Easter 2013

Well pleaseth me the sweet time of Easter
That maketh the leaf and the flower come out.  -  Bertran de Born

As I’ve pointed out before, all of the Christian holidays are merely pagan ones dressed up in a new garb, and though they may have some explanation derived from Christian catechism most of them are still pagan to the core.  This is true of three of them more than any of the others: Halloween is still the Day of the Dead as it has always been; Christmas is still the festival of the reborn sun, celebrated with revelry and song and greenery and gift-giving as it has been for millennia; and Easter is still the observance of rebirth, with Christ standing in for all the vegetation-gods who came before him, Tammuz and Attis and Adonis and Osiris, slain and buried to rise again from the dead.  Just as the dye which colors the shell of an Easter egg has little (if any) effect on the substance of the egg beneath, so it is with the holiday itself; the theological rationalizations and the complex religious pageantry have not changed the day’s deeper meaning one iota, and devout Christians still employ the ancient symbols of flower, hare and egg.  This is why it matters little to me that we observe the holiday on the Christian date rather than the traditional astronomical one; it’s only fitting that I bend the Christian day to my needs just as Christianity bent the ancient pagan holiday to its.

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Volumnia Cytheris

The tribune of the people was being conveyed in an essedum, lictors with laurel preceded him; among whom, on an open litter, a mime actress was being carried; whom honorable men, citizens of the municipalities, coming out from their towns under compulsion to meet her, saluted not by the name by which she was notorious on the stage, but by that of Volumnia. A raeda followed full of pimps, thoroughly despicable companions; then his neglected mother was following the girlfriend of her filthy son as though she were a bride.  -  Cicero, Second Philippic

Cytheris was born a slave in the latter days of the Roman Republic, about 70 BCE.  Her parents were probably Greek, and her name (deriving from Cytherea, one of Aphrodite’s bynames) may not be the one she was originally assigned at birth, but rather one she adopted (or was given) later when it became clear what her profession would be.  She was the property of the wealthy and ambitious Publius Volumnius Eutrapelus, an enthusiastic patron of the theater, who had her trained as a mime and introduced her to the theater in her early teens.  Roman mime was not the silent niche-art it is today, but rather a blend of singing, dancing and acting, much of it improvised; it is therefore more closely akin to vaudeville than to Mummenschanz or Marceau. As I mentioned in “Meretrices and Prostibulae”, most mimes – like most actresses for centuries before and millennia after – were also prostitutes, and Cytheris was probably in the group of mimes who in 55 BCE began the tradition of ending the Floralia with a striptease (the public sex was not added until imperial times).

Cytheris so excelled at both the public and private aspects of her art that her master freed her sometime in the late 50s, but his action was not motivated by altruism; though she was legally free she was still an actress and whore and thus could not hope to rise very high in stratified Roman society.  Furthermore, she was bound to her patron by a restrictive contract which kept her from choosing her employment freely, and she was obligated to give him free performances (of both kinds) when asked.  In other words he was no longer her master, but he was still her pimp; this is exactly why he freed her.  No man of knightly or senatorial rank could associate with a slave-whore unless she belonged to him, but as an ostensibly free delicata she could be hired by the noble Romans Eutrapelus hoped to influence.  Cytheris was no exploited victim, however; she remained extremely loyal to her patron for the rest of her life, and he treated her more like a modern businessman would treat an extremely valued assistant than like something out of a prohibitionist fantasy.

About 49 BCE Cytheris became involved with Mark Antony, who openly made her his mistress after Caesar appointed him Master of the Horse (second in command) in the summer of 48.  Their relationship did not last much longer; he was forced to give her up by the end of 47 BCE, but the reason it ended is worthy of note because it reveals Antony’s two main personality flaws (politically speaking) and foreshadows his eventual downfall.  Though his family connections predestined him to high office, his heart was never really in it; as a youth he was well-known for drinking, gambling and general partying, and even as a man he was well-known for being fond of the company of theater people, especially mimes.  But the second flaw was the tragic one:  Antony had the unfortunate tendency to fall in love with his mistresses, which of course led to his doom once he took up with Cleopatra only six years later.

Nobody in Rome cared if prominent citizens had affairs with courtesans or other women of lower social class, no matter how many patricians knew about it; what was important was that it be kept out of sight of the plebeians, and given no official recognition.  But Antony seemed unable to maintain this necessary discretion, either with Cytheris or later with Cleopatra. Rather than treating his mistresses as a Roman statesman should, he acted like a young man in love who wants the world to know about his wonderful lady.  While Caesar was off in Africa wiping out the last army loyal to Pompey, Antony made administrative rounds in Italy with the great procession the conservative Cicero (who knew Cytheris personally and disliked her intensely) describes in the epigram: he essentially treated a courtesan like a wife, even to the point of having her addressed by her nomen (inherited from her former master) as though she were a matron, rather than by the cognomen under which she was famous.  When Caesar came back to Rome, he was extremely unhappy about this and insisted that Antony break off relations with her (Cicero mocks Antony by using the word “divorce”) and cultivate a more respectable image.

For the next four years Cytheris worked as a courtesan, being occasionally called upon to seduce one politician or another as her patron required; though he supported Antony until the end, he knew how to play politics and courted the favor of both Caesar’s party and the opposition.  Only one of Cytheris’ regular clients from this period has a famous name: Marcus Junius Brutus, who later became one of Caesar’s assassins.  Her next major conquest came around 43 or 42, when she took up with the soldier-politician Cornelius Gallus, who was also an accomplished poet; Gallus was so smitten with her that he eventually composed four books of poetry in her honor.  It was the tradition in Roman love poetry for the poet to use a pseudonym for his lover; the name so chosen had to have the same number and stress pattern of syllables as the real woman’s name, and so Cytheris became “Lycoris”.  The last of these books was written in 40 BCE, after she had left him; when Antony and Octavian began the first of several major quarrels Gallus supported the latter, so Eutrapelus reassigned her to Quintus Fufius Calenus, one of Antony’s generals.

