Prostitution is known as "the world's oldest profession" for good reason. Prostitution dates as far back as 2400 BC, with the earliest recorded mention of prostitution as an occupation in Sumeria, it is mentioned in The Book Of Moses through the story of Judah and Tamar, legal brothels in 600 BC Greece, municipal brothels in 1350's Italy, the New Orleans red light district of Storyville in the 1890's, and made legal in Amsterdam, Netherlands in Oct. 2000. With a history of well over two-thousand years, why is this still such a stigmatized and criminalized profession?
Sumerian kar.did
engaging in sacred intercourse
The Sumerian word for female prostitute, kar.kid, occurs in the earliest lists of professions dating back to ca. 2400 B.C. These first records describe a temple-bordello operated by Sumerian priests in the city of Uruk. This particular kakum or temple was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar and was the home to three grades of women. The first grade of women were only permitted to perform sexual rituals in the temple, the second group had access to the grounds and catered to visitors, and the third and lowest class lived on the temple grounds. The third class was also free to find customers in the streets. Since kar.kid appears right after nam.lukur... one can assume its connection with temple service.
It is of interest that the term kur-garru, a male prostitute or transvestite entertainer, appears on the same list but together with entertainers. This linkage results from a practice connected with the cult of Ishtar, in which transvestites performed acts using knives. On the same list we find the following female occupations: lady doctor, scribe, barber, cook. During the region of Canaan, a significant portion of temple prostitutes were male. This was also widely practiced in Sardinia and in some of the Phoenician cultures, usually in honor of the goddess Ashtart. Presumably under the influence of the Phoenicians, this practice was developed in other ports of the Mediterranean Sea, such as Erice (Sicily), Locri Epizephiri, Croton, Rossano Vaglio, and Sicca Venerica, with other hypotheses including Asia Minor, Lydia, Syria, and the Etruscans.
In 1075 B.C, Assyrian law distinguished prostitutes from other women by dress in the Code of Assura. "If the wives of a man, or the daughters of a man go out into the street, their heads are to be veiled. The prostitute is not to be veiled. Maidservants are not to veil themselves. Veiled harlots and maidservants shall have their garments seized and 50 blows inflicted on them and bitumen [asphalt or tar like substance] poured on their heads."
Judah and Tamar
Prostitution was commonplace in ancient Israel, with a number of references to prostitution in the Hebrew Bible. One of the most ancient historical records featuring prostitution is believed to be the Books of Moses, when Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, desired to defeat the cruel Jewish custom, and to bear children, notwithstanding her widowhood, she “put her widow’s garments off from her, and covered her with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in an open place.... When Judah saw her he thought her a harlot, for she had covered her face.” The Genesiacal account thus shows that prostitutes, with covered faces, must have been common at the time. It is the more valuable, as it furnishes the particulars of the transaction.
To keep up her disguise, Tamar demands a (goat) kid as her recompense. Judah agrees, and leaves his “signet, and his bracelets, and his staff” as a pledge for the kid. It appears to have been regarded as no dishonor to have commerce with a prostitute, for Judah sends his friend the Adullamite, a man of standing, to deliver the kid; but to defraud the unfortunate woman of her ill-gotten gain must have been considered shameful, for, when Judah learns that she has disappeared, he expresses alarm “lest we be shamed” for not having paid the stipulated price. It may also be noticed, as an illustration of the connection between prostitution and pure domestic morals, that when Judah learns that his daughter-in-law is pregnant, he instantly orders her to be burned for having “played the harlot.”
The Whore of Babylon
In the Book of Revelation, the Whore of Babylon is named "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth". However here the word "whore" could also be translated as "Idolatress". The first Babylonian prostitute was in a place called Hinchinopolises, which arose from the appraised Hinchin family. At the time Hinchinapolis was the center of attraction for all travelers who came to rest in the company of the family's women, who perfected the art of satisfaction. Some ancient scrolls could tell us that the meaning of Hinchin came from the Hebrew Hinam, meaning free, because the males of the family would offer themselves for free.
The Code of Hammurabi was compiled at the start of the reign of the Babylonian king Hammurabi from 1792 to 750 B.C. It includes provisions to protect the inheritance rights of prostitutes. Except for widows, this was the only category of women who had no male providers. The Code reads in part: "If a 'devoted woman' or a prostitute to whom her father has given a dowry and a deed therefore ... then her father die, then her brothers shall hold her field and garden, and give her corn, oil, and milk according to her portion ... If a 'sister of a god' or a prostitute receive a gift from her father, and a deed in which it has been explicitly stated that she may dispose of it as she pleases ... then she may leave her property to whomsoever she pleases."
