14 ms·

Regulating Sex Work in Medieval Europe

51 points by gotocake 8y ago

the_mitsuhiko 8y ago
> A 1393 London ordinance limiting the parts of the city where sex workers could operate attributed problems with the trade specifically to “Flemish women, who profess and follow such shameful and dolorous life.” This is pretty common even today. There are many parts in Vienna for instance where working girls are not allowed to advertise their services.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
glitchc 8y ago
What is unclear from this document are the mechanisms for conferring legal status. I came away curiously disappointed. Anyone have thoughts?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I’d like to see the industry regulated and that it’s practioners are required to obtain certification, or at least optionally so. This would not resolve all issues, but you could at least have the option to see a practioner who has done a senior first aid course and knows how to identify STDs. More widely, I believe sex work should be absorbed in to the healing modalities and professions. We drastically need to take a different approach to sexual wellbeing, because whatever we have been doing has lead to a sexually violent culture. I believe the dishonoured / unregulated / unintegrated / unlawful practice of sex work is both a cause and a symptom of our culture’s worst aspects.
CPLX 8y ago
Why are they using medieval Europe as some kind of tool for speculation about legal sex work in the U.S.? It’s a bizarre line of discussion given that for the most part sex work is legal today in Europe.
- leoh 8y ago
  It's just an interesting historical perspective, they don't have a heavy-handed agenda or anything. Augustine's perspective is interesting: > Remove prostitutes from human affairs and you will destroy everything with lust.
  - bitwize 8y ago
    Indeed. Even in the middle ages they knew prudishness was counterproductive.
  - licebmi__at__ 8y ago
    It's an interesting topic but I also find bizarre the relation with modern policy. I'm both amused and horrified with the idea on the full sentence where your quote is portrayed: >Theologians followed the teachings of Saint Augustine, who wrote that it was better for sinful men to frequent brothels than to “corrupt” their wives or other respectable women with nonprocreative sex: “Remove prostitutes from human affairs and you will destroy everything with lust.” It's kinda silly to imagine a group of "celibate" men suggesting the practicals of prostitution instead of corrupting virtuous women with non procreative sex, and at the same time horrible to consider that in the context of bad contraceptive methods, the advice was to subject some of the women to be second class citizens.
    - nine_k 8y ago
      OK, replace "non-procreative" with "non-consensual".
    - azeotropic 8y ago
      You have no idea who Augustine is, do you?
keypusher 8y ago
I am fascinated by all the 3-legged furniture in the painting. The design guarantees stability due to all legs being on the same plane, solving the wobbling/instability problem so common in 4-legged tables and chairs. However, quadripedal tables and chairs are nearly universal in the modern day, with tripedal pieces being mostly reserved for eccentric art. I wonder at what point the trend changed, did it have to do with manufacturing techniques or simply aesthetics?
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I don’t reckon it’d match today’s fashions. Rocking tables are a pet hate of mine. Maybe we could add ‘rocking table repair 10hrs a week’ to this list of items that allow you to fulfill the requirements to obtain welfare. And / or it could be an option for those sentenced community service by the courts.
- Misdicorl 8y ago
  I imagine a lot of it is that floors are likely much flatter these days.
- odux 8y ago
  Interesting you say that. When I grew up I was always told that four legged furniture was more stable than three legged ones. Three legged stools/tables were common (but not chairs I think) when I grew up and I was always cautioned against toppling. It could be because three legged furniture created a virtual triangle shape (Even if the top of the furniture itself was not a triangle, circular ones were very common) and when one puts weight on the side of the base of the triangle, like siting on the edge, the furniture is more likely to topple than a similar action on a four legged stool.
- gotocake 8y ago
  Is there a relationship between 3 vs 4 legs and total weight bearing capacity? Maybe the tradeoff was stability for weight of furniture? I’m also not sure that three legs is more stable, wouldn’t it be more prone to tipping over, unless the three legs are splayed very far apart from the seat base? Remember the issue with furniture is a desire to keep it from tipping over, not stability in 3-space. You’d get no,wobble on three legs, but if you leaned or swiveled too much you’d find out that stability was an illusion, because you’d failed to take the vertical component into account. A four-legged chair for example, regardless of how you lean (within reason) and distribute weight will maintain 3-point contact with the floor.
walrus01 8y ago
Sex work was sufficiently centralized in medieval red light districts that a number of places in the UK have a street named "gropecunt lane". Which is exactly what it sounds like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane
Proven 8y ago
> what’s important is not just legal status but how regulations affect workers’ ability to control their working conditions. They always take some of that ability, which is why government centralization and the formation of large states are always bad. For example if you happen to live in Germany you have to leave Germany (and few years down the road maybe even the EU) to be able to work.
buttslasher69 8y ago
Were there sexual diseases back then?
Aegaeus10111 8y ago
I have never understood the concept of victimless crime. If two (or more) people are free to choose to have sex together and such parties are free to enter into a commercial / labor agreement how can the combination of the two be a problem? It seems to me that it's a way to keep women from capitalizing on the area in which they have unique value over men. Obviously I'm not talking about forced sex - or forced anything. Kidnapping, slavery, and rape are illegal and certainly apply in forced prostitution. But in cases when it's a choice freely made by all parties concerned legal status can only help make it safer for all.
- ex3ndr 8y ago
  Selling weapons to ISIS is not a crime then?
  - gumby 8y ago
    That’s a great example, but consider the framing of the last sentence of the gp’s post: > But in cases when it's a choice freely made by all parties concerned ... Presumably the targets of isis’s weapons are “parties” and don’t want to be shot at. Then again, what about hiring police: the robber is a “party” too and presumably does not consent to being caught!
    - Aegaeus10111 8y ago
      "...the robber is a “party”..." yes, but by definition a party that has already broken the law and mutual consent - the interaction with police would be a direct result, or an extension of that non-consensual act. :-) I can imagine lots of extreme edge cases and semantic word play on this - and I guess phrasing things to take in every conceivable situation is why lawyers make so much. I'll stick with "the spirit of the notion".
  - Aegaeus10111 8y ago
    Good point. If I was a purist I'd say "no". Using those weapons might be. Not being a purist I'm happy to make exceptions for probable use or effect of the activity. So: Selling weapons to people likely to commit crimes is a reasonable exception to the simple version above. and Prostitution, where the probable outcome is a mutually satisfying service involving ONLY the parties involved is not a reasonable exception.

