2020. május 13., szerda

History of sex, erotica and pornography IX. - Byzantium 1.


Prostitution
There were plenty of prostitutes in Hellenic society. At the top of the hierarchy were the heters. The Eastern Roman Empire adopted this Greek practice, but by the Middle Byzantine era, it had changed. Byzantium was barely educated for an upscale week, but the lower two classes of meretrixes worked in all cities.
Byzantium
wikipedia.org

The upper class of Byzantine joy girls included actresses, flute and musician girls, circus stuntmen, acrobats, and the famous - not necessarily educated - professional courtesans. They almost equated actresses (singers, acrobats, etc.) and prostitutes, believing that theater was a hotbed of seduction because of the actresses ’behavior, face and hair coloring, naked body, and defiant demeanor. This later became the official position of the Orthodox Church. The “actresses” mainly satisfied the visitors of the performances, but they could also be rented for occasions and banquets. As a garment, they wore a translucent muslin dress in which the naked body could be seen. The most famous theatrical lover was Theodora, who was a child prostitute and then rose from there to the rank of Empress as the wife of Emperor Justinian.
Empress Theodora
wikipedia.org

Prostitution was spread mainly in the cities. Plenty of men gathered here, away from their wives and families, so there was a great demand for sexual services in these cities and a huge number of professional joy girls were available. In the capital, more than ten thousand sold themselves in the 6th century and thirty thousand in the 10th century.
 "Individual prostitution"
After the 4th century, more and more pilgrims arrived in the Holy Land, and this led to the spread of prostitution in Jerusalem, along the Jordan River, and in the Judean Desert. The lower strata of individual prostitutes offered their bodies in squares and baths. Because of deprivation and starvation, they were greedy, sometimes violent, stealing their clients. Those who received men in their own homes were in a better position - they were the “middle class” of individual prostitutes. The girls' apartment was often a single room in the busiest part of the city and there were 5 to 10 clients a day.
 Non-professional “individual” prostitutes pursued their businesses out of lust or financial need, such as women working in inns and pubs. They supplemented their earnings with work, or vice versa: their main activity was prostitution, they “officially” did other work (also) to cover it up. And women craftsmen and small clerks often increased the family’s income through sexual services.
"Institutional prostitution"
The scene of this was a brothel formed in Roman times. Residents of the brothels were considered “official,” all the other girls were just corner prostitutes. Corner prostitution was tacitly acknowledged by both the state and the church. In almost every city, there was a close connection between the brothel and the spa, some baths focused on prostitution, which is why decent people avoided them. Men went to these for the sake of the girls. At the entrance to several baths was this inscription: “Come in and enjoy”. We even know the operating rules of some brothels. The variable number of meretrixes (prostitutes) operated under the supervision of the madam (mostly an aging and somewhat enriched prostitute). She and her servants protected the girls against their rude clients, but the girls were obliged to follow her instructions. In some brothels, the girl was allowed to reject one applicant at a time. The Byzantine government soon recognized the business potential of brothels. It0 taxed them and even appointed an imperial inspector to inspect them. The rulers at times tried to contain, to reduce prostitution, with little success. The laws treated prostitutes with “gloved hands”: they did not consider their activities a crime, but they wanted to regulate traffic.
"Steppe" (between hermits) prostitution:
Another significant arena for the activities of prostitutes is the field of steppe hermits and penance. Monastic life and prostitution went hand in hand. According to the records, it could be believed that there was a constant struggle between the slaves and the monks: the former tried to seduce the hermits, but they wanted to get the prostitutes on a good path. about adultery thoughts and the prostitutes who tempt them. One of the other hermits was served by a young “virgin,” and her surroundings whispered that a sexual relationship had developed between the old man and the child girl. Some monks have been accused of harassing street girls. Prostitutes almost constantly haunted desert fathers, young and old alike. Often the hermit could not resist and enter into a relationship with the prostitute.
But female penitents were not free from a sexual desire either. A hermit named Sarah was "fiercely attacked by the spirit of fornication for thirteen years." There is also evidence that the hermit lady had regular intercourse with other atoners, one or the other having a child. With the decline of hermitism, steppe prostitution “disappeared” with the Arab occupation of the affected areas. A VII. After the 16th century, there were few hermits in the mutilated Empire, and prostitution could no longer be established in the monasteries that had been established at that time. We are also aware of countless “coeducational” monasteries, but the relationship between a friend and a nun cannot be considered prostitution. Then the XI. In the 21st century, women, but even females, were banned from their territory and this rule was introduced in the 21st century. century.
Male prostitution:
Since Roman times, a list has been drawn up every year of professional prostitutes of all ranks and ranks, men and women alike. There were also plenty of male brothels in ancient Rome. Emperor Theodosius, I banned male prostitution, dismantled their houses in the western half of the Empire, exiled and executed male ringworms, and abolished male brothels in Rome. In the Eastern Empire, Constantine I taxed male prostitutes and thus impunity their brothels, which had operated for more than two centuries. Finally, Justinian the Great closed them in 533. The man banned prostitution and punished all kinds of homosexual acts with death. However, it can be assumed that not only female prostitutes but also men continued to work in the larger cities, in secret. In part, the testicles came from among young people, on the other hand, those who slipped to the periphery of society earned their money.
Justinian the Great
wikipedia.org

