Prostitution

Male Culture

Usually, Roman prostitutes were slaves who were owned and controlled through the brothels. However, other prostitutes were also performers who operated freely in selling their services. Additionally, males were also prostitutes in ancient Rome. Although free from state regulation in Rome, both male and female prostitutes were under the control of the dominant wealthy and politically powerful male culture.

In ancient Greece, several classes of prostitutes existed including the lowest, the brothel prostitutes; second, the street prostitutes; third, the aluetrides, the dancers or performers who are equivalent today to pornography workers, massage parlor workers, and nude dancers. The aluetrides were dancers, acrobats, and musicians and were hired to perform at orgies and other social events. They were the next-to-the-highest class of prostitute.

The highest class of prostitute was the hetaera, the Greek courtesan prostitute or cultivated companion who associated with the most powerful men of Greece. They were well read, had very proper social graces, and were supposedly very beautiful women who were showered with gifts. However, the hetaera also had a number of other skills that she sold, and was engaged in prostitution as a sideline.

From the 4th century through the Reformation, there was some degree of tolerance for prostitution in Western society. Mary Magdalene became a reformed prostitute after her relationship with Jesus, and this redeemed her in the eyes of others. Similarly, many other prostitutes became holy women and saints. In the ancient Near East, India, and southeast Asia, temple prostitution was considered a religious duty for women. Similarly, during medieval England as well as in 19th-century America, becoming a prostitute provided more social and economic freedom and less oppression than doing other kinds of women's work, such as being a servant or textile worker, and even more freedom than being a wife subject to the total control of the husband.

Freedom and Stigma

Freedom from a husband did not always translate into freedom from social stigma or legal repercussions. For example, in England in 1822, the English Vagrancy Act was passed and was used to control the movements of poor street prostitutes who were actually referred to as “common women.” Then in 1864, 1866, and 1869, the Contagious Diseases Act was passed in England stating that it was the prostitutes who were spreading sexually transmitted diseases, thus creating the discretionary power of police to arrest any woman thought to have a sexually transmitted disease. The attitude that she was the root of the problem rather than her customer, was prominent in English law until 1985.

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