The flower “lycoris” was named after her.

By the time Octavian became Augustus and the Republic became an Empire, Cytheris (now in her early 40s) had largely vanished from history.  Gallus’ poetry about her was both popular and highly regarded, thanks in part to Virgil’s tenth Eclogue (published about 38 BCE), which was on the subject of Gallus’ pining away for her.  Though Virgil also called her “Lycoris” as Gallus had, her identity was an open secret and she was held in great honor among the mimae; both “Cytheris” and “Lycoris” were popular stage names for the next 300 years.  Though we do not know how she spent her later years, we can hazard a guess:  the new Imperator loved mime, so as one might expect it grew even more popular during his reign; once she grew too old to work as a delicata any longer, the former consort to a ruler probably returned to the stage, ending her days performing as an archimima (lead comedienne) to thunderous applause.

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The First Christmas

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share.  -  Lee Mendelson, “Christmas Time is Here”

As I said yesterday, I suspect the festival we now know as Christmas began about 3900 BCE, when the climate abruptly cooled and dried all over the world.  For about 2000 years before that, the climate had been wet and warm enough for agriculture to succeed even in areas which are arid in modern times, and with little irrigation or centralized planning.  But once the long drought set in (around the same time copper started to replace stone as the favored tool material), everyone started to crowd into the comparatively small areas of the river valleys: scattered villages gave way to large cities, wars were fought over the limited arable land, and hierarchical social structures appeared in order to keep track of which land belonged to whom and what would happen to it when he died.  Because warfare and rigid hierarchies appeal more to the male mind societies became more patriarchal, and because heredity was now important sex laws and taboos started to appear.  Now that agriculture was a bit trickier calendars were needed so people would know the best times to plant and to reap, and rituals were developed to appease the gods so as to ensure bountiful harvests.

By the late 4^th millennium BCE, the most important of these rites was the one which commemorated the creation of the world by the sky-god Anu after his victory over the forces of chaos; the Babylonians assigned this role to their god Marduk, and personified chaos as the dragon Tiamat.  The battle was believed to have lasted for 12 days, so the festival (which the Babylonians called Zagmuk) did as well, and though it occurred at the end of winter (the two weeks before the vernal equinox) rather than at the beginning, this was the origin of our 12 days of Christmas.  As in many later cultures, the time between the end of the old year and the beginning of the new was a time of chaos, and the rituals were thought to help Marduk beat back Tiamat for another year.  The priests and nobles enacted a pageant (the ancestor of our Christmas pantomime) in which the king played Marduk, and he was supposed to be sacrificed so as to join the god in the underworld and fight by his side.  But because it was impractical (not to mention counterproductive) to have a new king every year, what actually happened was this:  on the first day of Zagmuk, the king abdicated his power and a condemned criminal was invested as king.  He was feted and given homage, and played the part of Marduk in the early part of the festival; he was then sacrificed and the true king resumed his station, receiving the power to rule by consummating a ritual marriage with the entu (high priestess of Ishtar).  To provide a mystical balance, another prisoner was chosen at the same time as the temporary king; instead of being sacrificed, he was set free in order to bear the sins of the nation away with him (a similar ritual was later practiced by the Hebrews using goats).  And while the ruling classes enacted all this, the common people helped by burning effigies of Tiamat in bonfires.

Sumer was the Great Mother of Western civilization, and her culture infused all which came after it.  The Zagmuk festival spread to all parts of the Near East, and though it changed as it spread its influence can be clearly seen.  The dedication of a human sacrifice to represent the death of the god, followed immediately by the investiture of another person as the reborn god, was adopted by the Ancient Greeks as part of their primitive festival of Lenaea.  And while the human sacrifice eventually vanished in a literal sense from the Babylonian festival (later called Akitu), it survived in symbolic form; during the twelve days of the festival the social order was reversed, with masters waiting upon slaves and one slave chosen to be the head of the household for the duration, just as a criminal had been made king in earlier times (but without the unpleasant conclusion).  And after the battle-pageant the common people thronged in the street, rejoicing in the victory of their god with shouted invocations and joyful songs.  The festival was extremely popular, and survived conquest after conquest for millennia; the Kassites, Elamites, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians and Seleucids each adopted it in turn.  By late classical times many of its elements (including the social reversal and the singing in the streets) had entered the Greek Kronia, descendant of Lenaea and ancestor of the Roman Saturnalia; the latter adopted its practices wholesale in 217 BCE, at the same time (and as part of the same Sibylline reform) as the Venus Erycina  was brought to Rome.

Six thousand years ago the climate shifted, driving our ancestors from a pleasant Eden where food was plentiful into a harsher world where winter was a time of crisis.  And though the elaborate ritual devised by the ancient Mesopotamians to drive back the chaos is no longer solemn or bloody, many of its elements – feasting, mumming and masking, pantomime, bonfires, caroling and even the twelve-day duration – became traditional parts of our winter holiday season, and have endured even to the present day.  From the unnamed festival of ancient Uruk to Zagmuk to Lenaea and Akitu, then via Kronia to Saturnalia to Sol Invictus, and finally to Christmas and Carnival, there runs one long, unbroken cord which none who opposed it, whether king, priest or ideologue, has ever been able to sever.

