to lead their lives. The area was steeped in poverty and all manner of crime and disease.

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TAAPWorld - Industrial Revolution - Prostitution

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TAAPWorld - Industrial Revolution - Prostitution

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TAAPWorld - Industrial Revolution - Prostitution

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Final Projects 20th Century Technology - Muther Asa- Violence Equality for Women-Aberg International Sports-Thomas Human RIghts Dave Migration in the Twentieth Century by Derick Buffum Modern Religions Sports in the 20th Century- k.burke Women, ethnic, class-consciousness Other 20th Century Latin America China 1900 to 1989 B8 China 1900 to 89

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British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance

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British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance

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British Women's Emancipation since the Renaissance

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a feminist site charting the emancipation of british women since the renaissance

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Victorian Prostitution - The Great Social Evil - YouTube

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Victorian Prostitution - The Great Social Evil - YouTube

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Children Who Built Victorian Britain Part

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Victorian Prostitution - The Great Social Evil

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Prostitution was seen as one of the greatest social problems in the Victorian era, but why did the Victorians think that prostitution was acceptable in some circumstances and not in others? Find out in this week's episode of Victorians Exposed. Victorians Exposed - a series of history vlogs centred around the weird, wonderful, and surprising aspects of Victorian history.

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What was the place of prostitution in 19th-century society? Judith Flanders looks at documents and publications that provide an insight into attitudes towards the profession.

Any discussion of prostitution in the 19th century must begin by saying we have no idea of the numbers involved. In 1791, a police magistrate estimated (and he used the words 'estimate' and 'conjecture') that there were 50,000 prostitutes in London. Yet the word 'prostitute' was not used entirely the way we would use it today, i.e. to refer only to women sold their bodies for sex. In the 19th century, many people used it more widely, to refer to women who were living with men outside marriage, or women who had had illegitimate children, or women who perhaps had relations with men, but for pleasure rather than money. Certainly at least half this figure of 50,000 women consisted of unmarried women living with a partner, while only 20,000 referred to what we would today call prostitutes. Even so, that 20,000-plus is still a much higher figure than the police and court reports of the period indicate, yet by 1817, a figure of 80,000 was being used, which appears to be the 50,000 women (even though half weren't prostitutes at all), extrapolated for the rise in population.

William Acton, a surgeon, said he had 'counted 185 [prostitutes] in the course of a walk home'. His likely route would have taken him past several areas known for streetwalkers, so he may have passed many working women. But short of accosting each one, it seems likely he based his judgements on appearance: women who dressed or behaved in ways men considered inappropriate were deemed to be whores.

From the little information we have, we know that most women who earned their living from selling sex were working class, the majority taking up with men from their own socio-economic background before going out on the streets. The more fortunate, usually in the West End and the prosperous suburbs, worked as prostitutes for a few years, while saving up to get married. One woman said as much: 'she had got tired of service, wanted to see life and be independent; & so she had become a prostitute...She...enjoyed it very much, thought it might raise her & perhaps be profitable'. After three years, she had saved up enough to become the landlady of a coffee-house.

Most, however, spent long hours in the wet and the cold. Some worked in the red-light districts, others in their own neighbourhoods. The dockyards had a large population of prostitutes, and Granby Street, beside Waterloo Station was notorious, for women 'half naked' in the windows. Nancy, in Oliver Twist, is fairly typical in that she works not far from where she lives, in Clerkenwell, a notorious slum-district in London, while her long-term partner, Bill Sikes, has much the same background as her own. Yet, given the constraints of what could be written at the time, we don't know that Nancy is what today we would think of as a prostitute. Her only partner may well be Sikes, and if that is so, she is defined merely through their lack of marriage, like half the women counted by the police-magistrate in the first paragraph. Certainly we never learn that she has clients, or that she walks the streets, or is supported by other men. Whatever the case, Dickens portrays her sympathetically - after all, she dies to save Oliver - which disturbed many of his middle-class readers. Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, was clear: 'I don't like those things...in reality, and therefore I don't wish them represented,' Queen Victoria reported he had said. (She, by contrast, thought the book as a whole was 'excessively interesting'.)

