From Priestess to Prostitute: A Brief History of Sex for Cash

Prostitution has the label “the world’s oldest profession” because someone once thought it was clever and someone else agreed and now it just won’t go away because everyone’s happy to assume that women have always been selling their asses. But surprisingly enough the exchange of ass and mouth for cash and disease is not as old as civilization, even though it is pretty old. 

Way back when, prostitution was a curiously sacred thing and some of the first instances of prostitution ever being mentioned did not involve street corners, brothels or grandma’s house, but temples. In ancient Sumeria and Babylon the women were expected to make a trip at least once in their life to the temple of Mylitta and have sex with a complete stranger. The women, whether rich or poor, had to sit on the temple steps and wait for a man to toss some money at her. Whoever came to her first with any amount of money got to have her and she was not allowed to refuse anyone, meaning this was likely the favorite temple of all local hunchbacks and Charlie Sheen’s ancestors.

While prostitution may have started in temples, it seems it was all fine and dandy to keep it there for a while before some industrious person thought they might be able to make a decent living if they kept the same women in the same spot for a while and dropped that whole “sex for religion” aspect and instead went with the whole “sex for a set fee” idea we all know and love today. 

Egypt seems to be the home of the first brothel, brought about not by the Egyptians’ strong desire to pay for sex, but for tourist’ strong desire to pay for sex with some exotic Egyptian ladies. The industry may have been a small one at first but the Greeks took it home with them and made it something awesome, and by awesome we mean exploitative and about as commonplace as Starbucks are today.

Athenian lawmaker Solon took the innovative step of creating state run brothels with regulated prices, because he wasn’t about to let the Greek citizens get fucking while they were getting fucked. The official rate was set at the equivalent of an average worker’s wages for one day. That price got you regular sex and nothing oral, and any extras presumably had to be negotiated on the side.  From this Solon taxed the prostitutes because that’s what the government does as soon as you start making money and keeps the cycle of screwing going on a smooth, efficient manner.