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Red in Tooth and Claw

Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law?
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed?  -  Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H. (LVI)

One of the reasons the “rape is not sexual” myth has such staying power despite its clear absurdity is that it appeals to both men and women; as I said in “The Rape Question”,

… the truth – that rape is a natural, though unfortunate, outgrowth of our sexual programming – is scary to men because it reduces them to the level of animals, and to women because it means there is always the risk of rape in heterosexual relations.  By ignoring the 73% of all unwanted sex which isn’t forcible, people of both sexes could pretend there was no elephant in the parlor…

Very often, humans prefer to believe a comfortable lie than to accept the uncomfortable truth that Nature is a bitch goddess who doesn’t give a damn what any of us might want, and if She had Her way human life would be, as Hobbes put it, “nasty, brutish and short.”  From Her point of view, we exist for one reason and one reason only:  to be fruitful and multiply.  And both male sexual aggression and female sexual response evolved to fulfill that one goal, individual health and happiness be damned.  This is not to say that natural impulses are “corrupt” or “evil” as the Platonists (and their modern philosophical descendants) would have it, nor that they are “pure” and “good” as the idealists believe; they are amoral, and it is for the human mind, guided by the individual moral compass, to determine when to follow them, when to sublimate them and when to control them.  In order to make these determinations the individual needs understanding, and in order to understand he needs knowledge; the reason belief systems and mass movements want sexual knowledge suppressed is so that the faculties of rational decision-making are starved, and many therefore turn to the leaders of those movements for guidance.  If people understand the underlying reasons for rape, they can learn how to control it themselves rather than being forced to rely upon the morally bankrupt dogmas and paternalistic, authoritarian non-solutions pushed by governments, feminists, religions and others with a vested interest in controlling the interaction between men and women.

The most important thing to recognize is that, contrary to dogma, rape is neither an asexual act nor a result of “patriarchal culture”:  it is a type of reproductive behavior, and occurs in many species that have neither cultures nor hierarchical social interactions.  As I explained in “Ice Cream in the Hand”,  reproductive success for males depends upon spreading their sperm as widely as possible so as to inseminate as many females as possible; rape can therefore be an effective strategy for a low-status male who might not otherwise be able to pass on his genes in any other way.  Remember that concepts like law, fairness and individual autonomy are very recent arrivals on the landscape, and our sexual behaviors evolved in their absence.  The fact that we now recognize unwanted sexual contact as a violation of personal rights is no more germane to a discussion of how the behavior evolved than moral stipulations against murder are in considering the feeding habits of carnivora.

When one contemplates the big picture, human females are fortunate:  rape did not evolve as a primary mating strategy among the primates, and though it occurs in chimpanzees and some other apes and monkeys it is not the norm in any primate species.  That’s not so among ducks and geese, where sex is always violent and apparently coercive, and among a number of species of large herbivores, where it’s usually so; I can even tell you from personal observation that billy goats don’t wait for consent, and if they’re big and strong enough can sometimes force sex even with a nanny who doesn’t seem very happy with the proceedings.  Bottlenose dolphin sex is extremely aggressive, and what seem to be gang rape situations are not uncommon (we can’t be sure if they all take turns or if she’s forced to choose one, because dolphins are very averse to copulating within view of humans).  But in some species, there is absolutely no courtship at all; instead evolution has produced a sort of “arms race” between their sexes, with males evolving mechanisms to facilitate rape and females evolving mechanisms to make it more difficult.  Here’s an example from a recent news article:

A male fish from Mexico has…genitalia…equipped with four hooks…[to] allow him to grab onto a resistant female during mating…Brian Langerhans of North Carolina State University…explained that the male’s hooked genitals may be a counter-response to the female’s own defenses against undesirable mates.  “Typically, reproduction is more costly in females, so females favor ways of reducing mating with ‘lower quality’ males, but reproduction is cheap in males and so selection favors ways of mating with as many females as possible”…Females of this species have evolved to have a big ball of tissue that blocks most of the genital pore.  This means the female would have to deliberately allow the male to mate with her unless the male evolved a counter-response, Langerhans explained.  The four-hooked genitalia could help the males overcome resistance and latch onto a female’s genital pore and deposit sperm inside her…Another…species…recently discovered in Vietnam sports sex parts that jut out of its head and are equipped with a rod and a jagged hook to clasp the female during mating…

One can only imagine the thorny issues of consent and coercion which might arise if a species like this were to evolve high-order intelligence; the “War of the Sexes” would be more than just a metaphor among such creatures.  In humans, as in all other animals, conflict arises whenever the reproductive aims of an individual male and an individual female fail to coincide; the key to reducing the number of such incidents, and to mitigating the damage they cause to both parties (and to society as a whole) when they occur despite precautions, is knowledge.  Understanding why an organism behaves in the way it does may allow one to halt or divert that behavior, but the lack of understanding which inevitably results from an incorrect theoretical framework empowers nobody but those who want the conflict to continue in order to further their own self-serving agendas.

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Vinalia Rustica

The Christian fear of the pagan outlook has damaged the whole consciousness of man.  -  D.H. Lawrence

Yesterday was Vinalia Rustica, the oldest known Roman festival to the goddess Venus; like Vinalia Urbana in the spring, it was shared between her and Jupiter, because she was the patroness of common wine while he was the patron of fine wines.  Though some Roman historians insisted that the festival was sacred to Jupiter from the time of Aeneas (the dawn of Roman history), and that Venus only came into the celebration later, the evidence is that it was actually the opposite:  the festival was associated with Venus Obsequens, her second-oldest aspect, who was much more like the original Latin vegetation goddess than the Greek Aphrodite.  Furthermore, the more primitive rites were celebrated at her temples; the main sacrificial victim for the ritual was a ewe lamb; and the very name of the holiday indicates its original dedication to rustic wine (vinum spurcum) rather than the professionally-prepared, high-quality wine (vinum temetum) which was considered fit for religious ceremonies.