Colour illustrations from 1911 edition of Oliver Twist

Illustration by George Cruikshank depicting Nancy meeting with Mr Brownlow and Rose Maylie, from a 1911 edition of Oliver Twist.

Usage terms: Public Domain

The Favourite Poems of Thomas Hood, with illustrations by Doré

Thomas Hood's poem 'The Bridge of Sighs' is a stereotypical 19 th century dramatisation of prostitution: the 'fallen woman' is fated to die. Illustration by Gustave Doré, 1872.

Usage terms: Public Domain

Dress played a great part in recognizing street-walkers, for otherwise it was hard to tell. 'Walter', the pseudonymous author of an 11-volume erotic memoir, wrote of a women holding up their skirts, 'the common habit of even respectable women'. The only difference was prostitutes 'hold them up just a little higher'. But how high was 'a little higher'? To be sure, Walter had to approach, asking 'Will you come with me?' Only when she agreed, could he be certain.

Touch for Touch: satirical print depicting a prostitute

Satirical illustration by Thomas Rowlandson depicting a woman whom the artist identifies as a prostitute by her clothing: a low bust line, shortened dress and displayed ankles, 19th century.

Usage terms: Public Domain

If prostitutes were only recognisable when they were approached, it meant a lot of respectable women were importuned in the streets, as could be seen from a series of letters in the Times in 1862. A man complained that his daughters had been followed down Oxford Street by 'scoundrels' making lewd suggestions; one reader replied saying she was never accosted, and perhaps the girls' dress or behaviour had encouraged these men? Others joined in, until a magazine suggested that the answer was for women to dress in ugly clothes and keep their heads down.

The English Spy

Illustration by Robert Cruikshank from The English Spy by Charles Molloy Westmacott, 1825-26. Cruikshank and Westmacott use clothing and coded language to imply that these women are prostitutes.

Usage terms: Public Domain

More than anything, a woman's lack of respectability was signalled by her presence in a place of public entertainment. In the late 1830s or early 1840s, a series of small books, The Swell's Night Guides were published, listing the advantages and drawbacks of various theatres for men of pleasure. At one, men were allowed backstage if they tipped the usher, another theatre had boxes furnished with couches, the boxes of a third had doors that locked, to prevent unexpected visitors.

The Swell's Night Guide also gave advice on how to approach actresses. It warned men not to offer them money, but to say they wanted to hire them for private theatricals. This throws a startling light on how Dickens's friends might have perceived his relationship with Ellen 'Nelly' Ternan, for whom Dickens, aged 45, had left his wife: he had hired the 18-year-old actress to perform in private theatricals.

The New Swell's Night Guide

The Swell's Night Guides listed the establishments (the 'introducing houses', 'West-End walks', 'chanting slums' and 'dossing kens') at which men could find prostitutes.

Usage terms: Public Domain

This was the world of heterosexual commercial sex. That there was a homosexual commercial world is certain, but most information we have comes from court cases, due to the fact that homosexuality was illegal at this time. A few dozen report the closures of gay brothels, or pubs, but the most popular locations were the parks and the streets, particularly those near barracks.

'Closing scene at the Old Bailey': newspaper coverage of the Oscar Wilde trial

Newspaper coverage of the trial of Oscar Wilde for 'acts of gross indecency' with another man, from the Illustrated Police News, 4 May 1895.

