SCHOLAR ISLAND

Ranks of Prostitutes in Rome

The highest rank of Prostitutes were the "Delicatae"…Kept women, or the mistresses of wealthy patrons, who corresponded to the "hetarae" of the Greeks.

Next came the ‘Famosae’, daughters of respectable families, who filled this calling because the "needed the money" or because they enjoyed the pleasure; the ‘Doris’ were very beautiful women who went naked habitually; the ‘Lupae’ or She-wolves, were poor women who lived in squalid shelters in the woods, under the arches, or in abandoned or ruined buildings, etc. who entertained their customers in the alleys.

The ‘Elicariae’ were baker’s girls, who were sent out to sell little cakes of the shapes of the genital organs of men and women for sacrificial offerings in the temple of Priapus, or Venus, and who carried on prostitution as a side-line.

‘Bustuariae’ had their business in the cemeteries where they hired out as professional mourners, also with prostitution as a sideline. ‘Copaie’ were the slave servant girls.

‘Noctilae’, or night-walkers, a class resembling our modern street-walkers.

"Blitidae’-a degraded set of women who were usually drunk on cheap wine.

‘Diabolares’ whose fee was a diabolon (two cents)

‘Forariae’-country girls who lurked at the roadside to pick up a little money

‘Gallinae’ who combined the trade of prostitute with that of thief.

‘Quadrantariae’-whose fee was the smallest copper coin made (1/2 cent)

Then every baker, tavern-keeper, bath-house keeper, barber, and perfumer kept attendant prostitutes to accommodate their customers-no one was obliged to do without sex-if he could raise ½ cent."

   "World War I finally tipped the scales decisively toward morality. The war largely ended the old red-light districts. It would also bring liquor prohibition. Organized moral campaigns-with clear goals and strategies-found their golden opportunity in the fervent idealism that surrounded military mobilization.

   Closing the districts only scattered the prostitutes, turning them into street-walkers and call girls. Chicago's Levee was dead, reported the local vice commission, but its ghosts were "stalking about the streets and alleys of the South side." In some cities, arrests for prostitution rose when the districts shut down. Out on the street, the women became more vulnerable than they had been in the brothels. Male pimps displaced female madams. Violence grew "We found that the police, if they were brutal enough, could drive the girls off the streets," recalled Mayor Brand Whitlock of Toledo. "Of course, after a while the poor things...would come back. Then the police would have to practice their brutalities all over again." A final irony marked the end of the great white slave panic: the crusaders forgot about the women they had mobilized the nation to save."

James A. Morone

Hellfire Nation

"Even before they had left their homes in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, Jewish girls had been frightened by stories of prostitution rings that preyed upon unaccompanied females on the ships and at the sea ports. Their fears are not unfounded. The Jewish underworld made a steady profit by supplying the brothels of Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Near East with 'white slaves."

Susan A. Glenn

Daughter of the Shetl

"If you eliminate prostitutes from society, you will disrupt everything through lust."

St. Augustine

"St. Thomas Aquinas, who regarded sexual offences as worse than theft, confirmed Augustine's stance: prostitution had the function of a sewer within a palace which, if it were removed, would leave the palace filled with pollution. Similarly , if it were eliminated, the world would be filled with sodomy, which would be infinitely more heinous."

Susan Haskins

Mary MagDalen:Myth & Metaphor

A robust, muscular man with eyes averted downward to the ground was Aristotle’s prototype of a slave. A free man, asserted the philosopher, secure in his rights, gazed upward where the gods dwelled.

The idea that there are human beings who are slaves by nature was widely held in Aristotle’s time and, in theory, is no longer believed. But we have not come as far as we might think: New forms of slavery exist in the modern world. Child prostitutes, child soldiers, women uprooted from their countries and forced into prostitution, and illegal immigrants who work off the cost of their passage for years without receiving a salary are just some of the faces of slavery at the end of the 20 century.

The trade in females for prostitution and the forced recruitment of workers amount to billions of dollars annually worldwide, though an exact figure is practically impossible to calculate. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, more than 1 million women and children are sold annually worldwide. Operatives scour the rural areas of the poorest countries where they establish friendships with the parents or with the children themselves, luring them with false promises and money. Sometimes the parents know the destiny of the children and still take the money and let them go.