Child prostitution
The saddest part of prostitution, which was not at all a rarity in the Empire. Even among Egyptian hermits, little girls were spoiled. In Roman times, the price of boys was higher, but in the Byzantine period, the emphasis shifted to girls. Empress Theodora herself began her career as a child prostitute. Despite all the prohibitions, the poorest sections of society often sold their 5-7-year-old daughters for prostitution. Justinian banned child prostitution in 529 AD, but until the fall of Byzantium, there was ample supply, as many poor, miserable families lived in the capital and the countryside. It was also common for pedophile men to buy little girls and keep them in their houses until they were adults. As soon as they became a mature woman, they were thrown into the street (brothel), and few could start a decent bourgeois life, start a family. The majority of child prostitutes ended their lives between the ages of 18 and 20, living longer, often becoming infertile due to their childhood injuries, and numerous abortions, most of whom suffered from chronic trippers and other sexual distresses.
The "supply" of prostitutes
The number of prostitutes has never decreased. Some of the abandoned, orphaned, the wandering child ended up in brothels. Most child prostitutes continued their crafts as adults. There was no other way to survive before some of the women who had been expelled or fled the villages. The majority undertook to sell their bodies due to starvation. Before the turn of the millennium, many “investors” bought beautiful young slave girls, forcing them into prostitution, gaining considerable profits. The vast majority of those who lived out of their bodies were unable to change their destiny, although in Byzantium they accepted former street girls who had converted to a decent life. Few (about ten to twenty percent of them) managed to break out, get married, raise enough money to start a civic occupation, or work in the public silk industry or manufactories. Sometimes, in addition to their civilian occupation, they continued to work as casual prostitutes. Some started or continued prostitution with the knowledge and consent of their husbands. But quite a few of the street girls “converted,” stood as hermits, or marched into a monastery. The age of prostitutes was barely over 20-30 years, but there were exceptionally those who understood 60-70 years, and some remained active in old age, but most died in shelters or monasteries.
Neither prostitutes on the street nor in brothels were required to undergo a medical examination, and they did not claim to do so on their own. The infection sometimes spread epidemically, with the street girls passing the disease to their partners, those to their wives, and they to their lovers. 10 to 15 percent of the Byzantine population was barren, largely as a result of sexual distress.
It was typical, that the Church Fathers equated prostitution with contraception and therefore forbade the prevention of pregnancy. According to the Orthodox Church, prostitutes and their clients are punished by God with leprosy. But prostitutes are aware of a method (s) by which they can get rid of the fetus. We don’t know exactly what they did, but their activities have often been effective. The power knew about the illegal miscarriage, but he did little about it. In Byzantium (under certain circumstances) abortion was allowed, legally precisely regulated, and subject to conditions. Prostitutes mostly did not take advantage of legal abortion, although the intervention was free. If neither the prevention of pregnancy nor the miscarriage was successful, the unwanted newborns were killed, at best, exposed in front of a church, monastery, orphanage, or simply on the street.
Let's continue the history of the morally degraded Byzantium!

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