Usage terms: Public Domain

A diary tells on one such meeting, its author an Englishman living in Venice, but visiting London in the late 1840s. He cruised regularly: 'Fine. Tried my luck once more. I sat in the Park; but so shy that I cd make [illegible] nothing.' 'Fun & Folly...Saw J.B. We went up to Albany St.' Later he filled in the scanty details of his meeting with 'J.B.', a trooper named Jack Brand: 'I saw you in all your beauty, smiling as your gallant charger reared & pranced...And then in the [sentry] Box I spoke to you, & after Parade we met for five minutes, & you told me your name' That evening, 'at the Arch at Hyde Park Corner met my poor Boy,' where they rented a room. The story continued, a casual commercial pick-up transforming into a relationship. But after only a few months Brand died of cholera, leaving his grieving lover behind.

Footnotes

[1] Derek Hudson, Munby, Man of Two Worlds: the life and diaries of Arthur J. Munby, 1828-1910 (London: J. Murray, 1972), p.40.

[2] The Times, 7 January 1862. Note that responses were printed on subsequent days.

[3] 'Rape of the Glances, Saturday Review, 1 February 1862, pp.124-5.

[4] Edward Leeves, Leaves from a Victorian Diary (London: Alison, 1985) , pp. 31, 32, 108, 118.

Judith Flanders is a historian and author who focussed on the Victorian period. Her most recent book The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London was published in 2012.

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What was the place of prostitution in 19th-century society? Judith Flanders looks at documents and publications that provide an insight into attitudes towards the profession. Any discussion of prostitution in the 19th century must begin by saying we have no idea of the numbers involved.

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Early and Mid-Victorian Attitudes towards Prostitution

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Early and Mid-Victorian Attitudes towards Prostitution

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Early and Mid-Victorian Attitudes towards Prostitution

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The number of prostitutes in Victorian London confounded and astonished foreigners. Flora Tristan, a French woman writing in 1840, recounted a summer visit to Waterloo Road where. "in every window and doorway women were laughing and joking with their protectors. Half dressed, some of them naked to the waist, they were a revolting sight.

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Prostitution and the Nineteenth Century: In Search of the 'Great Social Evil'

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Prostitution and the Nineteenth Century: In Search of the 'Great Social Evil'

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prostitution and the nineteenth century: in search of the 'great social evil'

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Prostitution and the Nineteenth Century: In Search of the 'Great Social Evil'

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During the nineteenth century prostitution became labeled as "The Great Social Evil" by contemporaries. This article attempts to unravel some of the complexities in the circumstances surrounding this labeling by Victorians through the investigation of some of the problems and controversies which prostitution raised in society.

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10 Fascinating Facts About Prostitution In The Victorian Era - Listverse

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10 Fascinating Facts About Prostitution In The Victorian Era - Listverse

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Facts about prostitution in Victorian times

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While history books and romantic novels from England's Victorian Era depict people as being very uptight, there were actually more brothels than there were schools. It is estimated that roughly 80,000 women were working as prostitutes in London alone, which reveals how sex-obsessed the culture truly was.

Prostitutes were called "fallen women," because they were seen as an example of what fine, upstanding women in society should never become. However, prostitution was legal and even encouraged in many circles, because it was believed that men needed an outlet for the sexual desires that they were forced to repress in their daily lives. It also allowed many women opportunities to earn wages that they could have never have earned otherwise.

10 Prostitution Was The Highest-Paying Job For A Woman

The only career options for women during the Victorian era were low-paying professions, and many had dangerous working conditions. There were street vendors (who assisted their husbands with their businesses), factory workers, and shop girls. If a woman was very lucky, she could be a household servant in the estate of a lord or lady.

Even educated women who learned high-level skills at business colleges, like typing and shorthand, only made an average of £25 per year. That still wasn't enough money for women to support themselves or their children without the aid of a husband.

Prostitution was the one and only job where a woman could have shorter work hours and earn high wages in cash without depending on a husband to support her. If she was exceptionally beautiful, she could earn enough to achieve total financial independence. If a lower-class woman could afford nice clothes and the finer things in life, it most likely meant that she was a prostitute.

