The only realistic representation of brothel life I’ve seen personally was an exhibit of photos from Bill Witliff’s book Boystown. The pictures were candids taken by photogs working in the bars and whorehouses, mostly at the behest of the johns. Every single one of the men in those photos is revealed as the pathetic jackass he really is. The women, on the other hand, seem fully human, which made the whole collection that much harder to look at. Which is, I think, as it should be.

1. One who acts without moral restraint; a dissolute person.
2. One who defies established religious precepts; a freethinker.

And how the fact that the women were slaves is an afterthought - the last paragraph. Not something to think about - much.

It reminds me of the people for whom pornography is a “free speech” issue. It’s all about *their* freedom. It’s so inconvenient to think about the freedom of women.

Signed,

Buttercup, an’at.

Unfortunately, you would never have been able to enjoy the lovely courtyard in your husband’s or father’s house. You would have been confined to the women’s quarters and only trotted out if your husband wanted another child or your father wanted to marry you off for material benefit to some old, Greek fart twice your age. If you were a good little virgin, that is. Otherwise, daddy dearest would be selling your ass off to the slavers.

“Having ensured that the ‘good’ girls were safe from any taint of sexual indiscretion, it was necessary to supply the ‘bad’ girls to cater for men’s sexual appetites. Solon (the great Athenian lawgiver of the sixth century BC) legalized state brothels, staffed by slaves and aliens. While the good girls composed a single category (wives cum mothers), the bad girls were graded from the high-maintenance hetaera — the equivalent of the mistress — to the low-end street walker, who could be picked up for a few dollars near the city dumps where people went to defecate. The whore’s sexuality was a public convenience; she was viewed in terms of a sewer that drained off men’s lust.

“We have hetaerae for our pleasure, concubines for our daily needs, and wives to give us legitimate children and look after the housekeeping,’ Demosthenes, the greatest of the Athenian orators, is reported to have said. This demarcation associating female virtue with sexlessness has been used to dehumanize women to this day.”

“Misogyny, The World’s Oldest Prejudice,” Jack Holland

Yeehaw. Life was good.

“Social Democracy thought fit to assign to the working class the role of the redeemer of future generations, in this way cutting the sinews of its greatest strength. This training made the working class forget both its hatred and its spirit of sacrifice, for both are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than that of liberated grandchildren.”

Women, as an oppressed class, shouldn’t be confused into doing anything for the sake of their “daughters.” It’s by remembering the sacrifices of their mothers that the movement is strengthened.