Prostitution: Necessity for the bad or pleasure for the good? in english

They don't call it the oldest trade in the world for nothing: prostitution. Did it arise, perhaps, for pleasure or necessity? Or, perhaps, for both? In the third millennium before our Era, the Mesopotamians and Babylonians worshiped Ishtar, Goddess of love and fertility, through her sacred slaves called her hierodules. After a complex ritual, the devotee had to copulate with one of the priestesses and finally leave a tribute to the temple in return. The hierodules were selected from an early age among the most beautiful, upright and intelligent of hundreds of aspiring girls. Already in the V century before our Era, the hierodulas had passed from the Middle East to Classical Greece, where the Greeks called them Hetairas, who were no longer slaves of the temple but free women, artists, intellectuals and with enough economic power in the city. most cases. Their services were aimed at the worship of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love. And despite the fact that they were women possessing proverbial beauty, perhaps that was not their greatest attraction: their cultural level and the art of conversation were their most sought-after gifts. They were also dancers and performers of musical instruments. They belonged to the group of the few educated women in Greece. Their dresses were different from those of the other Greeks: they wore transparent tunics that revealed the nakedness of their bodies and their shaved pelvis, although they usually went naked. In the Corinthian temple there were more than a thousand priestesses who, through their sexual favors, obtained sufficient resources to maintain the lavish building. In Japan, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Oiran appear with a behavior very similar to that of a traditional prostitute. However, little by little they cloistered themselves in the so-called pleasure neighborhoods (which were nothing more than brothels) where their manners and education evolved until they became luxury courtesans. The physical appearance and clothing of the Oiran is very similar to that of the Geishas, ​​which is why foreigners often confuse them. The Geisha is educated for intellectual entertainment while the Oiran has been trained for both entertainment and pleasure. As we can see, since ancient times, prostitution has flourished not only under the tolerance of the cultures in which they developed, but also with the acceptance and respect of society. It was not until the establishment of Christianity in our Western culture that prostitution was banned and criminalized and sexuality was deprived of its pleasure to be relegated to a mere reproductive function. A fake battle between good and evil. The dome was called Original Sin. Currently there are organizations and people who oppose prostitution because they see in it a form of degradation of women and an inhuman exploitation machinery. And that is true when the whoredom is run by criminal mafias that force women to work as prostitutes against their will and in extremely poor conditions. But when a young woman voluntarily decides to offer her physical attributes as a source of pleasure in exchange for an economic benefit, we are in the presence of a ratification of her freedom and the exercise of her free will. There are organizations that seek to protect sex workers at work and protect them from the moralistic attacks of society, as is the case of the "Network of Sex Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean", which has just reached its first twenty-five years of existence. . The Uruguayan María Lucía Esquivel has been the first sex worker who has raised her voice before the Organization of American States (OAS) demanding better working conditions and respect for the women in her union. One of the most exposed issues has been that of police violence, one of the great scourges that attacks this community of women. Sexuality as her job has allowed many young Colombian women to find a way that provides economic security for her and her family environment. They are part of a long historical tradition in which men and women have worshiped sex and its pleasures in an open, healthy and sincere way. More important than the moral prejudices that still persist around the exercise of sex as a work activity, is the safety of the young women who exercise it, for which private companies specialized in the area have been formed that guarantee the girls alternate conditions physical and mental security, as well as unconditional respect for their human rights and individual freedoms.