9 There Were Three Levels Of Prostitutes

While all prostitutes had to do similar work, there were three levels that a woman could fall into. The lowest class were young women who worked in brothels. They were forced to sleep with whichever men the madame assigned to them and often lived in dirty living conditions.

The middle-class prostitutes were independent women who had their own apartments as well as streetwalkers. They could pick and choose their own clients. This meant that no madame or pimp was taking a huge chunk of their profits. However, being an independent prostitute meant that a woman wouldn't have the protection of the brothel community or on-site medical examiners.

The highest class of prostitutes were women who were beautiful and educated enough to only work for only high-class clients, namely aristocrats or members of parliament. Some worked exclusively for one man. Many of these courtesans ended up marrying their benefactors.

8 Married Women Sold Themselves On The Side

Since many of the lower-class jobs simply didn't pay enough to support a large family, it was common for the wives of street vendors to offer their sexual services on the side while they helped their husbands run the family business.

Husbands were completely fine with allowing other men to sleep with their wives. In fact, 50 percent of street vendors' wives were reported to moonlight as prostitutes. In some instances, the wife happily worked as a prostitute, since it was a way for her to earn income. In other instances, the husband was acting as a pimp, using his wife as his property, lending her out as he pleased.

Many single working women (seamstresses, shop girls, and servants) also worked as casual prostitutes to supplement their low incomes. However, if it was discovered that a woman had lost her virginity before marriage, it meant that she was "fallen" and doomed to continue living a life of prostitution.

7 Child Prostitution Was Legal

During the Victorian era, the age of consent was only 13 years old. Child labor still existed at the time. Many lower-class people saw their children as commodities because they could bring income into the family. Boys and girls as young as 11 or 12 could pass as 13-year-olds and had no choice but to enter the trade if their parents sold them into it.

W.T. Stead, who has been called the very first investigative journalist, published " The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon" in Pall Mall Magazine. During his investigation, Stead took it upon himself to prove how easy it was to purchase the virginity of a 13-year-old girl. For a mere £5, Stead purchased someone's daughter, whom he called "Lily." This covered the cost of a medical examination to ensure that she was a virgin, and a cut also went to the brothel owner. Since she was still a child, Lily's parents, who were alcoholics, were the ones who took the money she earned as a prostitute.

After confirming that she was a virgin, the medical examiner recommended that Stead drug her with chloroform so she would be unconscious and not put up a struggle while he raped her. The public was horrified when they read Stead's articles, and his work led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, which made the age of consent 16 years old.

W.T. Stead is seen as a hero for fighting for the rights of women, and he was nominated with a Nobel Peace Prize. He died on the Titanic in 1912. Today, the Stead Memorial Fund continues to fight against sex trafficking.

6 Themed Brothels

Like today, men of Victorian England had varying desires. However, they generally couldn't express what they wanted sexually in the confines of marriage. Proper women were not encouraged to be sexual at all and reserved sex for having children.

There were a variety of brothels dedicated to different themes: Traditional, S&M, cross-dressing, gay brothels, and others were willing to fulfill kinky fantasies. For whatever reason, spanking was a very popular theme in pornography, and there were entire brothels dedicated to it. Flagellation brothels were places one could go to be whipped by either women or men.

Sadly, there were also brothels that catered to pedophiles by specializing in young girls and virgins. Since there was a very real fear of venereal disease, some men only wanted to deflower virgins, because there was a guarantee that they wouldn't catch anything. Only wealthy men could afford to deflower a virgin; soldiers or other working- to middle-class men typically didn't have this option.

5 Prostitutes Were Educated

In the 1800s, many women actually did receive a formal education. After receiving tutoring from governesses, high-class women were sent to finishing schools, which taught them social skills, etiquette, and "accomplishments" like drawing, playing the piano, and dancing, which would make them attractive for marriage. However, they were rarely taught any skills that could actually earn a living.

