Prostitution in Medieval Europe

All in all, just because someone is a prostitute does not mean they need to be put down in that manner, most people turn to prostitution as a last resort, a way to get out of a bad situation thinking that this will somehow be better. Some probably didn’t have a choice and were forced into it. You never know what someone has gone through to get to where they're at. “Whores” are viewed as people who are lesser, while in fact the majority of the time they’re just people trying to get by with the skills they have. Maybe in the case of this majority, they were never able to find something else they were able to do effectively. But how do “whores” actually view themselves? To assume that one views themselves as lesser, for what they may have no choice in doing, is foolhardy. For all the average person may know prostitutes may have taken the word whore and adapted it to be viewed in a more positive

Prostitution is one of the oldest and most controversial professions on earth. According to records, prostitution was a normal practice of the earliest known civilizations. Ancient Greeks and Roma governments went as far as sponsoring brothels to ensure their citizens could afford a prostitute. The emergence of religions like Christianity and Islam transformed the moral views on prostitution. Following a tremendous pressure from the religious authorities, many European countries started to ban the practice on the bases of being immoral and harmful to society. The king of Spain made prostitution punishable law. Those caught could face a harsh punishment or they could be exiled. Pope Sixths of Rome went as far as making prostitution punishable by death .Despite the laws drafted by the authorities, people continued to provide and use sexual services. In this modern era, we are still debating the ethics of prostitution. Most people claim that prostitution is morally degrading and harmful to the wellbeing of society. While others claim that legalizing prostitution can help create tax revenues, undermine organized crime and reduce the spread of disease. Using utilitarianism, virtue ethics and Kant deontology I will prove that prostitution is immoral and it should be banned.

Abel, Gillian, et al. Taking the crime out of sex work: New Zealand sex workers fight for decriminalisation. Policy Press, 2010. Part two: Implementation and impact of the Prostitution Reform Act (2003): the first five years: Review of the PRA

Though widely accepted throughout the course of human history, the approval of prostitution in today modern society seems to be a much more grey area. While once legal in every major civilization on earth, prostitution is now illegal in many countries, though sometimes tolerated for the revenue it generates. This cold shoulder toward prostitution began in the Middle Ages, when church officials began to preach of the sins associated with the profession. Their cries, however, fell on mostly deaf ears. Prostitution had become such a large contributor of public revenue in so many countries, that is was protected and regulated by law. In the centuries to come, however, things began to change. With the rise of stringent sexual morality standards associated with the Protestant Reformation, the increased transmission and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and the implementation of such social movements as feminism, prostitution began to fall out of favor, eventually becoming illegal in many parts of the world. (Jenkins).

Prostitution rarely ever seems to be a talking point among World War I historians. Many under the impression that discussion about such topics regarding life behind the front detracts from what happened during combat. However, this interpretation of history is rather unsettling since it silences a tremendous portion of WWI from readers who wish to understand more about its impacts on the life of soldiers and society. Wars are fought by people, therefore, they should be written about as such, rather than simply cannon fodder or a statistic for a particular battle. When we see a person, rather than a number, the impact of historical events hold much larger significance to us than they previously did before. Now, prostitution may not necessarily

The Catholic Church futilely attempted to suppress sexuality and placed the blame almost exclusively on women for the sinfulness of human nature- according to Salem, Massachusetts court records, women who gave birth to bastard children were six times more likely to be punished for their adultery than the father of the bastards were. Women’s sexual histories were often dragged out for the entire town to oogle during witchcraft trials in colonial New England, as their fidelity was brought into question, alongside their ability to attract men to and to cause impotence (Legrende, page 8). A witch’s ability to cause impotence in men played a distinct role in creating the witch panic, as men were dangerously obsessed with the idea of women holding sway over them sexually.

There was what could be considered morally wicked reasons that prostitution was taken up such as women who wanted to drink, dance, and have a good time. Though the main reason appeared it was a need for money. “I went into the sporting life for business reasons and for none other” (MacKell, 2004). “It was a way for a woman in those days to make money, and I made it” (MacKell, 2004). These remarks were made by Mattie Silks who worked in Colorado that claimed she was a madam and never a prostitute (MacKell, 2004).