Long-time readers will probably recognize that this is a familiar pattern in the development of holidays:  they usually have their origins in very ancient times, often prior to the advent of written language, and start out as agricultural celebrations presided over by women and dedicated to fertility deities.  In their original forms, they usually involved blood sacrifice – sometimes even human sacrifice – and were often terrifying observances born of the fear that something could go wrong with sun or weather to destroy the crops on which they depended; these grisly rites were intended to propitiate the mysterious, capricious gods our ancestors held responsible for natural phenomena.  As human civilization developed and people became more certain that the seasons at least were relatively dependable, and that the sun did not need to be bribed into returning every winter, the ceremonies became symbolic celebrations of thanksgiving rather than solemn ceremonies of bargaining and appeasement.  Still later, as societies became more patriarchal, ceremonies which were originally dedicated to fertility goddesses and sacrificial vegetation gods (such as Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, etc) shifted to the control of authoritative sky-god types like Zeus who controlled the world as kings ruled countries, by force and might, rather than having to go through that messy and embarrassing annual-death bit.  For example, starting in the 5^th century BCE the primary winter solstice celebration in Greece began to shift from Lenaea (dedicated to Gaea and Dionysus) to Kronia (dedicated to Kronos); I suspect something similar happened in Rome about two centuries later, as Jupiter muscled in on the two wine-festivals which were previously considered the province of Venus.

But when Christianity installed its own interpretations on most of the popular pagan festivals in order to rededicate them to Christian purposes, it seems to have virtually ignored the warmer months.  From Samhain to Beltane virtually every pagan holiday was converted into a Christian one, but the other half of the year was nearly empty.  The Roman wine festival seems to have merged with the Celtic/Germanic festival of First Fruits (Lammas) which along with the  summer solstice and autumnal equinox persisted as popular secular celebrations into the 19^th century, though none of them were officially observed under Christian guises.  But given that the day’s patron is also that of my profession, and that it’s conveniently located to herald the end of the Dog Days (we’ve enjoyed nights below 20^o Celsius for over a week now), I decided to dedicate today’s column to Venus, and to recall a once-important occasion now consigned to the attic of history.

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Fictional Interlude: Empathy

Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.  -  William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (II, ii)

“I’m looking forward to seeing you at seven-ninety then.  Thank you, Lord Zolan!”  Marilith covered the glass and settled back onto the cushions of the divan; the feelings of a new patron were often overwhelming at first, and she would need much of the next hour to sort through them.  “Tea please, Cynthia,” she said when her handmaiden appeared in response to the bell.

“Red lotus as usual, mistress?”

“Yes, and the incense too.” Then as the servant turned to go, she added, “And you’ll need to stay close for this one, I think.”

Cynthia’s face remained as impassive as ever, but she asked, “Do you think he’ll be dangerous?”

“Dangerous?  No.  Very ardent, though; I can feel his intensity even now, and I’ll need your capable hands if I lose myself in so deep a pool.”  No answer but a deep bow was necessary, so Cynthia gave no other, and a moment later she was gone.  Though she had been here for six months now, Marilith was still impressed with her efficiency; she had indeed been a wise investment, just as Dr. Galen had promised.

This house, too, had been a wise investment; its proximity to the palace and the spectacular view of the cloud-piercing Tower of Heaven would have justified its expense even without the space and amenities it offered.  As a child, she could only have dreamed of living in Yian, much less owning a lovely mansion and the finest servants human ingenuity could produce…but that was before her talent had manifested itself, and before she had recognized how she could improve her situation by its use.

A wave of lust spread through Marilith’s body, momentarily startling her with its intensity; her new client was presently transacting some business in the Tower, and by looking toward it she had inadvertently opened the empathic channel more widely.  She inhaled deeply of the calming incense (when had Cynthia brought it in?  As silent as she was quick!) and explored Lord Zolan’s feelings, gliding through them as though swimming in a strong current, not fighting them yet not allowing them to carry her away, either.  He was an important man, high in the Imperial bureaucracy, and such men usually have powerful passions; once she had mapped the rugged and complex landscape of his desires and fully learned how to appeal to them, he would be an excellent and loyal client.  Today he would only be here for an hour, but that was almost too much for the first time with such an intense lover.

The tea helped her to master the invading emotions, and when she was done she went to her closet to dress.  The contact was more than strong enough for her to divine how best to appeal to him, and by the time his heightened anticipation told her that he was on his way she had dressed, made up and had her hair arranged for maximum effect.  All that remained was her customary prayer at the small shrine adjoining her boudoir, and she was ready; when she sensed he had touched down on the landing stage she moved into the parlor and artfully arranged herself on the cushions.

“Lord Zolan of Orissa,” Cynthia announced, and he entered the room in a burst of excitement which sharply increased the moment his eyes fell upon Marilith.  He crossed the room in a remarkably dignified fashion considering his emotional state, and raised her hand to his lips with something closely akin to awe.

“Your images fall utterly short of the reality,” he said in a hoarse whisper.  She knew that this was a totally sincere statement; no image, still or moving, could adjust its posture and facial expressions to appeal to the viewer’s individual preferences as she had learned to do.  She pitied courtesans without her gift; feigned lust and interest, no matter how perfectly imitated, could never match the real ones she borrowed from her clients.  She was the perfect dance partner, and followed as effortlessly as a shadow.

Some of her callers relished the anticipation, their passions mounting as she prolonged the preliminaries until the point they could stand it no longer, but Lord Zolan was not one of them; his need was a raging fire, and there would be ample time for conversation once it had been temporarily quenched.  For now, only two words were needed:  “Take me.”