The majority of working-class women couldn't read or write. Henry Mayhew wrote that while only 5 percent of low-class prostitutes could read or write, it was common for them to eagerly ask men to read newspapers to them so they could stay up-to-date on current events. Higher-class prostitutes learned to read and write.

Many women in the higher classes weren't educated in politics or current events, since they were expected to be the "angel of the home." This gave prostitutes an advantage in terms of becoming more cultured and knowledgeable of the world around them.

4 Prostitute Sporting Guides

Men of wealthy Victorian society could look through sporting guides, which were very similar to shopping catalogues. These books detailed prostitutes' ages, physical descriptions, personality type, and their cost, usually £2-£3 or £5 for a virgin. This way, a man could decide ahead of time between the various women he could have sex with.

In Victorian England, one of the most famous guides was The Swell's Night Guide Through The Metropolis. It depicted prostitution as just one of the many exciting things that a young man could do while he was visiting London, much like the travel guides one finds in hotels today.

There were also fast life guides, which were a sort of travel guide that allowed men to find various brothels, gamble, and drink. Nightlife guides explained where men could listen to music in clubs as well as find high-stakes gambling and high-class prostitutes.

3 Charles Dickens Tried To Save Fallen Women

In 1847, Charles Dickens, together with a millionaire heiress and philanthropist named Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, decided to pay for the establishment of Urania Cottage. It was a place where prostitutes, former prisoners, and women from workhouses had the option to escape their often dangerous, tragic lives. The aim of Urania Cottage was to teach these women other skills that they could use to transition to other jobs.

Dickens wrote a pamphlet titled An Appeal to Fallen Women, encouraging young ladies to go to Urania Cottage for a fresh start. While he was doing a public service in helping these women, it was also part of his writing process. He interviewed many of them, hearing their life stories. Dickens would then use their stories to inspire his fiction. In David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, he created characters that could be classified as "fallen women" and depicted them as victims of circumstance rather than evil manipulators. His writing helped Victorian audiences sympathize with these women on a human level.

2 Forced Medical Examinations

Some of the most frequent customers at brothels were young men in the military. Venereal disease was so common in the 1800s that it killed just as many military men as war. It also left many able-bodied men unfit for battle.

In 1864, in order to prevent the spread of disease, The Contagious Diseases Act was passed. In towns that were situated near naval bases, any woman (even if she wasn't a prostitute) who was suspected of carrying a sexually transmitted infection was forced to undergo a medical examination. If a woman resisted, she would be strapped down to a table. If it was discovered that she was infected, she would be forced into hospitalization for up to three months.

While the risk of contracting venereal diseases was high for prostitutes, they were actually much healthier than average working-class women because they did not have to endure grueling 14-hour workdays in factories.

1 Reformatories

Although prostitution was legal, many ladies of the night were arrested for crimes like public drunkenness or gathering in the streets. Those behaviors were considered illegal under the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847. Many of those small crimes resulted in a year in prison.

There were also places called reformatories, which aimed to rehabilitate fallen women. These were often run by religious groups. The attitudes of the people who ran the reformatories was that prostitutes acted out on their own selfish desires.

In many ways, living in a reformatory was worse than jail. They required women to stay for a minimum of two years to ensure that they were "cured." Women were also required to show a deep sense of self-hatred for their evil actions and a desire for forgiveness from God for their sins in order to qualify for housing. Reformatories required women to wake up at 5:00 AM, pray four times per day, attend religious services twice a day, work hard labor, and be locked in their bedrooms by 8:00 PM.

Shannon Quinn is a writer and entrepreneur in the Philadelphia Area. You can see her other work at shannquinn.wordpress.com.

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10 Fascinating Facts About Prostitution In The Victorian Era - Listverse

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While history books and romantic novels from England's Victorian Era depict people as being very uptight, there were actually more brothels than there were schools. It is estimated that roughly 80,000 women were working as prostitutes in London alone, which reveals how sex-obsessed the culture truly was.