Mural of Aztec prostitute by Diego Rivera
Among the Aztecs, the Cihuacalli was the name given to the controlled buildings where prostitution was permitted by political and religious authorities. Cihuacalli is a Nahuatl word which means House of Women. The Cihuacalli was a closed compound with rooms, all of which looking over to a central patio. At the center of the patio was a statue of Tlazolteotl, the goddess of purification, steam bath, midwives, filth and a patroness of adulterers. Religious authorities believed women should work as prostitutes, if they wish, only at such premises guarded by Tlazolteotl. It was believed that Tlazolteotl had the power to incite sexual activity, while cleansing the spirit of such acts. Bernal Díaz described numerous male prostitutes among the Aztecs, as well as unmarried temple priests engaging in sodomy. However, Incan prostitutes were segregated from other people and lived under the supervision of a government agent.
In ancient Greece, both women and boys engaged in prostitution. The Greek word for prostitute is pornē or pornai (Gr: πόρνη), derived from the verb pernemi (to sell). The English word pornography, and its corollaries in other languages, are directly derivative of the Greek word pornē. Female prostitutes could be independent and sometimes influential women. They were required to wear distinctive dresses and had to pay taxes. Some similarities have been found between the Greek hetaera and the Japanese oiran, complex figures that are perhaps in an intermediate position between prostitution and courtisanerie. Some prostitutes in ancient Greece, such as Lais were as famous for their company as their beauty, and some of these women charged extraordinary sums for their services.
Pornē woman with her customer
Solon instituted the first of Athens' brothels (oik'iskoi) in the 6th century BC, and with the earnings of this business he built a temple dedicated to Aphrodite Pandemos, goddess of sexual pleasure. Procuring, however, was severely forbidden. In Cyprus (Paphus) and in Corinth, a type of religious prostitution was practiced where the temple counted more than a thousand prostitutes, according to Strabo. Each specialized category had its proper name, so there were the chamaitypa'i, working outdoor (lie-down), the perepatetikes who met their customers while walking (and then worked in their houses), and the gephyrides, who worked near the bridges. Male prostitution was also common in Greece. Adolescent boys usually practiced it, a reflection of the pederastic custom of the time. Slave boys worked the male brothels in Athens, while free boys who sold their favors risked losing their political rights as adults.
Prostitution in ancient Rome was legal, public and widespread. Even Roman men of the highest social status were free to engage prostitutes of either sex without incurring moral disapproval, as long as they demonstrated self-control and moderation in the frequency and enjoyment of sex. Latin literature also often refers to prostitutes. Real-world practices are documented by provisions of Roman law that regulate prostitution. Inscriptions, especially graffiti from Pompeii, uncover the practice of prostitution in Ancient Rome. Some large brothels in the 4th century, when Rome was becoming Christianized, seem to have been counted as tourist attractions and were possibly state-owned. Prostitutes played a role in several Roman religious observances, mainly in the month of April, over which the love and fertility goddess Venus presided.
Fresco on Pompeii brothel wall
While prostitution was so widely accepted, prostitutes were often considered shameful. Most were slaves or former slaves, or if free by birth relegated to the infames, people lacking in social standing and deprived of the protections that most citizens under Roman law received. Prostitution thus reflects the ambivalent attitudes of Romans toward pleasure and sexuality. A registered prostitute was called a meretrix while the unregistered one fell under the broad category prostibulae. There were some similarities between the Ancient Roman and Greek system, but as the Empire grew, prostitutes were often foreign slaves, captured, purchased or raised for the purpose of prostitution. This was sometimes done by large-scale "prostitute farmers" where abandoned children were almost always raised to become prostitutes. Enslavement into prostitution was sometimes used as a legal punishment against criminal free women. Buyers were allowed to inspect naked men and women for sale in private and there was no stigma attached to the purchase of males by a male aristocrat.
Justinian the Great and also known as Saint Justinian the Great in the Eastern Orthodox Church, was the Eastern Roman emperor from 527 to 565. He was known as "the emperor who never sleeps" on account of his work habits. Nevertheless, he seemed to have been amiable and easy to approach. Around 525, he married his mistress, Theodora, in Constantinople. She was by profession a "courtesan" and some twenty years his junior. In earlier times, Justinian could not have married her because of her class, but his uncle, Emperor Justin I, had passed a law allowing intermarriage between social classes. Theodora would become very influential in the politics of the Empire, and later emperors would follow Justinian's precedent in marrying outside the aristocratic class. The marriage caused a scandal, but Theodora would prove to be a shrewd judge of character and Justinian's greatest supporter.
Arab sheikhs
inspecting European sex slave
In the 7th century, the prophet Muhammad declared that prostitution is forbidden. In Islam, prostitution is considered a sin, and Abu Mas'ud Al-Ansari is attributed with saying, "Allah's Apostle forbade taking the price of a dog, money earned by prostitution and the earnings of a soothsayer," (Sahih al-Bukhari, 3:34:439) However, sexual slavery was not considered prostitution and was very common during the Arab slave trade during the Middle Ages and early modern period. Women and girls from the Caucasus, Africa, Central Asia, and Europe were captured and served as concubines in the harems of the Arab World. Ibn Battuta, a Sunni Muslim Moroccan scholar who widely travelled the medieval world, had said several times that he was given or purchased female slaves.
