Female Prostitution and Social Disorder in the Ancient Mediterranean Region. From the Devotees of Venus to the Meretrixes

Abstract

This paper offers a reflection on the portrayal of female prostitution as a disorder in the patriarchal discourses of ancient societies in the Mediterranean region. Special attention is given to the description of the myth of sacred prostitution in the East, in which the barbaric nature of certain female sexual practices is highlighted by Greco-Latin and Contemporary authors; the said myth is offered as an example of western prejudices against the East both in the past and in the present. The Classical Literature show this misogyny in their representations of Ancient Roman meretrixes, whose activity was considered as infamia by public authorities. All things considered, the rejection of female prostitution seems to be related to the implicit transgression in a sexual practice which is not related to procreation. In other words, the female body transformed into an object of pleasure will never be capable of bearing the descendants of the father, thus breaking with the traditional maternal function with which the feminine used to be identified in Antiquity.