Synonyms
Definition
A sexual activity provided by women, men, and transsexuals in exchange for payment.
Introduction
Prostitution is sometimes called the “world’s oldest profession” and has been practiced throughout ancient and modern culture. The beginnings of this profession date back to ancient Mesopotamian civilization and expanded to ancient Greece, Rome, Japan, and China (Sanger 2015).
History of Prostitution
In antiquity, prostitution was connected with a secular rite (Sanger 2015). In the temple of the goddess of love, priestesses in exchange for donations for the goddess would offer up their bodies (Doufor 1902). Once a year in the Mylitty temple in ancient Babylon, each woman had to give herself to a foreigner, who would pay, in order to fulfill their sacred duty (Doufor 1902). In ancient Greece, the first brothels (lupanarium) were created in Athens by Solon in the sixth century BC. Prostitution was public and legal in ancient Rome (Sanger 2015...
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Acknowledgments
This study was partly funded by grant VEGA no. 1/0104/16.
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Dylewski, Ł., Prokop, P. (2019). Prostitution. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_270-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_270-1
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