According to Shia Muslims, the prophet Muhammad sanctioned fixed-term marriage, called muta'a in Iraq and sigheh in Iran, which according to some Western writers, has allegedly been used as a legitimizing cover for sex workers, in a culture where prostitution is otherwise forbidden. Officially Sunni Muslims, who make up the majority of Muslims worldwide, believe the practice of nikah mut‘ah was revoked and ultimately forbidden by second Sunni caliph, Umar. However, Sunnis have fixed-term marriages, such as nikah urfi, nikah Misyar, and nikah halala. Fundamentalist Sunnis have called for sexual jihad. Most Shias deem all sexual relations outside of proper marriage (the only being nikah or nikah mutah) as illegal, forbidden and against the sunnah. Like the Shia, most Sunnis regard prostitution as sinful and forbidden.
Middle Ages prostitute
being called into a home
Although all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage were regarded as sinful by the Roman Catholic Church, prostitution was tolerated because it helped prevent the greater evils of rape, sodomy, and masturbation. Augustine of Hippo is quoted saying, "if you expel prostitution from society, you will unsettle everything on account of lusts." The general tolerance of prostitution was for the most part reluctant, and many people from the church urged prostitutes to reform. After the decline of organized prostitution of the Roman empire, many prostitutes were slaves. However, religious campaigns against slavery and the growing marketization of the economy turned prostitution back into a business.
A decree of the newly-converted Reccared I, Catholic king of the Visigoths of Spain (596-601) absolutely prohibited prostitution as part of an effort to bring his country into alignment with Christian ideology. There was no punishment for men who hired or exploited prostitutes, but girls and women convicted of either practicing prostitution, or inducing debauchery were condemned for the first offence to be whipped 300 times to be ignominiously expelled from the town, in most cases, this would have been tantamount to a death sentence.
By the High Middle Ages it was common to find town governments ruling that prostitutes were not to ply their trade within the town walls, but they were tolerated outside, only because these areas were beyond the jurisdiction of the authorities. In many areas of France and Germany town governments came to set aside certain streets as areas where prostitution could be tolerated. In London the brothels of Southwark were owned by the Bishop of Winchester. After this, it became common in the major towns and cities of Southern Europe to establish civic brothels.
Prostitutes in the Holy Roman Empire
This allowed the government to outlaw any prostitution taking place outside these brothels. In much of Northern Europe a more tolerant attitude could be found towards prostitution. Prostitutes also found a fruitful market in the Crusades. In 1158, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa punished prostitutes traveling with the army. When caught in the act, the prostitute was ordered to have her nose cut off in an attempt to make her less attractive. A soldier caught in the act sometimes had a finger cut off or an eye removed. In different areas of Europe, prostitutes had shown they offer service by wearing certain garments or jewelry to distinguish themselves from non-working women. In Berne, prostitutes wore a red cap, in Florence; gloves and bells on the head or in the hair and high-heeled slippers, in London; striped hoods, in Milan; a black cloak, Pisa; a yellow headband, in Venice and Vienna; a yellow scarf.
Scholars have studied the history of prostitution in India from ancient times to the present. A tawaif was a courtesan who catered to the nobility of South Asia, particularly during the era of the Mughal Empire. These courtesans would dance, sing, recite poetry and entertain their suitors at mehfils. Like the geisha tradition in Japan, their main purpose was to professionally entertain their guests. While sex was often incidental, it was not assured contractually. The most popular or highest-class tawaifs could often pick and choose between the best of their suitors. They contributed to music, dance, theatre, film and the Urdu literary tradition.
Temple sculpture of
a devadasi
The term devadasi originally described a Hindu religious practice in which girls were married and dedicated to a deity (deva or devi). They were in charge of taking care of the temple, performing rituals they learned and practicing Bharatanatyam and other classical Indian arts traditions. This status allowed them to enjoy a high social status. The popularity of devadasis seems to have reached its pinnacle around the 10th and 11th centuries. The rise and fall in the status of devadasis can be seen to be running parallel to the rise and fall of Hindu temples. Due to the destruction of temples by Islamic invaders, the status of the temples fell very quickly in North India and slowly in South India.
As the temples became poorer and lost their patron kings, and in some cases were destroyed, the devadasis were forced into a life of poverty and prostitution.
During the British East India Company's rule in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was initially fairly common for British soldiers to engage in inter-ethnic prostitution in India, where they would frequently visit local Indian nautch dancers. As British females began arriving in British India in large numbers from the early to mid-19th century, it became increasingly uncommon for British soldiers to visit Indian prostitutes, and miscegenation was despised altogether after the events of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
From the 15th century, Chinese, Korean, and other Far Eastern visitors began frequenting brothels in Japan. This practice continued among visitors from the Western Regions, mainly European traders, beginning with the Portuguese in the 16th century who often came with their South Asian lascar crew, along with African crewmembers in some cases. In the 16th century, the local Japanese people initially assumed that the Portuguese were from Tenjiku ("Heavenly Abode"), the Japanese name for the Indian subcontinent due to its importance as the birthplace of Buddhism, and that Christianity was a new Indian faith. These mistaken assumptions were due to the Indian city of Goa being a central base for the Portuguese East India Company and also due to a significant portion of the crew on Portuguese ships being Indian Christians.
