Download or read book Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World written by Christopher A. Faraone and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2008-03-14 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World explores the implications of sex-for-pay across a broad span of time, from ancient Mesopotamia to the early Christian period. In ancient times, although they were socially marginal, prostitutes connected with almost every aspect of daily life. They sat in brothels and walked the streets; they paid taxes and set up dedications in religious sanctuaries; they appeared as characters—sometimes admirable, sometimes despicable—on the comic stage and in the law courts; they lived lavishly, consorting with famous poets and politicians; and they participated in otherwise all-male banquets and drinking parties, where they aroused jealousy among their anxious lovers. The chapters in this volume examine a wide variety of genres and sources, from legal and religious tracts to the genres of lyric poetry, love elegy, and comic drama to the graffiti scrawled on the walls of ancient Pompeii. These essays reflect the variety and vitality of the debates engendered by the last three decades of research by confronting the ambiguous terms for prostitution in ancient languages, the difficulty of distinguishing the prostitute from the woman who is merely promiscuous or adulterous, the question of whether sacred or temple prostitution actually existed in the ancient Near East and Greece, and the political and social implications of literary representations of prostitutes and courtesans.
Download or read book Prostitutes and Matrons in the Roman World written by Anise K. Strong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-12 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From streetwalkers in the Roman Forum to imperial concubines, Roman prostitutes defined what it meant to be a 'bad girl'.
Download or read book Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean 800 BCE 200 CE written by Allison Glazebrook and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2011-01-06 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE–200 CE challenges the often-romanticized view of the prostitute as an urbane and liberated courtesan by examining the social and economic realities of the sex industry in Greco-Roman culture. Departing from the conventional focus on elite society, these essays consider the Greek prostitute as displaced foreigner, slave, and member of an urban underclass. The contributors draw on a wide range of material and textual evidence to discuss portrayals of prostitutes on painted vases and in the literary tradition, their roles at symposia (Greek drinking parties), and their place in the everyday life of the polis. Reassessing many assumptions about the people who provided and purchased sexual services, this volume yields a new look at gender, sexuality, urbanism, and economy in the ancient Mediterranean world.
Download or read book Courtesans and Fishcakes written by James N. Davidson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-06-30 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As any reader of the Symposium knows, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates conversed over lavish banquets, kept watch on who was eating too much fish, and imbibed liberally without ever getting drunk. In other words, James Davidson writes, he reflected the culture of ancient Greece in which he lived, a culture of passions and pleasures, of food, drink, and sex before—and in concert with—politics and principles. Athenians, the richest and most powerful of the Greeks, were as skilled at consuming as their playwrights were at devising tragedies. Weaving together Greek texts, critical theory, and witty anecdotes, this compelling and accessible study teaches the reader a great deal, not only about the banquets and temptations of ancient Athens, but also about how to read Greek comedy and history.
Download or read book Courtesans at Table written by Laura McClure and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-25 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witty nicknames, crude jokes, public nudity and lavish monuments, all of these things distinguished Greek courtesans from respectable citizen women in ancient Greece. Although prostitutes appear as early as archaic Greek lyric poetry, our fullest accounts come from the late second century CE. Drawing on Book 13 of the Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae--which contains almost all known references to hetaeras from all periods of Greek literature--Laura K. McClure has created a window onto the ways ancient Greeks perceived the courtesan and the role of the courtesan in Greek life.
Download or read book Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World written by Konstantinos Kapparis and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prostitution in the ancient Greek world was widespread, legal, and acceptable as a fact of life and an unavoidable necessity. The state regulated the industry and treated prostitution as any other trade. Almost every prominent man in the ancient world has been truly or falsely associated with some famous hetaira. These women, who sold their affections to the richest and most influential men of their time, have become legends in their own right. They pushed the boundaries of female empowerment in their quest for self-promotion and notoriety, and continue to fascinate us. Prostitution remains a complex phenomenon linked to issues of gender, culture, law, civic ideology, education, social control, and economic forces. This is why its study is of paramount importance for our understanding of the culture, outlook and institutions of the ancient world, and in turn it can shed new light and introduce new perspectives to the challenging debate of our times on prostitution and contemporary sexual morality. The main purpose of this book is to provide the primary historical study of the topic with emphasis upon the separation of facts from the mythology surrounding the countless references to prostitution in Greek literary sources.