51 points by gotocake 8y ago

> A 1393 London ordinance limiting the parts of the city where sex workers could operate attributed problems with the trade specifically to “Flemish women, who profess and follow such shameful and dolorous life.” This is pretty common even today. There are many parts in Vienna for instance where working girls are not allowed to advertise their services.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

glitchc 8y ago

What is unclear from this document are the mechanisms for conferring legal status. I came away curiously disappointed. Anyone have thoughts?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I’d like to see the industry regulated and that it’s practioners are required to obtain certification, or at least optionally so. This would not resolve all issues, but you could at least have the option to see a practioner who has done a senior first aid course and knows how to identify STDs. More widely, I believe sex work should be absorbed in to the healing modalities and professions. We drastically need to take a different approach to sexual wellbeing, because whatever we have been doing has lead to a sexually violent culture. I believe the dishonoured / unregulated / unintegrated / unlawful practice of sex work is both a cause and a symptom of our culture’s worst aspects.

CPLX 8y ago

Why are they using medieval Europe as some kind of tool for speculation about legal sex work in the U.S.? It’s a bizarre line of discussion given that for the most part sex work is legal today in Europe.

leoh 8y ago
It's just an interesting historical perspective, they don't have a heavy-handed agenda or anything. Augustine's perspective is interesting: > Remove prostitutes from human affairs and you will destroy everything with lust.
- bitwize 8y ago
  Indeed. Even in the middle ages they knew prudishness was counterproductive.
- licebmi__at__ 8y ago
  It's an interesting topic but I also find bizarre the relation with modern policy. I'm both amused and horrified with the idea on the full sentence where your quote is portrayed: >Theologians followed the teachings of Saint Augustine, who wrote that it was better for sinful men to frequent brothels than to “corrupt” their wives or other respectable women with nonprocreative sex: “Remove prostitutes from human affairs and you will destroy everything with lust.” It's kinda silly to imagine a group of "celibate" men suggesting the practicals of prostitution instead of corrupting virtuous women with non procreative sex, and at the same time horrible to consider that in the context of bad contraceptive methods, the advice was to subject some of the women to be second class citizens.
  - nine_k 8y ago
    OK, replace "non-procreative" with "non-consensual".
  - azeotropic 8y ago
    You have no idea who Augustine is, do you?