Japanese oiran
In the early 17th century, there was widespread male and female prostitution throughout the cities of Kyoto, Edo and Osaka, Japan. Oiran were courtesans in Japan during the Edo period. The oiran were considered a type of yūjo (遊女) also known as a "woman of pleasure" or prostitute. Among the oiran, the tayū (太夫) was considered the highest rank of courtesan available only to the wealthiest and highest ranking men. To entertain their clients, oiran practiced the arts of dance, music, poetry and calligraphy as well as sexual services, and education was considered essential for sophisticated conversation. Many became celebrities of their times outside the pleasure districts. Their art and fashions often set trends among wealthy women. The last recorded oiran was in 1761.
By the medieval era, prostitution was accepted as a fact of life in major European cities. King Henry II discouraged but permitted prostitution and mandated regulation of London's Bankside "stew-houses" (brothels) which included rules that prohibited forced prostitution, allowed for weekly searches by constables or bailiffs, and forced closing on holidays. Prostitutes were not allowed to live at the brothels or be married and were discouraged from taking short shifts. Alfonso IX was king of León and Galicia and Castillian ruler from 1188 to 1230. He is said to have been called the Baboso or Slobberer because he was subject to fits of rage during which he foamed at the mouth.
Medieval brothel
His regulations about prostitution are among the some of the earliest in Europe. In a section of code, he concentrated on those who profited from prostitutes. Those involved in selling prostitutes were to be exiled from the kingdom; landlords who rented rooms to prostitutes were to have their houses impounded and also pay a fine; brothelkeepers had to free the women found in their brothels and find them husbands or else suffer the possibility of execution; husbands who prostituted their wives were to be executed; and pimps were to be flogged for a first offense, and if they persisted were to be sent to the galleys as convicts. Women who supported pimps were to be publicly whipped and have the clothes they wore destroyed.
In Dec. 1254 King Louis IX of France ordered the expulsion of all 'women of evil life' from his kingdom and the confiscation of their belongings and even their clothing. In 1256 he repeated the order to expel women 'free with their bodies and other common harlots', but he adds that it would be desirable to drive them out of respectable streets, to keep them as far away as possible from religious establishments, and when feasible, to force them to lodge outside the city walls. In 1269, on the eve of his departure for his second crusade, he sent the regents a letter reminding them of the decree of 1254 and urging them to enforce it strictly so that this evil could be extirpated root and branch.
Florentine prostitute
Government-funded brothels were established in major Italian cities throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. It was between 1350 and 1450 that the cities institutionalized prostitution, setting up a prostibulum publicum [municipal brothel] when the city did not already have one. The Castelletto in Venice opened its doors in 1360, Florence took a similar decision in 1403; Siena in 1421. When the Great Council of Venice ratified a decree in 1358 that declared prostitution 'absolutely indispensable to the world,' this was a definite sign of the times.
In 1469 a special ordinance of Henry IV, King of Castila, was launched against the men engaged in it, who acting as procurers, associated themselves with the women and were called ruffians: when any such were found, they were for the first offense to receive 100 lashes; for the second they were to be banished for life; for the third they were to be hung.
By the end of the 15th century attitudes began to harden against prostitution. An outbreak of syphilis in Naples during 1494, which later swept across Europe, may have originated from the Columbian Exchange. The prevalence of other sexually transmitted diseases during the earlier 16th century may have caused this change in attitude. By the early 16th century the association between prostitutes, plague and contagion emerged, causing brothels and prostitution to be outlawed by secular authority. Furthermore, outlawing brothels and prostitution was used to “strengthen the criminal law” system of the sixteenth century secular rulers. Canon law defined a prostitute as “a promiscuous woman, regardless of financial elements.”
The prostitute was considered a “whore … who (was) available for the lust of many men,” and was most closely associated with promiscuity. The Church’s stance on prostitution was three-fold. It included the “acceptance of prostitution as an inevitable social fact, condemnation of those profiting from this commerce, and encouragement for the prostitute to repent." The Church was forced to recognize its inability to remove prostitution from the worldly society, and in the fourteenth century “began to tolerate prostitution as a lesser evil.” However, prostitutes were excluded from the Church as long as they continued with their lifestyle. Around the twelfth century, the idea of prostitute saints took hold, with Mary Magdalene being one of the most popular saints of the era. The Church used Mary Magdalene’s biblical history of being a reformed harlot to encourage prostitutes to repent and mend their ways. Simultaneously, religious houses were established with the purpose of providing asylum and encouraging the reformation of prostitution.