The traffic in human beings is as old as human history. What has changed is who the victims are and how it operates….."

Silvia Soler Busqueda, Montevideo, May 7, 1998

   "Prostitutes today are not usually sold, but are enticed abroad with promises of a better life working as a waitress, domestic servant of shop-girl. Some have run away from home or come from families which have split up. The reality of the promise is bitter: they arrive in a foreign land, often illegally, unable to speak the local language and virtually trapped. Their Triad owners tell them they are illegal and spin them stories of a terrible fate if they run to the local police. Most, especially those from China, have an inbuilt dread of coming across a law-enforcement officer: a police officer in Beijing is not as amenable as one in Birmingham or Boston. 

   To ensure that they do as they are told, they have their travel documents confiscated, are kept under virtual house arrest in the brothel and provided with food, drink and make-up. Some are given no clothing other than 'whores' rags'-the negligees and split-crotch knickers of their trade-to ensure they do not escape. If they are ever allowed out, they go only in ones or twos with a minder, usually a Chinese woman. Sometimes they are let out to ply their trade in hotel lobbies, casinos or on resort beaches, but they are never out of sight of the minder. Any infringement of the rules does not lead to a beating, because a bruised tart attracts no customers, but it may lead to death. Non-compliant whores are expendable. Their earnings are theoretically reasonably high, but in practice are meager because the Triads charge them for their imprisonment. Board, lodging and travel costs are deducted. The girls are worked hard and it is not unusual in successful brothels for a prostitute to have a dozen clients during an eight-hour shift. When she is unable to work, perhaps because she has a cold or is menstruating, she is set aside to do domestic tasks around the brothel."

Martin Booth

The Dragon Syndicates

"many of these women and girls become "commodities," literally bought and sold for thousands of dollars, literally held in debt bondage. They are locked up in apartments, and have their passports and travel documents confiscated. Many women are subjected to violence, including rape. Yet most of the people who commit such human rights abuses are never brought to justice by the Israeli government."

(Amnesty International, May 18,2000)

                      PREDICTIONS; ROBOTIC SEX by Joel Snell, 1997

Robots that provide sexual companionship are likely to become common in the future. Reportedly, prototype models have already been developed in Japan. The future "sexbots" will have humanlike features and will be soft and pliant. Sexbots will contain vibrators to provide tactile stimulation and sound systems to provide love talk. They could certainly alter human relations in any or all of the following ways:

   -Marriages may be destroyed by sexbots when husbands choose sex with the sexbots rather than with their wives. Jealous wives may destroy sexbot rivals and sue manufacturer.

   -Heterosexual people may use same-sex sexbots to experiment with homosexual relations. Or gay people might use other-sex sexbots to experiment with heterosexuality.

   -Robotic sex may become addictive. Sexbots would always be available and never say no. People may become obsessed by their ever faithful, ever pleasing sexbot lovers and rearrange their lives to accommodate their addictions. Eventually , support groups will likely form.

   -Technovirgins will emerge. An entire generation of humans may grow up never having had sex with other humans.

   -Robotic sex may become "better" than humans sex. Like many other technologies that have replaced human endeavors, robots may surpass human technique; because they would be programmable, sexbots would meet each individuals user's needs.

    Will electronic and robotic sex reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, pedophilia and prostitution? The jury is still out on these implications. However, boundaries, barriers and beliefs will be challenged."

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Book: "The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade" by Victor Malarek

Book: "The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts" by Sian Rees

Book: "The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld" by Christine Wiltz

Book: "The Brothel Bible: The Cathouse Experience" by Sisters of the Heart

"Sexual Revolution" by Silvana Paternostro….The New Republic …July 10,2000

"Fighting the Child Sex Trade" by Michael Satchell…U.S. News & World Report May 8,2000

"Sex Slaves for NATO/KFOR Troops…Media Bypass 1-800-4BYPASS

Book: "THE PROSTITUTION OF WOMEN AND GIRLS" by R. Barri Flowers

See article: "Kosovo's Sex Slave Trade" by Sebastian Junger, Vanity Fair,July 2002

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