Can we have a thread about the world's oldest profession in history around the world Veeky Forums?
I'll start with Mesoamerica. Aztec prostitutes in the Precolmbian period were known as ahuianime (pl.)or ahuiani (s.), which meant pleasure women. In some recorded dialogues between native women, this term is used as an insult, comparing it to having an itchy butt, and being a flabby old women.
Despite this they were tolerated as they were said to accompany warriors who went off on campaigns to war. Often sleeping beside them as companions, cooking and taking care of them. In some cases they even participated in the battles themselves on the sidelines like cheerleaders to taunt the enemy. They did this by yelling insults, and flashing the enemy their butt and genitalia. Torquemada, the Spanish chronicler suggests they even participated in battle too, wearing their own armor. Interestingly, in the Codex Mendoza, where the Aztecs recorded the tributes they imposed on their conquered cities (altepetl's) we find some Huastec style full body armor without a loincloth. Loincloths were the essential male garment and it's what identified you as a man as a skirt was to a woman. It might seem like an artist error, but this is repeated in copies, so perhaps this is deliberate. In any case, militarily they served a purpose and not surprisingly their patron deity, Xochiquetzal, was among many other things related to butterflies. Butterflies in Aztec society were said to be dead warriors who after accompanying the sun for four years endured a comfy life sucking nectar eternally. This related back to ahuiani being companions and sort of guardians of the warriors.
Prostitution History
The ahuianime were said to also be sorcerers and something men cautioned their boys about. They use sorcery to seduce boys, and had knowledge of potion drinks they gave to youths, or offered them hallucinogenic mushrooms. One of their potions was made of several seashells, a particular snake and some other ingredients, made into a soupy drink. This was supposedly to allow a man to cum three or four or more times. This was considered dangerous though as Aztecs believed semen was finite and if a boy wasted too much in his youth he'd be useless for his wife in the future in his adulthood, would not be able to produce a family and/or not be able to ejaculate again. Or even in some cases, they'd 'dry' up and die.
As for when they got old? Well they could end up as old slaves working in a house of some lord doing domestic duties, others could have gotten married to warrior or nobleman.
How to identify them in Aztec society:
>They wore a yellowish ointment on their skin, giving their skin color a yellowish color like the simpsons.
>Painted necks, torso and legs (torso and legs wouldn't be visible in public)
>Red painted lips and teeth. This red ointment also had a pleasant aroma and brought attention to the mouth, which in Aztec society was super sexual and dirty (it'd be like a woman bringing attention to cleavage in today's society).
>Chewed gum loudly in public. Unless you were unmarried girl, chewing gum was considered immoral, this is something you did in private. And if you are a guy chewing gum in public, it's something only homosexuals did. The reason for chewing gum was for the fresh smelling breadth (though the Aztecs did clean their teeth), to bring attention to customers in the market and to bring attention to the mouth.
>Their hair was bound in the manner of most Aztec women, but only on one side, the other half was left hanging and loose.
>Makeup and frequent bathing. While Aztecs usually (except for priests and mourning women) bathed very frequently, the prostitutes did so very often. And Aztecs typically favored natural beauty, so they viewed makeup as an excessive trait.
>Sometimes wore flowers around their head.
Go on
good thread my dude keep it up
Duran, another Spanish chronicler mentions that some of these ahuianime, in addition sometimes had guardians themselves, perhaps older or higher status courtesans like pimps. In some cases, they also served to comfort sacrifice victims by caressing them and making them forget of his destiny that was to befall him. The sacrifice victims who impersonated and lived as Gods (ixiptla), also gave these women what they wore when the time came to be ritually bathed.
I mentioned earlier that the going rate for prostitute at the market was 10 (8-10 actually) cacao beans. This is an estimation that comes from Oviedo y Valdez, on writing about the Nicarao of Nicaragua. But it should be noted that the Nicarao, are a group of Nahua people that were originally Toltecs and split off to form their own ethnicity. Though, they are culturally very similar to the Aztecs in a way, and the language Nicarao-Nawat is a close cousin of Nahuatl. To put this price in perspective to buy a slave cost at least 100 cacao beans in Nicaragua, 2000 in the Valley of Mexico. Since cacao beans were the smallest currency used to buy only small products like eggs, rabbits, chiles etc., one can imagine how available these sexual services were and how large of a business this was.
How did anceint whores manage birth control?
Interdusting
Well, at least in roman-englan it was pretty regulated. You bought a license, and then did your trade. Regular medical check-ups for veneral disease was included.
Good question. There must have been some kind of food that was made for this purpose. I swear I read this somewhere.
Bump, this info is golden.
Supposedly a plant got extinct because Romans used it as a birth control.
Phryne has a pretty cool story
en.wikipedia.org
>Athenaeus alleges she was so rich that she offered to fund the rebuilding of the walls of Thebes, which had been destroyed by Alexander the Great in 336 BCE, on the condition that the words "Destroyed by Alexander, restored by Phryne the courtesan" be inscribed upon them.
The "restored" here is an erection joke.
ancient-origins.net
They didn't. They just killed them once they were born. Infants weren't 'human' to the Romans.
One of the greatest tragedies of mankind is the loss of the book "Lives of famous whores" by Suetonius.
I think multiple civilizations from as far as Japan to Rome really did not consider babbys as human.
Infanticide is a big thing in the ancient ages.
I read that in ancient babylon that all women were prostitutes because it was part of their religion to, once in a lifetime, sit at a temple and sell themself for any price to any man.