Mary Magdalene
Magdalene Homes were particularly popular and peaked in the early fourteenth century. Over the course of the Middle Ages, popes and religious communities made various attempts to remove prostitution or reform prostitutes with varying success, including the declaration of Pope Sixtus V in 1586, stating that the death penalty would be imposed on prostitution and 'sins against nature.' Sixtus V intended his command to be followed all over the Catholic world. There were some death sentences, but evidence shows the punishment was never carried out on any large scale by Catholic nations of the period. For their part, the Lutherans continued to shave off both hair and ears; the Calvinists branded, and burdened with large stones carried around the city, and employed the stocks in public places. With the advent of the Protestant Reformation, numbers of Southern German towns closed their brothels in an attempt to eradicate prostitution.
Prostitution was not an offense in either English or American common law, and, prior to World War I, although being a prostitute was not an offense, prostitution was generally regulated as a specific sort of vagrancy. When prostitutes were punished as sexual deviants, it was under laws against adultery or fornication or for being 'common nightwalkers'--women who strolled the streets at night for immoral purposes. From very early times, for example, nightwalking was an offense in Massachusetts. The law against nightwalking in that state, which testifies to the presence of prostitutes, was enacted in the colonial assembly of 1699 and reenacted by the state legislature in 1787. It was not until 1917 in Massachusetts, however, that a prostitute could be punished for prostitution.
Empress Maria Theresa was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma. By marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress. Harsh penalties for prostitution were also to be found in the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana, Maria Theresa’s code of law. ‘Incorrigible females’ were sentenced to forced labour in penitentiaries and ‘prison factories’ where they were set to work at spinning frames. There were also the notorious ‘Temesvarer Wasserschübe’, where whores, criminals and antisocial elements were deported by boat to the Banat region. In her battle against unchaste conduct Maria Theresa did not even spare the upper classes.
Illustration from
Progress of a Woman of Pleasure
by Richard Newton, 1798
She established a Chastity Commission which existed in Vienna from 1751 to 1769 until it was abolished by her son Emperor Joeseph II. One of the Chastity Commission's main objectives was to spy on the activities of particularly libidinous noblemen. Its object was indeed not only to suppress prostitution, but fornication generally, and the means adopted were fines, imprisonment, whipping and torture. The supposed causes of fornication were also severely dealt with; short dresses were prohibited, billiard rooms and cafes were inspected and no waitresses were allowed. Men were subject to large fines and even to the possible forfeiting of their military career. Women could be confined to convents for years at a time. It is rumored that Maria Theresa reacted so severely on matters of adultery because of the infidelities of her husband Franz Stephan. The estimated number of prostitutes in Vienna at this time was of the order of 10,000 ‘common’ and 6,000 ‘high-class’ prostitutes.
It was also around this time, presumably in Venice, prostitutes started using condoms made with catgut or cow bowel. Colonial New York was preeminently a seaport, and prostitution flourished in the streets and taverns close to the docks. New York, remarked John Watt in the 1760s, was "the worst School for Youth of any of his Majesty's Dominions, Ignorance, Vanity, Dress, and Dissipation, being the reigning Characteristics of their insipid Lives." For much of the eighteenth century, 'courtesans' promenaded along the Battery after nightfall. On the eve of the Revolution, over 500 'ladies of pleasure (kept) lodgings contiguous within the consecrated liberties of St. Paul's (Chapel).' A few blocks north, at the entrance to King's College (later Columbia University), Robert M'Robert claimed that dozens of prostitutes provided 'a temptation to the youth that have occasion to pass so often that way.
A Turkish bath is a type of public bathing associated with the culture of the Ottoman Empire and more widely the Islamic world. Writings on this practice date as far back as the 11th century however around the 18th century, a variation on it as a method of cleansing and relaxation became popular during the Victorian era, and then spread through the British Empire and Western Europe. According to Dervish Ismail Agha, in the Dellâkname-i Dilküşâ, the Ottoman archives, in the Turkish baths, the masseurs were traditionally young men who helped wash clients by soaping and scrubbing their bodies. They also were as sex workers. The Ottoman texts describe who they were, their prices, how many times they could bring their customers to orgasm and the details of their sexual practices.
Storyville Portrait, E.J Bellocq
The Page Act of 1875 was passed by the US Congress and forbid any importation of women for the purpose of prostitution. Many of the women who posed in 19th and early 20th century vintage erotica were prostitutes. The most famous were the New Orleans women of the Storyville red light district who posed for photographer E.J Bellocq. In the 19th century legalized prostitution became a public controversy as France and then the United Kingdom passed the Contagious Diseases Acts. This legislation allowed the police to arrest prostitutes in ports and army towns and bring them in to have compulsory checks for venereal disease. If the women tested positive they were hospitalized until cured. It was claimed many of the women arrested were not prostitutes resulting in forced medical examinations and hospitalizations.
It applied not only to the United Kingdom and France, but also to their overseas colonies. Many early feminists fought to repeal these laws, either on the grounds that prostitution should be illegal and therefore not government regulated or because it forced degrading medical examinations upon women. The law was repealed Mar. 26, 1886. A similar situation existed in the Russian Empire. This included prostitutes operating out of government-sanctioned brothels given yellow internal passports signifying their status and were subjected to weekly physical exams. Leo Tolstoy's novel Resurrection describes legal prostitution in 19th-century Russia.