Download or read book The Courtesan s Arts written by Martha Feldman and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2006-03-23 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Courtesans, hetaeras, tawaif-s, ji-s--these women have exchanged artistic graces, elevated conversation, and sexual favors with male patrons throughout history and around the world. In Ming dynasty China and early modern Italy, exchange was made through poetry, speech, and music; in pre-colonial India through magic, music, chemistry, and other arts. Yet like the art of courtesanry itself, those arts have often thrived outside present-day canons and modes of transmission, and have mostly vanished without trace.The Courtesan's Arts delves into this hidden legacy, while touching on its equivocal relationship to geisha. At once interdisciplinary, empirical, and theoretical, the book is the first to ask how arts have figured in the survival or demise of courtesan cultures by juxtaposing research from different fields. Among cases studied by writers on classics, ethnomusicology, anthropology, and various histories of art, music, literature, and political culture are Ming dynasty China, twentieth-century Korea, Edo and modern Japan, ancient Greece, early modern Italy, and India, past and present. Refusing a universal model, the authors nevertheless share a perception that courtesans hover in the crevices of space, time, and practice--between gifts and money, courts and cities, subtlety and flamboyance, feminine allure and masculine power, as wifely surrogates but keepers of culture. What most binds them to their arts in our post-industrialized world of global services and commodities, they find, is courtesans' fragility, as their cultures, once vital to civilizations founded in leisure and pleasure, are now largely forgotten, transforming courtesans into national icons or historical curiosities, or reducing them to prostitution.
Download or read book Athenian Prostitution written by Edward E. Cohen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a pioneering study that examines the sale of sex in classical Athens from a commercial (rather than from a cultural or moral) perspective. Following the author's earlier book on Athenian banking, this work analyzes erotic business at Athens in the context of the Athenian economy. For the Athenians, the social acceptability and moral standing of human labor was largely determined by the conditions under which work was performed. Pursued in a context characteristic of servile endeavor, prostitution--like all forms of slave labor--was contemptible. Pursued under conditions appropriate to non-servile endeavor, prostitution--like all forms of free labor--was not violative of Athenian work ethics. As a mercantile activity, however, prostitution was not untouched by Athenian antagonism toward commercial and manual pursuits; as the "business of sex," prostitution further evoked negativity from segments of Greek opinion uncomfortable with any form of carnality. Yet ancient sources also adumbrate another view, in which the sale of sex, lawful and indeed pervasive at Athens, is presented alluringly. In a book that will be of interest to all students of sex and gender, to economic, legal and social historians, and to classicists, the author explores the high compensation earned by female sexual entrepreneurs who often controlled prostitutional businesses that were perpetuated from generation to generation on a matrilineal basis, and that benefitted from legislative restrictions on pimping. The author juxtaposes the widespread practice of "prostitution pursuant to written contract" with legislation targeting male prostitutes functioning as governmental leaders, and explores the seemingly contradictory phenomena of extensive sexual exploitation of slave prostitutes (male and female) coexisting with Athenian society's pride in its legislative protection of slaves and minors against sexual outrage.
Download or read book The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity written by Stephanie Lynn Budin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a person's body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the Early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Furthermore, contrary to many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent, Oriental "Other." Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty methodology. The study of sacred prostitution is, effectively, a historiographical reckoning.
Download or read book Yoshiwara written by Cecilia Segawa Seigle and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1993-03-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on both historical and literary sources, examines life in the pleasure houses of Japan during the Edo period from the early 1600s to 1868. Among the topics are the origins, illegal competitors, the cost of a visit, the treatment of the courtesans, traditions and protocols, Yoshiwara arts, th
Download or read book Trying Neaira written by Debra Hamel and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apollodorus and Stephanos of Athens had faced each other in court on a number of occasions, but their running feud was brought to a head in the late 340s when Stephanos' lover Neaira was prosecuted for transgressing Athenian marriage laws. Building on Apollodorus' speech from the trial and other source material, Debra Hamel recreates Neaira's life and experiences from her lowly origins in a brothel in Corinth, to a highly paid courtesan and sex slave, her retirement and 30-year relationship with Stephanos. Neaira's story allows Hamel to touch on many aspects of Athenian social history, from issues of prostitution and adultery, to religion and slavery, the life of a female non-citizen, to the legal process of the 4th century. An engaging story through which Hamel offers an extraordinary window onto Athenian society.
Download or read book The Brothel of Pompeii written by Sarah Levin-Richardson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an in-depth exploration of the only assured brothel from the Greco-Roman world, illuminating the lives of both prostitutes and clients.