It was as though she had thrown a lever to release some mechanism powered by a tightly-coiled spring.  Her own passion rose in tandem with his as he literally tore the gown from her body and covered her bosom in rough kisses, all hope of self-control lost to her now; she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, and there was absolutely nothing artificial about the ecstasy she felt as he entered her, nor about her synchronous climax when he reached his own within a very short time as all her lovers did.

When her senses eventually returned, Marilith glanced at the wall clock and saw it was just after eight; that left ninety minutes of their appointment, so there was no need to awaken her guest right away.  While he slept peacefully she could regain her composure and get a better look at him through eyes unblurred by the intense emotions she had felt while he was awake.  He was a well-built, good-looking man with strong features, every bit the son of a sirdar; according to the peerage records Marilith had consulted last week when he first contacted her, his mother was a great-great granddaughter of the royal house of one of the Outer Worlds.  So in addition to the generous fee and the undeniable physical and emotional pleasure she would gain from his visits, he had good family connections on both sides which could prove very valuable to her; his patronage might provide the means by which she eventually secured a title, an advantageous marriage in a class far above that into which she had been born, or both.

But there would be plenty of time for that later; right now she was enjoying her life as the most sought-after companion in the capital…the attention, the intense pleasures, the comforts and most of all the wealth.  Political power would come as easily and naturally as the rest had.

She smiled, and began to kiss and caress her noble visitor’s head.

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Sexual Healing

When I was a call girl, men were not paying for sex.  They were paying for something else.  They were either paying to act out a fantasy or they were paying for companionship or they were paying to be seen with a well-dressed young woman.  Or they were paying for someone to listen to them.  -  Roberta Victor

I recently received an email from a gentleman with two friends, each with confidence issues that my reader thought might be ameliorated with the help of an experienced professional.  This is not at all unusual; in my early column “Madonna and Whore” I wrote,

I have gently coaxed sexual response from the impotent or inhibited, or those sexually shell-shocked by disastrous relationships; on a multitude of occasions I have provided a man with some sexual outlet he needed, yet for which he could not or would not ask his wife (usually because she had turned him down cold when the subject was mentioned).  I have given much-needed intimacy to men so deformed most women couldn’t bear to look at them, held men while they cried because they were too ashamed to do it before their wives, and played mother-confessor for a host of sins.  I have lent a sympathetic ear to clients’ problems, given them relationship advice, comforted them when they were in pain and reassured them when they were overcome by uncertainty.

I’m not remotely unusual in this respect; most whores can say the same.  Though prudish American culture prefers to deny it, sex has a powerful healing function (especially for men), and sex professionals can often do far more for a man than a doctor, psychiatrist or priest.  In addition to the basics like massage and release of debilitating tension we give virgins their first experiences with women, minister to the sexual needs of the disabled and even help to relieve stress in men who have suffered through traumatic situations; in the following questions we’ll look at two more cases in which a talented professional would be more therapist than tart.

My first friend is a gentleman in his late 40′s who has not been with a woman in the 3 years since his divorce.  His friends believe he is completely over his ex, but we have noticed an uncharacteristic lapse in his confidence; we’ve tried to reintroduce him to dating, but it’s as if he doesn’t remember how to behave around women and he pulls back within his shell.  Do you think it a good idea to arrange for a discreet professional to meet with him as if by accident and accompany him for an evening, but conceal the true reason for their serendipitous meeting?

Though you can probably find a lady who would be willing to playact with your friend, I’m not at all sure that would be the right thing to do.  I’m a big believer in honesty, and though there are certainly some circumstances in which duplicity for a good cause is acceptable, I honestly don’t know if this would be one of them.  My concern is that if he ever found out it could be even worse for his self-confidence, and there are a number of ways in which he could find out; it might happen during the date due to perceptiveness on his part or a slip on her part, and what happens when he asks for her phone number at the end of the evening (as he certainly would)?  Or what if he goes surfing escort sites (you may think he doesn’t, but what if you’re wrong?) and discovers her pictures online?  Spending an evening with an experienced call girl can do wonders for a man’s sexual self-confidence, but I honestly feel it’s better for him to know what’s really going on rather than being fed a fantasy.

My other friend is much younger (in his late 20s) and has almost the opposite issue; he gets so excited that he finishes much more quickly than he would prefer.  I shared with him some tips to calm himself, and though he said one of those suggestions has truly helped him it only increased his time from immediately to a few minutes.  His last girlfriend moved away and now he’s afraid to deal with another one because he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by “being so disappointing”.  He can’t really afford a sex therapist, so I was wondering if a lady of the evening might help him?  If so, should he let her know exactly what she’s signing up for? 

It’s possible you may already have corrected his problem.  You say he used to climax immediately, but now can last “a few minutes”; how many is a few?  Because as I explained in an interview with the London School of Attraction,  most women don’t want nearly as much actual intercourse as most men seem to think we do.  If your friend can go for five minutes that’s enough for most women, especially if he takes the time to give his partner all the foreplay she wants.  A good escort might indeed help him, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking:  she might be able to teach him to slow down if necessary, but more importantly she could help him develop his confidence and foreplay techniques, and let him know if he really is too fast or just thinks he is.

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The Last Thirteen for Fourteen

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. - Thomas Paine

Every Friday the 13^th I ask my readers, especially those who are not themselves sex workers, to speak out for decriminalization of prostitution.  This is the third such occasion this year, but it’s also the last one for 14 months (until September 2013), so I want to make it a good one.