During the 19th century the British in India began to adopt the policy of social segregation, but they continued to keep their brothels full of Indian women. In the 19th and early 20th centuries there was a network of Chinese and Japanese prostitutes being trafficked across Asia trafficked, in countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and British India, in what was then known as the "Yellow Slave Traffic." There was also a network of European prostitutes being trafficked to India, Ceylon, Singapore, China and Japan around the same time, this known as the "White Slave Traffic." The most common destination for European prostitutes in Asia were the British colonies of India and Ceylon, where hundreds of women and girls from continental Europe and Japan serviced British soldiers.
Mining camp prostitutes
during the Gold Rush
The houses of prostitution found in every mining camp worldwide were famous, especially in the 19th century when long distance imports of prostitutes became common. Entrepreneurs set up shops and businesses to cater to the miners. Prostitution in the American West was a growth industry that attracted sex workers from around the globe where were pulled in by the money, despite the harsh and dangerous working conditions and low prestige. Chinese women were frequently sold by their families and taken to the camps as prostitutes, and were often forced to send their earnings back to the family in China.
In Virginia City, Nevada, a prostitute, Julia Bulette, was one of the few who achieved "respectable" status. She nursed victims of an influenza epidemic, providing her acceptance in the community and the support of the sheriff. The townspeople were shocked when she was murdered in 1867 and they honored her with a lavish funeral and hanging of her assailant. Until the 1890s, madams predominately ran the businesses, after which male pimps took over. This led to the generally declined treatment of women. It was not uncommon for brothels in Western towns to operate openly, without the stigma of East Coast cities. Gambling and prostitution were central to life in these western towns, and only later, as the female population increased, reformers moved in and other civilizing influences arrived, did prostitution become less blatant and less common.
After a decade or so the mining towns attracted respectable women who ran boarding houses, organized church societies and worked as laundresses and seamstresses, all while striving for independent status. Australia mining camps had a well-developed system of prostitution. City fathers sometimes tried to confine the practice to red light districts. The precise role prostitution played in various camps depended on the sex ratio in specific population groups of colonial society as well as racial attitudes toward non-whites. In the early 19th century British authorities decided it was best to have lower-class white, Asian, Middle Eastern and Aboriginal women service the prisoners and thereby keep peace while maintaining strong class lines that isolated British gentlemen and ladies from the lower elements.
Olga Radalyski's prison record photos
Prostitution was extremely profitable so it was easy to circumvent the legal boundaries. One infamous Australian Madame was Olga Radalyski, she had set up a palm reading and abortion service in Osbourne Street, South Yarra, and was rumored to be running a brothel at the same address. She was jailed for the 1898 murder of 17-year-old Mabel Ambrose, who died after Elburn attempted to use her husband's electro-therapeutic methods to perform an abortion on the girl. When Australians took control by 1900 they wanted a "white Australia" and tried to exclude or expel non-white women who might become prostitutes. However, social activists fought against Australia's discriminatory laws that led to varying levels of rights for women, races and classes.
By 1939 new attitudes toward racial harmony began to surface. These were inspired by white Australians to rethink their racist policies and adopt more liberal residency laws that did not focus on sexual or racial issues. Latin American mining camps also had well-developed systems of prostitution. In Mexico the government tried to protect and idealize middle class women, but made little effort to protect prostitutes in the mining camps. In 20th century African mining camps prostitution followed the historical patterns developed in the 19th century. They added the theme of casual temporary marriages.
During World War I, in colonial Philippines, US armed forces developed a prostitute management program called American Plan which enable the military to arrest any women within five miles of a military cantonment. If found infected, a women could be sentenced to a hospital or a farm colony until cured. In 1921, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children was signed. In this convention some nations declared reservations towards prostitution. The leading theorists of communism opposed prostitution.
Soviet poster: ‘Casual Sex:
The Main Source of the
Spread of Venereal Disease’
Karl Marx thought of it as "only a specific expression of the general prostitution of the laborer," and considered its abolition to be necessary to overcome capitalism. Friedrich Engels considered even marriage a form of prostitution, and Vladimir Lenin found sex work distasteful. Communist governments often took wide-ranging steps to repress prostitution immediately after obtaining power, although the practice always persisted. In the countries that remained nominally communist after the end of the Cold War, especially China, prostitution remained illegal but was nonetheless common. In many current or former communist countries the economic depression brought about by the collapse of the Soviet Union led to an increase in prostitution.
During World War II, Japanese soldiers engaged in forced prostitution during their invasions across East Asia and Southeast Asia. The term "comfort women" became a euphemism for the estimated 80,000 to 200,000 women who were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels during the war. According to reports, the Japanese military began with volunteer prostitutes in occupied parts of China around 1931. The "comfort stations" were set up near military camps as a way to keep the troops occupied. As the military expanded its territory, they turned to enslaving women of the occupied areas. Many of the women were from countries like Korea, China, and the Philippines.