Download or read book The Book of the Courtesans written by Susan Griffin and published by Crown. This book was released on 2002-02-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer-Prize-nominated author Susan Griffin comes an unprecedented, provocative look at the dazzling world of the West’s first independent women, whose lively liaisons brought them unspoken influence, wealth, and freedom. While they charmed some of Europe’s most illustrious men honing their social skills as well as their sexual ones, the great courtesans gained riches, power, education, and sexual freedom in a time when other women were denied all of these. From Imperia of sixteenth-century Rome, who personified the Renaissance ideal of beauty; Mme. de Pompadour, the arbiter of all things fashionable in eighteenth-century Paris and Versailles; Liane de Pougy, known in France during the Belle Epoque as “Our National Courtesan”; to Sarah Bernhardt, who, following in her mother’s footsteps, supported herself in her early career with a second profession, The Book of the Courtesans tells the life stories and intricacies of the lavish lifestyles of these women. Unlike their geisha counterparts, courtesans neither lived in brothels nor bent their wills to suit their suitors. They were strong- willed, autonomous, and plucky. An open secret, their presence can be felt throughout our culture. The muses who enflamed the hearts and imaginations of our most celebrated artists, they were also artists in their own right. They wrote poetry and novels, invented the cancan at the Moulin Rouge, and presented celebrated acts at the Folies Bergères. They helped to influence and shape the sensibility of modern literature, painting, and fashion. When Greek sculptor Praxiteles wanted to depict Venus he used a famous courtesan as a model, as in later centuries Titian, Veronese, Raphael, Giorgione, and Boucher did when they painted goddesses. When Marcel Proust was a young man it was the courtesan Laure Hayman who took him under her wing, introducing him to the right people, and providing inspiration for one of literature’s greatest masterpieces. And they often had considerable political influence too. When King Louis XV needed advice on foreign affairs or appointments of state he turned to Jeanne du Barry as well as Pompadour. In her witty and insightful prose, as Griffin celebrates these alluring and fascinating women, she restores a lost legacy of women’s history. She gives us the stories of these amazing women who, starting from impoverished or unimpressive beginnings, garnered chateaux, fine coaches, fabulous collections of jewelry, and even aristocratic titles along the way. And through a brilliant exploration of their extraordinary abilities, skills, and talents which Griffin playfully categorizes as their virtues "Timing, Beauty, Cheek, Brilliance, Gaiety, Grace, and Charm" her book explains how, while helping themselves, through their often outrageous, always entertaining examples, the great courtesans not only enriched our cultural heritage but helped to liberate women from the social, sexual, and economic strictures that confined them. Intensively researched and beautifully crafted, The Book of the Courtesans delves into scintillating but often hidden worlds, telling stories gleaned from many sources, including courtesans’ memoirs, presented along with stunning rare photographs to create memorable portraits of some of the most pivotal figures in women’s history.
Download or read book Whores in History written by Nickie Roberts and published by HarperCollins Publishers. This book was released on 1993 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roberts' vivid, challenging, and impressively researched defense of the unrepentant whore, whom she regards as the most maligned woman in history, tells the story of the prostitute with hundreds of anecdotes of bawdy-house and brothel life. Her arguments will engage male "experts" and feminist "sisters" alike. Illustrations.
Download or read book The World of Courtesans written by Moti Chandra and published by International Book Distributors. This book was released on 1973 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the institution of the courtesan and its role in ancient and medieval Indian society.
Download or read book Sex in the Ancient World from A to Z written by John Younger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-10-07 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive, reliable and eye-opening, this A to Z examines the sexual practices, expressions and attitudes of the Greeks and Romans, from Catullus and Caligula, to orgies and obscenity to pederasty and prostitution.
Download or read book Love for Sale written by Nils Johan Ringdal and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 613 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[An] enlightening and entertaining . . . survey of the world’s oldest profession” from the Whore of Babylon to the modern sex-worker movement (Kirkus Reviews). From Eve and Lilith to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the prostitute has been both a target of scorn and a catalyst for social change. In Love for Sale, cultural historian Nils Johan Ringdal delivers an authoritative and engaging history of this most maligned, yet globally ubiquitous, form of human commerce. Beginning with the epic of Gilgamesh, the Old Testament, and ancient cultures from Asia to the Mediterranean, Ringdal considers the varying way societies have dealt with and thought about prostitutes through history. He discusses how they were included in the priestess class in ancient Greece and Rome; how the rise of the courtesan in nineteenth-century Europe shaped literature, fashion, the arts, and modern sensibilities. He uncovers the first manuals on the art of sex and seduction, the British Empire’s campaigns against prostitution in India, and stories of the Japanese “comfort women” who served the armies in the Pacific theater of World War II. Ringdal closes with the rise of the sex-workers’ rights movement and ‘sex-positive” feminism, and a realistic look at the true risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day. Recalling Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae with its broad sweep across centuries and continents, Love for Sale “uses [its] subject as a springboard for exploring the ever-changing notions of love, sexual identity, morality and gender among various cultures” (Nan Goldberg, Newark Sunday Star-Ledger).