Though roughly 10% of modern women have taken money for sex at least once, the great majority of such cases are informal and the payer an acquaintance; only about 1% of women actually work as hookers at some point in their lives, and less than a third of that (just under 0.3%) are thus employed at any given time.  That’s a pitifully small minority, smaller even than the fraction of the population who identify as homosexual (which is between 2-3%); in a more just world even the smallest minority would be treated fairly, but since that isn’t the case in this one it’s imperative we have help from outside our own group.  Gay rights activists drew bisexuals and transgender people into a coalition, but even that would have been too small a minority to matter without the help of friends, family, libertarians and others.

Sex workers, on the other hand, have allowed our already-small numbers to be divided by laws which make arbitrary distinctions between “legal” sex work (such as stripping, phone sex and in some places porn acting) and “illegal” sex work (such as some forms of prostitution; in most of the US it’s all prostitution).  But even if strippers, porn actresses and the various types of what I call “halfway whores” rallied together, I still can’t imagine that making up over 10% of the female population.  As with gay rights, we’re going to need the help of friends, family, libertarians and even true feminists (as opposed to the anti-sex crowd I refer to as “neofeminists”).

Perhaps the most important group whose support needs to be enlisted is men, who make up roughly half the population but much more than half of people in positions of power.  Kinsey found that 69% of men have directly paid for sex at least once in their lives; some recent studies have returned much lower numbers, but this probably has much more to do with increased social stigma in the past three decades and the construction of the questions (e.g. “have you ever procured a prostitute?” vs. “have you ever paid for sex?”) than with the material facts.  Since roughly 67% of men have cheated on their wives or girlfriends, the 69% figure seems highly credible to me; it also jibes with my experience and that of other working girls with whom I’ve discussed the issue.  Of those, fewer than half repeat the experience, and less than a tenth make a habit of it; roughly 20% of all men hire hookers occasionally (such as when they’re at conferences or on business trips) and 6% do so frequently.

Even if we assume that the 50% of men who never see a whore again after their first time were repelled by the experience, that still leaves a fifth of the male population who secretly support us (at least financially).  So why don’t they speak up?  Why are there so few prominent men who are willing to even support our rights as an abstract concept, much less actually admit to enjoying our company on occasion?  Obviously it’s mostly due to the deep-rooted moral hypocrisy of our culture, whose members are willing to crucify exposed “sinners” for “offenses” they themselves have committed many times in secret.  But there’s also the fact that a large fraction of the 90% of women who have not taken direct payment for sex labor under all sorts of illusions and delusions about harlotry, and even a dedicated contrarian who will enthusiastically fly in the face of social institutions may be (understandably) unwilling to risk the disapproval or even outright hostility of his wife, mother, sisters, daughters, etc.

These factors and others were mentioned in a comment by regular reader B.B. Wye on a column I wrote about the difficulties of “Coming Out”; he pointed out that as hard as it is for prostitutes to be “out”, it may be even harder for our clients, especially with “end demand” rhetoric in the ascendancy.  Wye is a musician who expressed his feelings about his favorite type of whore in the song “Midtown Asian Sex Spa”, and in his comment he wrote of his desire to admit authorship of the song and to openly speak out for the rights of women who have given him a great deal of happiness and pleasure.  Another reader who felt the same way wrote to ask me for suggestions on how he could find a middle path, speaking out for sex worker rights without admitting his personal interest in us; here are a few suggestions for him, for B.B., for other clients faced with the same quandary, for working girls who can’t come out themselves and for men and women who have never bought or sold sex, but just care about human rights.

If you’re generally libertarian or civil rights-oriented in your politics it’s easy; all you have to do is argue for decriminalization from a perspective of “people have the right to do what they like with their own bodies”.  As I’ve pointed out in the past, every court decision (including Roe vs. Wade) which upholds abortion rights also upholds the right to sex on one’s own terms, even if money is involved (abortion isn’t free, after all); ditto court decisions overturning sodomy laws like Lawrence vs. Texas.  And obviously, the arguments for drug decriminalization  also apply to prostitution.  If you’re an atheist or skeptic, that’s easy too; in addition to the arguments above you can make statements like “prostitution laws are based on religion and xenophobia, not facts” and “the sex trafficking hysteria is a moral panic like the Satanic Panic and the Red Scare”.

The harm reduction perspective is another good one, and is the approach generally favored by advocates who have a human rights background or strong religious affiliation (including some members of the Catholic clergy):  Prostitution has always been with us and we can’t make it go away with laws any more than the “Drug War” has made drugs go away.  All the Drug War has done is to subject innocent people to invasion of their privacy and make drug users vulnerable to impure drugs, not to mention all those caught in drug-related violence; similarly, anti-prostitution laws help nobody and force prostitutes into the shadows where they can be harmed and exploited.  Furthermore, many governments (including those of New Zealand, New South Wales  and Brazil) have recognized that illegal prostitution invariably leads to police corruption, just as alcohol Prohibition did and drug prohibition still does.

Finally, there’s the feminist approach:  why does society have the right to tell women they can’t make a living with their natural sex-based attributes when it allows men to do so with boxing, bodyguard work, etc?  Furthermore, laws against prostitution invariably subject women’s dress and mannerisms to police scrutiny; women are accused of prostitution for dressing sexily, acting sexily, carrying condoms in their purses, being in certain areas, not wearing underwear, etc.  This is “slut shaming” with criminal consequences.

Even if you are unable to speak out openly you can post anonymous comments on anti-whore articles online (with links to my site and those of other rights advocates), you can donate money to advocacy groups, and you can of course vote (though there are pitifully few chances to employ that strategy in the United States).  Even though any one person’s influence is small, lots of buckets eventually fill a pool.  Readers, we need your help and that of every good man and woman, and anything you can do will be gratefully appreciated.