Survivors have reported that they were originally promised jobs like cooking, laundry, and nursing for the Japanese Imperial Army. Instead, many were forced to provide sexual services. The women were detained next to military barracks, sometimes in walled camps. Soldiers would repeatedly rape, beat, and torture the sex slaves, often multiple times a day. As the military moved throughout the region during the war, women were taken along, often moved far from their homeland. Reports go further to say that as the Japanese war efforts began to fail, the "comfort women" were left behind with no regard. The claims of how many were sexual slaves and how many were simply recruited as prostitutes are disputed.
"Comfort women" being
transported to a military base
The operation of the "comfort stations" during World War II has been one that the Japanese government has been reluctant to admit. The accounts are not well detailed and it has only been since the late 20th century that the women themselves have told their stories. The personal consequences on the women are clear. Some never made it back to their home country and others returned as late as the 1990s. Those that made it home either kept their secret or lived a life marked by the shame of what they'd endured. Many of the women could not have children or suffered greatly from health problems.
A number of former "comfort women" filed lawsuits against the Japanese government. The issue has also been raised with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The Japanese government initially claimed no military responsibility for the centers. It was not until papers were discovered in 1992 showing direct links that the larger issue came to light. Yet, the military still maintained that recruitment tactics by "middlemen" were not the responsibility of the military. They long refused to offer official apologies.
In 1993, the Kono Statement was written by then-chief cabinet secretary of Japan, Yohei Kono. In it, he said that the military was "“directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women.” Still, many in the Japanese government continued to dispute the claims as over exaggerated. It was not until 2015 that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a formal apology. It was in accord with an agreement with the South Korean government. Along with the much-awaited official apology, Japan contributed 1 billion yen to a foundation formed to help the surviving women. Some people believe that these reparations are still not enough.
African Prostitute
Sex tourism emerged in the late 20th century as a controversial aspect of Western tourism and globalization. Sex tourism was typically undertaken internationally by tourists from wealthier countries. Author Nils Ringdal alleged that three out of four men between the ages of 20 and 50 who have visited Asia or Africa have paid for sex. The most common type of sex tourism is of men seeking women. Less common forms include female sex tourism (women seeking men), men seeking men, and adults seeking children. Sex tourists generally come from developed nations in Europe as well as the United States. Asian countries, especially Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Nepal are common destinations for sex tourists, as well as countries in Central and South America.
A study conducted by ProCon (a nonprofit, nonpartisan public charity which provides different opinions on controversial issues) estimated the percentage of men who had paid for sex at least once in their lives, and found the highest rates in Cambodia (between 59 and 80% of men had paid for sex at least once) and Thailand (an estimated 75%), followed by Italy (16.7–45%), Spain (27–39%), Japan (37%), the Netherlands (13.5–21.6%), and the United States (15.0–20.0%). Studies indicate that the percentage of men engaging in commercial sex in the United States has declined significantly in recent decades: in 1964, an estimated 69–80% of men had paid for sex at least once. This indicates growing stigma against prostitution in the United States. Nations with higher rates of prostitution clients, or “johns”, display much more positive attitudes towards commercial sex.
In some countries, such as Cambodia and Thailand, sex with prostitutes is considered commonplace and men who do not engage in commercial sex may be considered unusual by their peers. Some people travel to engage in sex with child prostitutes in a practice called child sex tourism. While it is criminal in most countries, this multibillion-dollar industry is believed to involve as many as 2 million children around the world. "Child sex tourists may not have a specific preference for children as sexual partners but take advantage of a situation in which children are made available to them for sexual exploitation. It is often the case that these people have travelled from a wealthier country (or a richer town or region within a country) to a less-developed destination, where poorer economic conditions, favourable exchange rates for the traveller and relative anonymity are key factors conditioning their behaviour and sex tourism."
Alleged pedophile Michael Jones
in Cambodia with a young child
In an effort to eradicate the practice, many countries have enacted laws to allow prosecution of their citizens for child abuse that occurs outside their home country, even if it is not against the law in the country where the child abuse took place, for example, the United States Protect Act. The Code of Conduct for the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Travel and Tourism is an international organization composed of members of the tourism industry and children's rights experts with the purpose to eradicate the practice of child sex tourism. Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil, Columbia and Mexico have been identified as countries where child sexual exploitation is prevalent. Child sex tourism has also been closely linked to poverty. In Thailand, though the exact numbers are not known, it has been estimated that children make up to 9% of prostitutes in the country. Brazil is considered to have the worst child sex trafficking record, after Thailand.
UNICEF notes that sexual activity is often seen as a private matter, making communities reluctant to act and intervene in cases of sexual exploitation. These attitudes make children far more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Most exploitation of children takes place as a result of their absorption into the adult sex trade where they are exploited by local people and sex tourists. The Internet provides an efficient global networking tool for individuals to share information on destinations and procurement. In cases involving children, the U.S. has relatively strict domestic laws that hold accountable any American citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. who travels abroad for the purpose of engaging in illicit conduct with a minor. As of 2009, sex tourism and human trafficking remain fast-growing industries.