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A History Of Prostitution: How Old Is The Sex Trade? - Sabotage Times

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A History Of Prostitution: How Old Is The Sex Trade? - Sabotage Times

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How old is prostitution

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Wherever we find evidence of human culture, we find evidence of prostitution. When the earliest known human societies emerged in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia, the sex trade evolved alongside temples, customs, markets and laws. Beginning in the third millennium B.C, the Sumerians, the first major inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, worshiped the goddess Ishtar, a deity that would remain a constant throughout Mesopotamia's Babylonian and Assyrian empires. Ishtar was the goddess of love and war, symbolized by the planet Venus, and was born anew as a maiden every morning only to become a 'whore' every evening - the etymology of the word lying in the Indo-European root meaning 'desire.'

Ironically, Mesopotamian religious practices gave birth to the prostitution trade, as women in Ishtar's service would help men who offered money to her temples with the 'sacred' powers of their bodies. Achieving a priority of communication with the goddess from their fertility, only women enjoyed this religious position. Thus Ishtar temples became knowledge centers concerning birth, birth control, and sexuality. Priestesses became the nurses and sacred sex therapists of these early societies. Men of all rank could hire these women and, in turn, make an offering to the goddess from whose temple the prostitute came. The king would also take part in certain sacred sex rituals with the high priestesses in conjunction with grain harvests: the fertility of the earth was secured through a ritual that celebrated the fertility of the womb. The king, regent of the earth, and priestess, regent of the goddess, coupled in this highly symbolic manner that celebrates the sexual process that brought both grain and people into being. Thus Ishtar became known as the protector of all prostitutes. Prostitution, or at least the religious prostitution involved in these sacred sex rituals, existed without taboo or prohibition, as evidenced in some of our species' earliest literary works.

In one such work, The Epic of Gilgamesh, we are introduced to a nameless Harimtu woman - a term used by famed lawgiver Hammurabi which denoted lower-class prostitutes - who lavishes Gilgamesh's rival Enkidu with many variations of love, from the maternal and mystical to the sexual and orgiastic. The prostitute emerges not just as a purveyor of sex but as a force of civilization: the harlot literally educates the savage in love and care of the body. This is certainly antithetical to the stigma prostitution harbors today, where the trade itself is seen as sexually primitive, an unfortunate remnant of a less civilized and more phallocentric past. The goddess of love was also seen as being connected to the prostitutes - including males - that operated beyond the temples, often under the supervision of a madam. Theologically, all were seen as being in service to the goddess of love, but in Babylonian law there remained legal distinctions between the priestesses and the roadside/inn prostitutes.

More... 5 Sex Tips For Internet Porn Addicts Confessions Of A Prostitute #1: Why I Do It

Prostitution also arises in the accounts of Herodotus, who recounted his observation of this originally Sumerian religious sexual practice among the Babylonians thousands of years later in the 5th century B.C. He noted that most young women lost their virginity in the temples of Ishtar to unknown men. Similarly, he tells of Syrian women who offered their bodies for money so that they would be able to take their earnings to their own love goddess, Astarte.

Interestingly, prostitution seems to have been an imported practice in Ancient Egypt, and was practiced apart from their patriarchal religion. The trade persisted in the region through the Hellenic and Roman periods.

So how did the sex trade transition from the scared procession of fertility cults to the most sordid of commercial transactions? In the West at least, this history will involve a traversal through a new period of religious zealousness. The overall distinction here is between the early Semitic nomads, whose economy was more cattle-oriented, and who gave primacy to a single male god, and the pantheistic agricultural societies that worshiped the female fertility that they linked to the fertility of the field.