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Fictional Interlude: A Haughty Spirit

Do thou restrain the haughty spirit in thy breast, for better far is gentle  courtesy.  -  Homer, Iliad (IX, 315-317)

Last June I published “A Decent Boldness”, in which I introduced Aella, a young Amazon warrior of the mythic past; the story proved so popular a number of readers requested a sequel.  Well, the Muse has finally inspired me with another of her adventures; if you haven’t read the first story yet, I urge you to do so before proceeding with this one because it’ll make a lot more sense that way.

Hecate take me for my damnable overconfidence!

Phaedra wanted to go by ship, but I said no, I hate the cursed things, and though your home be on an island I want to make as much of the journey safely on land as possible.  My four years at the brothel had allowed me to earn not only wealth, but also knowledge; once word of my presence got around Tartessos a group of kindly scholars began to frequent the place, and I was as interested in learning from them as they were from me.  When I heard that the ancient homeland of my people lay just on the other side of the Pillars of Herakles, I yearned to visit it before returning to our modern domain on the eastern shores of Tethys; and truth be told, had I not had that excuse I would have found another to avoid being cooped up for weeks in close quarters on a frail thing of wood with a lot of rude, smelly men.

I convinced her to ride with me as far as Rehoboth or Graea, where we could surely book a comparatively-short passage to Crete; I painted a lovely picture of riding along beaches, eating fish and crabs from the sea with the good wine and cheese we brought along, sleeping beneath the stars and sharing laughter and kisses away from the prying eyes of crowds.  I dismissed her concerns of dangerous beasts and even more dangerous tribes, boasting of my ability to defeat man or lion.  Eventually she agreed, and the first two weeks were just as I promised.

And now here I lie, gazing helplessly into the barbarian camp where my dearest friend awaits rape, slavery and perhaps torture, and it’s all my fault!  Why did I leave her alone while I explored those ruins?  My time in the soft city has dulled my wits and clouded my judgment, and I forgot that in the wilderness there is too much danger to leave a girl like Phaedra for long without a vigilant sword at her side.  Damn you, eyes, for these annoying tears!  I need you clear that I may assess the situation, hopeless though it may be; I doubt even Queen Myrina and her honor guard could slay so many men without being overwhelmed.  So if Amazon steel will not serve me, perhaps a warrior’s cunning will; Metis, inspire me with a plan!

What’s this?  Though I did not see her brought hither, my time in Man’s World has taught me enough to know the chief will have claimed her for himself, and there is some kind of ruckus at his tent.  Though their babble is as strange to me as Tarshi once was, an argument sounds the same in any tongue…and one that ends with a sword through the gut is serious indeed.  But what could spur a leader to kill his own man so abruptly?  Did he attempt to steal treasure?  Ah, I know; he attempted to sample treasure, or at least the chief thought he did.  Phaedra is very beautiful, and he wishes to keep her all to himself; though there are already many women in the camp, her fair skin and shining grey eyes make her unique.  And that gives me an idea; may my ancestresses forgive me, but I can think of no other way.

First, I must prepare our escape; would that I could find and extract Phaedra as easily as I locate our horses among these inferior nags!  The rest of the camp is at dinner, and the guard is inattentive; may Themis be more merciful to his soul than his people were to my friend.  If I leave the paddock gate open, some of the horses may wander away now and bolt if any commotion starts, and that will mean fewer pursuers.  Fortunately, this terrain provides plenty of cover behind which to secure our mounts.  My helm, shield, breastplate and greaves need be packed away, and my sword, bow and quiver will hang from the pommel securely enough; my face, my wits and a long dagger strapped to my thigh will be my only weapons this night, and my mother’s talisman and the grace of the blessed goddesses my only armor.  They have already granted me one boon:  though the barbarians stole woman and horses, they missed our packs where we had wedged them between rocks to protect them from the blowing dust.

Now for the hard part:  though it is a good thing Phoebe will not rise for hours yet, it means having to find what I need in the dark.  Ah, this isn’t so difficult after all; this flimsy gown Phaedra insisted I bring to present myself at her mother’s house is so much softer to the touch than my other clothes, I can find it with my fingers!  If only the rest could be so simple.  I’ve been watching the way the women of the brothel behave for four years now; have I learned enough to imitate it?  Best to test it before entering the lion’s den; here’s another guard looking for the one I permanently relieved of duty a little while ago.

Quiet, my heart!  Cease pounding so, or he will surely hear!  The dagger is within easy reach should my attempt at seduction (what a strange word!) fail.  Now to step out where he can see me…no, mustn’t strike a defensive stance!  He must think I’m just as useless as the women of his tribe.  He’s suspicious; of course he is!  He isn’t an idiot!  This is transparently a trap, and surely no sane creature could…sheath his sword and approach unarmed, mumbling barbarian gibberish.  A smile and a beckoning finger…and he joins his comrade on the shores of the Styx.  Perhaps my plan may work after all; it seems that any possibility of coupling with a woman causes these men of the West to completely take leave of their senses.

Still, there’s no need to test it more than is necessary; my stealth will carry me to the leader’s tent with far less chance of failure.  Slit one more throat, dodge two women, hide for interminable minutes behind some jars while a group of children tarry before dispersing…then wait while a sentry moves on, and here I am at my destination.  I can hear Phaedra’s voice; the chief apparently knows enough Cretan to suffice for trade, and she is trying to negotiate herself out of the situation by promising a reward if he returns her to me.  He seems to find it funny; has she told him I’m an Amazon?  It’s impossible to tell.

I want so badly to rush in and cut the dog down where he stands, but I’m no fool; as a chieftain he will be at least my equal in fair combat, and the melee will surely draw his guards.  No, this has to be done with finesse…so I let the guards think they’ve overheard me, and pretend to be frightened (o, the humiliation!) when they “capture” me, crying out loudly enough to ensure the leader hears as well.  When he steps out, I catch his eyes with as smoldering a look as I can manage…and he takes the bait, ordering his men to bring me in.

