5 ms·

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

• 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?
    • mobilefriendly 8y ago
      Given how dangerous child-birth was, there's a something of a tradition going back to at least the Romans of protecting a wife by using prostitutes for base sex
      • watwut 8y ago
        It was less dangerous for those prostitutes? The chilbirth and childcare was more disastrous and difficult for them as they were single mothers and breadwinners as a result.
        • mirimir 8y ago
          True, but they were considered ~disposable.
          • watwut 8y ago
            Yes, and that is why the "both amused and horrified" comment makes perfect sense. Other thing that makes perfect sense is the characterization of it all as "the advice was to subject some of the women to be second class citizens" - yes, in exchange of other women being more protected.
        • Farradfahren 8y ago
          They where implicit expected to murder the newborns/ abort the embryos. That is why it was a "low" profession and those who worked in it where outcasts.
    • Spooky23 8y ago
      St. Augustine wasn’t a celibate by any means. He struggled with the moral and philosophical nature of things, and certainly got plenty of action during the struggle.
      • dmckeon 8y ago
        > I had entreated chastity of thee and had prayed, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." For I was afraid lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and too soon cure me of my disease of lust which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished. Book 8, Chapter 7, p. 139
        • azeotropic 8y ago
          I was thinking the opening of book three: "TO CARTHAGE I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscense, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and unseemly, I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell headlong then into the love wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness besprinkle for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with sorrow-bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy, and suspicion, and fears, and angers, and quarrels."
• licebmi__at__ 8y ago
  I might be wrong, but it was my understanding that sex work was a legal and regulated activity in only some parts of Europe, but it's indeed not illegal on most of the countries. Something like cannabis in Amsterdam, where the police just turns a blind eye that most people even think is completely legal.
  • ekianjo 8y ago
    As far as I know cannabis is completely legal in Amsterdam at least in smoking parlors.
    • gotocake 8y ago
      That’s just not true, but the truth is complicated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlan... While recreational use, possession and trade of non-medicinal drugs described by the Opium Law are all technically illegal under Dutch law, official policy since the late 20th century has been to openly tolerate all recreational use...
      • TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        Technically, or de jure, not true. I think it’s fair to say it is legal in the softer sense of the word, or de facto legal. I also don’t believe that it’s complicated to understand such a state of affairs.
        • gotocake 8y ago
          Technically nothing, the correct response to As far as I know cannabis is completely legal in Amsterdam at least in smoking parlors. is just what I said. It is not de facto legal either, it’s tolerated and police still retain the power to arrest you for it. The fact that it’s not aggressively policed or prosecuted changes its social status, not the legal status.
          • 8y ago
• deanalevitt 8y ago
  This was my first thought too. > medieval examples suggest that what’s important is not just legal status but how regulations affect workers’ ability to control their working conditions. Do we really need medieval examples? Surely this is evident in modern examples too?
• benj111 8y ago
  I think its useful for taking the emotion out of it, and to be reminded that this is an issue we've been dealing with for a long time. Also this is when red light districts originated, a model still common in Europe today.
• pjc50 8y ago
  Important to note that while the work itself is not illegal it's usually surrounded by a minefield of things that are illegal, such as "running a brothel" or "soliciting". In extreme cases two women sharing a flat posessing condoms could be deemed a brothel and prosecuted.
  • stallmanite 8y ago
    Brilliant! Much better that they don’t use condoms? Prohibitionists seem to me to be shockingly stupid so I assume I’m misunderstanding them. Can anyone here articulate the reasoning behind such a law for me?
    • pjc50 8y ago
      I think it's similar to the lab glassware / "drug paraphenalia" situation - once you've tripped the prejudices of the police they assemble evidence that you're the wrong kind of person. https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/unsafe-sex-in-saunas-after-police-condom-crackdown-1-3746332 https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/unsafe-sex...