The first account of prostitution in the Bible is found in Genesis, where Judah - one of Jacob's twelve sons, descended from Abraham - paid the bride price, in accordance with Israelite custom, for Tamar and gave her to his eldest son. Long story short, she eventually went to the second son, who refused to copulate with her. Through no fault of her own, Tamar was sent back to her relatives in shame as a poor investment, as she produced no children. Determined to prove that the fault lay with Judah's sons, she approached his tents disguised and exchanged sex with Judah for a goat. Tamar became pregnant, and avoided harsh punishment for being a pregnant widow that shamed Judah and his sons by revealing keepsakes given to the prostitute employed by Judah. Through prostitution, Tamar proved that it was her husbands who failed in conception.

These narratives demonstrate that a bride's ability to produce offspring, especially of the male variety, was integral to her social value. Rape was thus seen as a violation of property, not of person. The sale of wives and daughters was commonplace, as was informal sex, in Canaan. Since tribal honor was in some measure tied to the fidelity and fertility of the women, only foreign prostitutes were tolerated. Thus the Semitic prostitute had to practice from sufficient distance from her male relatives with clients that were unknown to her brothers and fathers.

The proliferation of foreign gods, temples and priestesses also led to a rise in the sex trade on the Canaanite periphery. Prostitution began to become more pejorative, a sign of immorality, corruption, and foreign deities. One of the Semitic peoples' most impervious enemies was a lecherous woman: the foreign Queen Jezebel, married to King Ahab, favored the foreign gods Baal and Ashera, and was subsequently depicted as purveying orgiastic cults and being both sexually and commercially covetous. According to the story, she spawned a religious war that ended with her defeat at Elijah's hands. Prostitution became part of the rhetoric of the religious war between the adherents of Yahweh and those of Ashera and Baal. Prostitutes were accorded more power, Succubus-like in their ability to lure young men astray. Semitic prophets utilized this image of the prostitute in their thunderous proclamations and condemnations.

The women of Ancient Greece were also similarly ensnared in the domestic sphere: even during the period of Athenian democracy, only adult males were considered full citizens. Sexual schools rose in the Greek city states, where girls would be purchased from slave markets and trained to provide revenue by selling sex. Many young slaves prostituted themselves to earn money, which meant that, being women or slaves, prostitutes consisted of those excluded from Athens' Popular Assembly.

The famed homosexuality of Ancient Greece was not without its own strictures: while it was acceptable to enjoy the sexual company of younger males - often through the insertion of the penis through clenched thighs - it was always feminizing, and thus degrading, to be placed in the position of the woman, in the position where one was penetrated and not penetrating. Thus it was much more taboo for men to ask for money in return for sex.

As in Sumerian and Babylonian societies, there existed a hierarchy of prostitutes. The elite hetaerae - a term always denoting female prostitute entertainers - made substantially more money, and had to be freeborn; this meant that slave prostitutes were motivated to earn enough money so that they could purchase their freedom and thereby increase their income. However, the expenses of this upper class were also greater: they offered symbolic gifts to the gods and had to maintain beautiful bodies and homes. Besides reading, maintaining physical beauty consumed much of their time. The hetaerae also enjoyed a social influence that far exceeded that of the non-prostitute women: some became famous for their clientele, others for their beauty, and they and their interactions were often recorded in some manner. The , on the other hand, could be either male or female and were accessible to all classes of men.

The Roman Republic shared many commonalities with the Hellenes, and prostitution was among them. During the Empire, however, prostitutes were increasingly comprised of the overwhelming slave class. Roman prostitution was also highly categorized, yet legal and licensed. While being a prostitute could indicate your membership in the lowest social, economic and political rank, this same connotation of status did not apply to your patron: those of a higher social status could purchase the service without incurring major consequences. However, men of such status would usually have the economic means to engage the more professional service of a learned courtesan who themselves could become independently wealthy. As we will see in Japan, these sex workers were skilled in the arts and could become coveted party guests. Brothel owners could include those were only renting rooms to prostitutes or those who oversaw the women and their business more strictly. Actors, dancers, and other members of the lower entertainment class were also seen as people from whom sex could be purchased. As with many earlier periods of our history, the moral valence of prostitution was not nearly as strong as it is today.