Phaedra’s eyes go wide in horror, but that lasts only for a moment as I rush to her in unfeigned joy and hug her tightly, slipping my dagger from beneath my skirts and placing it between her thighs.  She starts slightly, and I whisper “You’ll know when” before allowing myself to be jerked around roughly by our barbaric captor.  What follows is the hardest battle of my life; I have to force down my loathing, compel myself to keep smiling, to keep chatting, to somehow subtly convince him that his lust for me is greater than his lust for my beautiful friend…to succeed in a form of bloodless combat I have never before attempted.

Victory!  Astarte be praised!  The fool at last imposes himself on me, pushing me back upon the bedding to enter me; I distract him with a great cacophony of moans, encouraging him to ever-louder noises himself while beckoning to Phaedra for my blade.  He dies with a shout indistinguishable from his other bestial noises, and I roll him off of me in disgust.  Shush, my love; we must needs flee in haste and utmost silence.  It is the work of a moment to slide under the back of the tent, and apparently Nike is satisfied with the four men I have already sent her this night, for we meet no more on the way to our steeds.  The sun is high before we dare stop for a short rest, and has set again before we make a hidden camp far above the shore.  But my exhaustion and saddle-soreness, and the cold fare on which we must dine, are all made bearable by the admiration in my dear friend’s eyes, and the songs of praise that pour from her lips until I drop off into a well-earned sleep.

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The Daughters of Shamhat

She was not ashamed to take him, she made herself naked and welcomed his eagerness; as he lay on her murmuring love she taught him the woman’s art.  For six days and seven nights they lay together, for Enkidu had forgotten his home in the hills; but when he was satisfied he went back to the wild beasts.  Then, when the gazelle saw him, they bolted away; when the wild creatures saw him they fled.  Enkidu would have followed, but his body was bound as though with a cord, his knees gave way when he started to run, his swiftness was gone.  And now the wild creatures had all fled away; Enkidu was grown weak, for wisdom was in him, and the thoughts of a man were in his heart.  -  The Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet I)

While I understand why many activists and allies argue decriminalization from human rights, libertarian or harm reduction viewpoints, and indeed use these arguments myself because they are all valid ones, it’s sad that almost nobody wants to acknowledge another, equally important factor:  human society needs whores every bit as much as it needs farmers, soldiers, physicians and builders, and far more than it needs preachers, academic feminists, politicians and 90% of the other control freaks who work so assiduously at rousing the rabble against us.  Our ancient ancestors understood this; it’s not accidental that in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the temple harlot Shamhat is the one who tames the wild man Enkidu, turning him from a beast to a man.  But in the 5000 years since that powerful myth was first pressed into clay, Man’s world has forgotten its debt to us and has generally succumbed to the hubris of believing it no longer needs us; even in areas where our trade is legalized or decriminalized there is the self-important pretense that we are merely being tolerated as a magnanimous landlord might allow stray cats to eke out a marginal living on his property.

The change was very gradual; it wasn’t until about half the time between the writing of Gilgamesh and that of this essay had elapsed that someone first conceived of the idea of bringing the civilizing power of whores under the control of the state.  As discussed in one of my earliest columns, the Athenian politician Solon passed laws to reduce the relatively high status of Greek wives, and attempted to undermine the power of both independent prostitutes and the cult of Aphrodite by establishing cheap state-run brothels staffed by Asian slave girls; the failure of his attempt is a demonstration of the futility of proposals by certain historically-ignorant academics to establish a similar system with machines in place of slaves.  The Romans, Japanese, Catholic Church and other powers of the next two millennia did not even attempt to replicate Solon’s scheme, but rather contented themselves with taxing, regulating and socially isolating whores in order to establish patriarchal dominance while still allowing us to perform our vital social function:  giving men, whose demand (as Paglia put it) “always exceeds the female supply,” an outlet for that surplus libido.

Wise whores all know what feminists, preachers, politicians and pundits vociferously deny:  our trade saves far more marriages than it endangers, by allowing men the sexual variety they crave without endangering the social, emotional and economic arrangements of marriage.  In fact, I would even say that it was the emergence of commercial prostitution in the first millennium BCE which made widespread monogamy feasible; I predict that an historical study would reveal that few if any cultures abandoned polygamy before hookers were widespread in that society.  Nor are wives the only women whose safety and happiness are protected by harlots; prior to the late 19^th century everyone from saints to kings understood that whores allow male passions which might lead to rape or other unsavory sexual behaviors to be siphoned off harmlessly in a manner which helps support some women while simultaneously preventing harm to others.  A 2004 study by Kirby Cundiff showed that the rates of rape and other sex crimes decrease in societies where prostitution is decriminalized or otherwise tolerated, and Swedish statistics document a sharp rise in rape after the implementation of their much-vaunted client criminalization model.

In some parts of the world, prostitution is already widely viewed as a job like any other, and most non-totalitarian governments recognize the need for our trade despite a refusal to publicly acknowledge it; even the United States pointedly ignores the existence of escort services and massage parlors except for periodic raids designed to “keep us in our place” and to please the stupider elements of the Great Unwashed.  Some very limited groups (such as the more educated and/or wise among both sex workers and clients, the majority of sex therapists and the more enlightened among advocates for the disabled) already recognize the vital role whores play in human society, and I can envision a future (depicted in the story I published one year ago today) where even most governments understand it at least as well as they did for most of history.  But for now, I’ll have to content myself with urging activists and allies to stop ceding ground to prohibitionists by pretending that prostitution is an evil to be tolerated rather than a good to be celebrated.

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