(Jacobin, 2013). Prostitution is then commonly labelled amongst the low-lifes of society, such as alcoholics and thieves. It is ironic that prostitution, an act of consent from both parties involved, are categorized with those who actually harm and steal from others. Criminalizing sex workers in the United States was implemented at the same time there was the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920’s (Grant, 2013). Both industries faced legal battles and underground operations to continue to boom today, but unlike alcohol, prostitution was never legalized. The laws for prostitution has hardly changed since then, and these outdated laws reflect an impermeable pattern of controlling what a woman can do with her body, despite changing times that are supposed to promote acceptance of liberal sexuality. How people view prostitution as a crime (but not

In 2012, 73% of Americans identified themselves as Christians (““Nones””). In Christianity, prostitution is not only considered morally wrong, it is openly condemned. The Bible views a prostitute as a degraded human being who deserves severe punishment. Leviticus 21:9 declares, “If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.” The Bible also states that the Lord refuses to accept any money earned through prostitution. Deuteronomy 23:18 states, “You must not bring the earnings of a female prostitute or of a male prostitute into the house of the LORD your God to pay any vow, because the LORD your God detests them both.” It can therefore be deduced why it might be rational for the government of a country where Christianity is the dominant religion, to criminalize prostitution.

Sex workers inhabited the public space of Paris throughout the 19th century, their trade widely accepted as disreputable but necessary. When the French poet Charles Baudelaire was asked what art is, his immediate answer was “prostitution.” This proves that throughout history, artists have used prostitutes as models and muses for their artwork. Prostitution and painting go hand in hand. Among the first painters to use female models were Titian and Giorgione, producing Venetian reclining nudes, which appeared as advertisements for the most successful courtesans of Europe. These paintings hung in homes, showing real women as nothing more than an image to be looked at and judged by men. The interest in representing prostitution in art not

According to Seidenberg, “the selling and/or buying sex has been alternately illegal, regulated and forbidden, such as; the U.S federal law against prostitution was the Page Act of 1975” (Seidenberg). As well, prostitutes are ever seen for the ability to give good times by providing sexual services for money or gifts. To recap, prostitutes used to be women selling their bodies for money, but today there are men prostitutes selling their bodies too for many reasons. Not only money, but also drugs are a common currency for prostitutes. In addition, this service industry brings bad consequences to society in the United States, such as, economic, health and social issues.

A woman’s status in the Roman world was entwined with her chastity. The Roman patriarchs saw female sexuality as a threat to the established authority . Female prostitutes presented a particular problem to the Roman belief that the security and prosperity of the state was dependent on both the sexual fidelity and fertility of women. The rightful duty of a respectable woman was to contribute the state by fulfilling her role as faithful wife and fruitful mother. While prostitutes were regarded, both legally and socially, as irrevocably inferior to the rest of the Roman populace, sex work itself was not outlawed. The popularity of brothels juxtaposed with the degradation of the women working in the brothels reflects the ambivalent

This paper will examine woman in the early Christian church (33 AD-330 AD) using context of the New Testament Holy Bible and the observations of the Greco-Roman society. This paper will particularly women contributions in the Apostle Paul’s ministry. Furthermore, it will eventually describe women’s failure to break free from patriarchal supremacy despite emergence of Christianity. Ultimately, this paper argues that women were not emancipated through Christianity because of sexual pessimism outside the Christian Church.

Prostitutes were seen as both useful and unsavory at the same time (Flemming, 44). Men's nature required a setting aside of a class of degraded women to service them (McGinn, 214). The Augustan Laws regarding prostitution are a good illustration of the sheer hypocrisy men displayed with regard to the women in their society. For example, the Tax legitimized prostitution as a legal entity, while the Registration stigmatized women, making them ineligible for respectable work and isolating them to the lower class of society (McGinn, 212 & 287). The authoritarian elite of the Roman Empire regarded prostitution as an institution through which women were made and marketed as sexual objects of a certain, approved type for the general populace (Flemming, 56). In general, prostitution was seen like everything else, to be enjoyed in moderation (Flemming, 44). Pimps and procuresses were seen as even more disagreeable because of the widespread belief that they exploited the weak, and were merchants of dishonor (McGinn, 136). Basically, laws were established to make prostitution legal but

In terms of sociology, Prostitution is a way for an individual to maximize their monetary intake or in other words “benefits” by selling the thing that they have readily, their bodies. In other words, it is the act or practice of participating in promiscuous sexual activity especially for money. Prostitution has been in existence for ages, going back to the Byzantine, Roman, Greek, and Egyptian Empires. Ironically, the ancient religions of those eras dealt with the needs of the group and consequently developed protocols for dealing with sexual relations that have propagated throughout time to the modern era. As a result, prostitution is not about to disappear anytime soon, despite relatively recent local laws. Also throughout centuries,