In Mesoamerica, the Aztecs called buildings where prostitution was permitted by political and religious authority cihuacalli, meaning 'house of women.' Centered around the goddess of 'filth,' these brothels were closed compounds. As seen throughout most of our history, prostitution is 'ghettoized,' relegated to specific spaces and increasingly treated as a (sometimes necessary) vice.

Despite Islam's strict forbidding of prostitution, sexual slavery persisted and, some would say, persists today. Slaves served as concubines in the harems of the East, while fixed-term marriages - where the length of marriage was outlined at its inception - allowed for a persistence of the sex trade following the proliferation of Islam. During the Ottoman Empire, the famed Turkish baths existed as places where masseurs (often young men) could work as sex workers. We can again see the trend of prostitution being subsumed under another trade to keep it within a contained urban and social space.

Prostitutes also enjoyed a particular status within Hindu religious practice. Devadasis were girls who were symbolically married, and thus pledged, to a deity; their responsibilities included the care and maintenance of the temple. Many also exercised religious prostitution, and this practice proliferated as the arrival of West Asian invaders precipitated the decline of the temple status and the turn towards prostitution as a means of income, as the temples lost their patron kings. This system of religious dedication was outlawed in India in 1988.

In Japan's Edo period (1600-1868), oiran were courtesans who were also entertainers. Delegated to the city's outskirts, brothels became quarters that offered a variation of entertainment. Like the Greek hetaerae, these women were elite prostitutes who could achieve significant social status. Artistic skill, along with beauty and education, determined a courtesan's rank, and only the most highly ranked entertainers were deemed suitable for the daimyo, the military leader of Japan. The oiran gave way to the geisha, who was much more accessible and did not sell sex, only entertainment in the form of dance, poetry and music. It was, and is, a grave and offensive mistake to attempt to purchase sex from a geisha.

With the rise of Catholic Europe, all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage were regarded as sinful. However, prostitution persisted in urban environments and was seen as a lesser evil that prevented other, more deviant, sexual behaviors. The composition of the prostitute class also moved away from slaves and was revived as a business that was relegated to specific areas, whether it be outside the town perimeter, confined to a particular street, or kept within a designated building. Specific districts were allocated for the trade, and some brothels even came to be owned, and of course used, by religious authorities.

Eventually prostitution became a prosecutable offense. As European colonization continuously expanded, legislation increasingly enacted a tighter control of the sex trade. Britain's Contagious Diseases Act is one such example of the attempt to curb the spread of venereal disease and represented a trend of increasing political regulation over the practice. For example, physical examinations could be compulsory and prostitutes forced to undergo them.

The sex trade persisted, and continues to persist, in the face of moral (and sometimes legal) condemnation. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (the major force of prohibition) contributed to the outlawing of prostitution in almost all of the United States in the early 20thcentury. Countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom would not overtly outlaw prostitution, but would enact legislature that severely restricts the trade and the activities that surround it.

Today the sex trade continues as it always has, with many governments officially maintaining its illegality, while some restrict certain sex trade-related activities and others keep it legal and regulated. In a world where we cannot, for the most part, attribute to prostitution a religious significance, it seems that the answer in dealing with such a trade is to allow it to persist - that is, to allow both men and women to continue to choose their own profession, while also ensuring that such individuals have the full support of the law in earning their living. Awareness (both social and legal) corresponds to safety for those who choose to enter the sex trade. So let's be aware...that we can pay people to love us!
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A History Of Prostitution: How Old Is The Sex Trade?

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Wherever we find evidence of human culture, we find evidence of prostitution. When the earliest known human societies emerged in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia, the sex trade evolved alongside temples, customs, markets and laws.

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Reformers and moral campaigners had sought to control prostitution in the 1880's. But the police were reluctant to prosecute prostitutes