History of prostitution
The historical study of prostitution and the social, legal, economic, and cultural conditions surrounding it across societies and periods.
Prostitution in ancient Mesopotamia: The varied forms of paid sex and sexual service documented in ancient Mesopotamian societies. Cuneiform records offer early evidence, though their categories do not map neatly onto modern prostitution.
Regulation of prostitution: Government rules and administrative practices governing commercial sex. Licensing, registration, and zoning repeatedly shaped the historical conditions of sex work.
Cuneiform: A writing system used in ancient Mesopotamia, impressed into clay with a wedge-shaped stylus. Cuneiform texts preserve early references to sexual labor, but their vocabulary remains contested.
Josephine Butler: A British campaigner who opposed state regulation of prostitution and the Contagious Diseases Acts. Her activism made opposition to compulsory examinations a major Victorian political cause.
Prostitution in the Victorian era: Commercial sex in nineteenth-century Britain, amid urban growth, moral reform, and expanding state intervention. Victorian debates helped establish influential frameworks for regulating and reforming prostitution.
Prostitution in ancient Greece: The paid sexual services provided in ancient Greek cities by people in varied social and legal positions. Greek evidence distinguishes enslaved sex workers, independent courtesans, and state-connected brothel workers.
Abolitionism (prostitution): A movement opposing state regulation of prostitution and seeking to end systems that exploit sex workers. Its campaigns challenged compulsory examinations and state-sanctioned brothels.
Code of Hammurabi: A Babylonian law collection from the eighteenth century BCE addressing family, property, labor, and social status. Its provisions illuminate the legal status of certain women and institutions, not a universal origin story.
William Acton: A nineteenth-century British physician who wrote influentially about prostitution and sexual morality. His medical writing helped frame prostitution as a subject of public-health and moral policy.
Prostitution in the United States: The history of commercial sex in the United States, shaped by migration, urbanization, and changing law. American policies reveal recurring links between prostitution, immigration control, and racial hierarchy.