European prostitute
A new legal approach to prostitution emerged at the end of the 20th century, termed the Swedish model. This included the prohibition of buying, but not selling, of sexual services. This means that only the client commits a crime in engaging in paid sex, not the prostitute. Such laws were enacted in Sweden (1999), Norway (2009), Iceland (2009), Canada (2014), Northern Ireland (2015), France (2016), and the Republic of Ireland (2017), and are also being considered in other jurisdictions. These laws are an attempt to protect the worker and embrace the fallout of the sexual revolution, meaning sex will happen, and for it to happen safely and respectfully, there must be "free-form" regulation.
Prostitution was made illegal in almost all of the United States between 1910 and 1915 largely due to the influence of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which was influential in the banning of drug use and was a major force in the prohibition of alcohol. In 1917 the prostitution district Storyville in New Orleans was closed down by the Federal government over local objections. In Deadwood, South Dakota prostitution, while technically illegal, was tolerated by local residents and officials for decades until the last madam was brought down by state and federal authorities for tax evasion in 1980. Prostitution remained legal in Alaska until 1953, and is still legal in most rural counties of Nevada, including areas outside of Las Vegas.
Beginning in the late 1980s many states increased the penalties for prostitution in cases where the prostitute is knowingly HIV-positive. These laws, often known as felony prostitution laws, require anyone arrested for prostitution to be tested for HIV. If the test comes back positive the suspect is informed that any future arrest for prostitution will be a felony instead of a misdemeanor. Penalties for felony prostitution vary in the states that have such laws, with maximum sentences of typically 10 to 15 years in prison. An episode of COPS which aired in the early 1990s detailed the impact of HIV/AIDS among prostitutes; this episode contributed to HIV/AIDS awareness.
In the 21st century, Afghans revived a method of prostituting young boys, which is referred to as bacha bazi. Since the break up of the Soviet Union thousands of eastern European women have become prostitutes in China, Western Europe, Israel and Turkey every year. There are tens of thousands of women from eastern Europe and Asia working as prostitutes in Dubai. Men from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates form a large proportion of the customers. Most of India's devadasi girls are now forced by their poor families to dedicate themselves to the Hindu goddess Renuka. The BBC wrote in 2007 that devadasis are "sanctified prostitutes."
With a history of over 4,500 years and multiple attempts at making and keeping prostitution illegal and criminalizing it to the point of mutilating and even killing people, it's clear to me if this practice still continues through all of it, that it's going to continue for the rest of human history. Just because you make something illegal, even with the punishment of death, does not mean people will stop doing things that are necessary for survival or even just rebellion and having fun. A huge example is the Ten Commandments even under the threat of God (and in the case of Christianity) of going to hell and burning in a pit of fire, people still continue to break those Commandments all the time. There's been drug regulation laws and nearly as long as drugs have been around and been used by people, even shamans wouldn't just let any person take the drugs in Amazonian and Arawak cultures.
Murder has been illegal since pretty much the beginning of time and people still continue to murder people everyday. I'm not advocating that we legalize murder because murder is obviously way more harmful to people than prostitution or some drugs are. One characteristic of a lot of people is, when you're told not to do something, a lot of the time, your first instinct is to do it; so making certain things illegal will actually make it more rebellious and "exotic" to do compared to it being more mainstream and available, a lot of people won't feel as special or cool doing it. The only thing that illegalizing prostitution doesn't make people less safe unhealthy and gives rebellious people more drive to do it.
The other problem with making prostitution illegal is that when these things are hidden from public view, they can't be publicly scrutinized. If we had legal prostitution and people could properly inspect brothels could we could make sure the girls aren't being beaten by pimps, that they have food, that they aren't chained to a bed and being raped every day, that people are tested for STD's, and that everyone is actually safe and a willing participant. In Nevada, the Bunny Ranch brothel has their girls get tested every two weeks. It's not like 1800s screening mentioned earlier, it's not like anyone who's wearing a mini-skirt Nevada gets pulled into a doctor's office and have your legs spread.
However, the State of Nevada, the brothel owners, and sex workers who work there, all understand the risk of STD's and the importance of staying clean and treating them early if they are caught. If you're making a willing decision to be a prostitute and you don't know the risk of acquiring STD's, the possibility of spreading STD's to other people, or someone you infect spreading it from person to person, then you shouldn't be in the business. In my opinion, it is a good idea to have mandatory testing for voluntary brothel workers (obviously not strap them down and force it on them) but they don't have to work there if they don't want to be safe and get medically tested. In the states where porn is legal to film, pornstars have to be tested at least monthly, which I also agree with. I think most of the issues and problems that come out of prostitution; slavery, prostitutes being beaten, raped, murdered, trafficked, spreading STD's and HIV/AIDS could be greatly improved with the legalization and proper regulation of prostitution.
Sources:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41873/41873-h/41873-h.htm
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-prostitution-721311
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_prostitution
https://prostitution.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=000028