keypusher 8y ago

I am fascinated by all the 3-legged furniture in the painting. The design guarantees stability due to all legs being on the same plane, solving the wobbling/instability problem so common in 4-legged tables and chairs. However, quadripedal tables and chairs are nearly universal in the modern day, with tripedal pieces being mostly reserved for eccentric art. I wonder at what point the trend changed, did it have to do with manufacturing techniques or simply aesthetics?

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
I don’t reckon it’d match today’s fashions. Rocking tables are a pet hate of mine. Maybe we could add ‘rocking table repair 10hrs a week’ to this list of items that allow you to fulfill the requirements to obtain welfare. And / or it could be an option for those sentenced community service by the courts.
Misdicorl 8y ago
I imagine a lot of it is that floors are likely much flatter these days.
odux 8y ago
Interesting you say that. When I grew up I was always told that four legged furniture was more stable than three legged ones. Three legged stools/tables were common (but not chairs I think) when I grew up and I was always cautioned against toppling. It could be because three legged furniture created a virtual triangle shape (Even if the top of the furniture itself was not a triangle, circular ones were very common) and when one puts weight on the side of the base of the triangle, like siting on the edge, the furniture is more likely to topple than a similar action on a four legged stool.
gotocake 8y ago
Is there a relationship between 3 vs 4 legs and total weight bearing capacity? Maybe the tradeoff was stability for weight of furniture? I’m also not sure that three legs is more stable, wouldn’t it be more prone to tipping over, unless the three legs are splayed very far apart from the seat base? Remember the issue with furniture is a desire to keep it from tipping over, not stability in 3-space. You’d get no,wobble on three legs, but if you leaned or swiveled too much you’d find out that stability was an illusion, because you’d failed to take the vertical component into account. A four-legged chair for example, regardless of how you lean (within reason) and distribute weight will maintain 3-point contact with the floor.

walrus01 8y ago

Sex work was sufficiently centralized in medieval red light districts that a number of places in the UK have a street named "gropecunt lane". Which is exactly what it sounds like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

Proven 8y ago

> what’s important is not just legal status but how regulations affect workers’ ability to control their working conditions. They always take some of that ability, which is why government centralization and the formation of large states are always bad. For example if you happen to live in Germany you have to leave Germany (and few years down the road maybe even the EU) to be able to work.

buttslasher69 8y ago

Were there sexual diseases back then?

Aegaeus10111 8y ago

I have never understood the concept of victimless crime. If two (or more) people are free to choose to have sex together and such parties are free to enter into a commercial / labor agreement how can the combination of the two be a problem? It seems to me that it's a way to keep women from capitalizing on the area in which they have unique value over men. Obviously I'm not talking about forced sex - or forced anything. Kidnapping, slavery, and rape are illegal and certainly apply in forced prostitution. But in cases when it's a choice freely made by all parties concerned legal status can only help make it safer for all.

ex3ndr 8y ago
Selling weapons to ISIS is not a crime then?
- gumby 8y ago
  That’s a great example, but consider the framing of the last sentence of the gp’s post: > But in cases when it's a choice freely made by all parties concerned ... Presumably the targets of isis’s weapons are “parties” and don’t want to be shot at. Then again, what about hiring police: the robber is a “party” too and presumably does not consent to being caught!
  - Aegaeus10111 8y ago
    "...the robber is a “party”..." yes, but by definition a party that has already broken the law and mutual consent - the interaction with police would be a direct result, or an extension of that non-consensual act. :-) I can imagine lots of extreme edge cases and semantic word play on this - and I guess phrasing things to take in every conceivable situation is why lawyers make so much. I'll stick with "the spirit of the notion".
- Aegaeus10111 8y ago
  Good point. If I was a purist I'd say "no". Using those weapons might be. Not being a purist I'm happy to make exceptions for probable use or effect of the activity. So: Selling weapons to people likely to commit crimes is a reasonable exception to the simple version above. and Prostitution, where the probable outcome is a mutually satisfying service involving ONLY the parties involved is not a reasonable exception.