Thread by @EllyArrow

Prostitution arose historically with land ownership, class society, militarization and slavery. The earliest records we have strongly indicate that the first women were in situations of sexual slavery - debt bondage at best - and many were first sold to be raped as girls.

https://twitter.com/eyeofscottie/status/1552144331330359296

It's amazing to me how people can celebrate historic prostitution. For every Theodora of Byzantine there's countless who endured unwanted pregnancies, illness and death from STIs and child birth. The life expectancy of a woman in prostitution without condoms would have been low.

The earliest records from Mesopotamia do suggest there was some connection between sexual rites in temples and the development of the sex trade. However, prostitution appears to be framed as punishment by the writers, not as a place women (and girls!) would clamour to be.

The word #porn comes from the lowest classes of women enslaved in prostitution, the "pornai" in Ancient Greek, who had the lowest income and had to be available to men of all classes. #Pornography therefore means "depiction of the lowest class of whores/sex slaves".

People refer the hetaera as evidence that the sex industry was a way for women to get status. There were always educated & talented women in prostitution but it would've been as "romantic" as modern day sugar babies: personal sex toys for rich men with a veneer of sophistication.

It's true that Christianity began the large scale persecution of women in prostitution- however this does neither mean that previous cultures reveered them (again many were literal slaves), nor that various chapters of the church didn't accept the sex trade as a "necessary evil".

There's a long history of what later was enshrined in law as "Contagious Diseases Acts": Throughout history johns (and often pimps) escaped any consequence to their actions, all punishments and regulations fell on women such as forced often medically unsound examinations for STIs

There's also a long history of governments not just tolerating but funding brothels: The "clientel" has always included wealthy powerful men, who wanted a luxurious but discreet place to be hypocrites in their supposed Christian faith and relentlessly keep "mistresses".

Prostitution arose with militarization, consequently brothels have been taken over/set up by armies wherever they go, kidnapping if hunger and poverty are not enough coercion on occupied women and girls. Only in the last century have we started acknowledging these as war crimes.

Some colonised cultures had a history of prostitution - others did not (it is not a human universal!) - but where colonisers set up their "pleasure stations" is the same place we still have mega red light districts in many countries today, despite official prohibition policy.

This is a super brief overview with huge omissions. What I've read about prostitution in Aztec cultures resembles a lot in this thread (connection to spirituality but also slavery, militarization, etc). Women in prostitution are nearly always a class & cannot or struggle to leave

Prostitution is often painted as liberatory & preferential to marriage. Its true some women in prostitution were allowed in male dominated spaces wives couldn't go (many modern brothels still ban "civic" women). But this was cause they were not seen as a threat to male dominance.

It tell us something that prostitution is most dominant in the strongest patriarchies were women have rigid roles and can rarely chart their own path. Wife and "whore" are two sides of the same coin and require each other: assurance of parentage and indiscriminate male pleasure.

It used to be an MRA talking point that women have "pussy power" and control men drooling after them. But ever since the sex wars liberal feminists parrot this absolute nonsense made worse by the brain dead claim that throwing market forces in the mix heightens the empowerment.

Theres a long history of female defiance in horrific circumstances incl historic prostitution which resembles sexual slavery much more than a female independence trip. Women proved they were smart talented & resilient. But this should never make us romanticize male power systems.