Herodotus's fap fantasy I think. Still fun though:
The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, “I invite you in the name of Mylitta” (that is the Assyrian name for Aphrodite). It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfil the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.[3]
Wonder how many people would flip out if they found out the "heart" used for Valentine's Day was the seed/fruit of that birth control plant. Do they still make kids hand out cards to each other in school? Fun times.
long, thin sharpened objects
pic related were popular since women had them around all the time and no questions asked
thats what most women used any way, whores maybe had some professional variant, or they just sold the kids or killed them, but that was generaly common any way
What's the source of this?
its because mortality was high so people got sort of emotionaly detached, and that kids were basicaly owned by the head of family so they werent considered autonomus subjects till they grew up enough, hence not 'real people'
somewhere people went as far as question weather babyes have souls or not, dont think they didnt see it as human tho
its a similar thing today where in some circles its assumed a child is not technicaly a person, as in, neurologicaly and by mentality they dont yet realy have a consolidated personal self till like 3 years old or something, but thats not a value judgment or anything just neurology
and besides, we dont seem to register first trimester fetuses as 'real people', such things just vary by at what age a human organism is considered a subject
think a important thing to remember is that these things stem from simply how practical and doable the act of infanticide is, definitions, semantics and cultural perception of value of human life come into it later
Very interesting, how different were the native american cultures.
In the inca culture for example, prostitutes and procuring was frowned upon..
"Living in the fields in bad huts, each alone and not together, could not enter the towns, because they can't communicate with the other women. They were called Pampayruna, whose name means the place and the office... men treated them with the greatest contempt and the women did not talk to them... They weren't called by its own name, but Pampayruna, which is whore .... "
Garcilaso de la Vega
"Whoever it was a procurer was gave a torment publicly, after a public meeting, and if he persevered in vice, was killed"
Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas
Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1950-1982. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain, translated by Charles E. Dibble and Arthur J. O Anderson (Vol. 2, 6,10, and 11).
McCafferty, Sharisse D., and Geoffrey G. McCafferty. 2009. Alternative and Ambiguous Gender Identities in Postclassic Central Mexico.
Durán, Diego. 1971. Book of the Gods and Rites and The Ancient Calendar. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Arvey, Margaret C. 1988. Women of Ill-Repute in the Florentine Codex. The Role of Gender in Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture, edited by Virginia Miller, pp. 179-204. University Press of America, Lanham.
Sigal, Pete. 2011. Flower and Scorpion Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture (Latin America otherwise). Duke University Press Books.
Oviedo y Valdez, Gonzalo Fernández de. 1851-1855. Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar océano. 4 vol. Madrid: Real Academia de Historia.
Torquemada, Juan de. Monarquía indiana. 3 vols. 5th ed. Editorial Po1975 rrúa, México.
Tozzer, Alfred M. 1941. Landa’s Relación de las cosas de Yucatan. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 18. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Good to know lol
Interesting, I really need to read more on the Inca.
For the Maya this is a bit trickier. There's some words in colonial Mayan dictionaries like:
>Whore (majavil ‘antz)
>Whore master (mulavil xinch'ok)
>Public whore (ix kakbach)
>Concubine (tzub). Interestingly, the word tzub is also associated with rabbit, an animal linked with procreation and the Moon Goddess (concerned with fertility and sexuality).
De Landa, a Spanish friar writes shortly after the conquest in the Yucatan, of bad public women who received payment by young men in the marketplace.
Looking at the Classical period, if one observes the murals of Calakmul you can see servant women pouring and serving drinks to men and women also elegantly dressed in jade with faces painted wearing sheer clothing (even with areola visible). Their hair carefully arranged, wearing hats (possibly to protect their faces). Pic related.
What comic is this from?
Similarly in figurines at times some women with hats appear with huipils and robes with such low necklines breasts are visible. While they look somewhat like depictions of regular market vendors, they do stand out in their own way and are much more sexualized as archeologist Karl Taube suggests.
In another vase one sees Goddesses attending Old Gods massaging and caressing them, fanning them and preparing them with enemas filled with hallucinogenic drugs. The vase makes reference that the women are from a 'water place'. Similarly, the Aztec ahuiani prostitutes are seen stepping over a water glyph. In the Princeton vase, some of the glyphs make reference to one of the woman among the many as "Ix Och Naah" or Lady of the Penetrated House, according to one analysis of the vase. Though, it may also read Lady of the House of Metate (grinding stone). If the first is correct it may refer to a brothel. In analyzing all this, one possible conclusion is that there were some women who specialized in comfort, giving a welcoming reception and feeding clients with implied benefits (sexual favors).
Not sure, found it on Veeky Forums a while back.
Given all this, the woman in the Calakmul mural may well be a procuress who headed a brothel and seeing as she was painted proudly in the city's center it's unlikely her status was seen so negatively as the Spanish friars implied of prostitutes. As further proof that she may be a procuress, it's unusual that she's seen as 'in command' of high status, accommodating men with no partner present. And Spanish chroniclers wrote of Aztec procuresses as women who accommodated and fed men, took their money and was skilled in her speech. Another curious thing about the woman in blue in the Calakmul mural, her choice of color may also be implying her association with 'water'.
These women but others in various murals are also seen wearing red makeup. In a similar vein to the Aztec ahuiani who colored their mouths and teeth red. De Landa in writing mentioned how only vein women, wore such makeup. But also mentioned it had sweet smell to it.
Well thats about all I got. Feel free to jump in and share about other civilizations.
Reminds me of the floating world of Japan.
Figures, latinas have always been sluts
Is she that /pol/ girl?
>tfw you will never make a long expensive trip, filled with entertainment that culminates in sex with japanese qt's.