Sacred Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World. From Aphrodite to Baubo to Cassandra and Beyond. - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sacred Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World. From Aphrodite to Baubo to Cassandra and Beyond. write by Morris Silver. This book was released on 2020-01-01. Sacred Prostitution in the Ancient Greek World. From Aphrodite to Baubo to Cassandra and Beyond. available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book does not intend to demonstrate that Greeks and other ancient Mediterranean peoples, men and women, married and unmarried, sought and participated in sex for its own sake. That is, it is taken as obvious, a given, that they were able to separate sex for pleasure from sex for reproduction. There never were human beings who concerned themselves only with “fertility”. Neither, does this study seek to demonstrate that some ancient Greeks were willing to provide sexual services to partners in return for the receipt of nonsexual benefits. Again, this is self-evident. Nor does this study intend to show that the ancient Mediterranean world was familiar with individuals and enterprises that regularly earned incomes by selling sexual services. Clearly, the ancient world knew prostitution as an occupation and as a form of enterprise. In an article published by Ugarit-Forschungen in 2008, Silver (2006a) challenged the view that temple/sacred prostitution did not exist in the ancient Near East. Contrary to such scholars as Julia Assante (1998, 2003), Martha T. Roth (2006) and Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge (2010), ample evidence indicates that it did. For the convenience of readers this article is included as a Supplement to the present volume. The original article has been reformatted to correct some typographical errors and to make it blend seamlessly into the present volume but otherwise it is unchanged. More recent materials from the ancient Near East are considered mostly in footnotes, however. The present study seeks to leap beyond this finding by showing that temple prostitution also flourished in the ancient Mediterranean. That it did is of course an “old” view, but the old supporting arguments often lack rigor and even clarity and the supporting evidence is fragmentary, contradictory and often facially absurd (e.g. Herodotus 1.199.1–5). Work of this kind has been discredited by scholars such as Fay Glinister (2000) and Stephanie Lynn Budin (2008).
The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity
The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity write by Stephanie Lynn Budin. This book was released on 2009-12-14. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In this study, Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a person's body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the Early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Furthermore, contrary to many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent, Oriental "Other." Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty methodology. The study of sacred prostitution is, effectively, a historiographical reckoning.
Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution
Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution write by Stephanie Lynn Budin. This book was released on 2021-05-30. Freewomen, Patriarchal Authority, and the Accusation of Prostitution available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Examining freewomen in Mesopotamian society, ancient Greek hetaira, Renaissance Italy courtesans, historical and modern Japanese geisha, and the Hindu devadāsī of India, Stephanie Lynn Budin makes a wide-ranging study of independent women who have historically been dismissed as prostitutes. The purpose of this book is to rectify a well-entrenched misunderstanding about a category of women existing throughout world history—women who were not (and are not) under patriarchal authority, here called "Freewomen." Having neither father nor husband, and not being bound to any religious authority monitoring their sexuality, these women are understood to be prostitutes, and the terminology designating them appears as such in dictionaries and common parlance. This book examines five case studies of such women: the Mesopotamian ḫarīmtu, the Greek hetaira, the Italian cortigiana "onesta", the Japanese geisha, and the Indian devadāsī. Thus the book goes from the dawn of written history to the present day, from ancient Europe and the Near East through modern Asia, comparatively examining how each of these cultures had its own version of the Freewoman and what this meant in terms of sexuality, gender, and culture. This work also considers the historiographic infelicities that gave rise and continuance to this misreading of the historic and ethnographic record. This engaging and provocative study will be of great interest to students and scholars working in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Women’s History, Classical Studies, Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies, Asian Studies, World Cultures, and Historiography.
Sexuality in Premodern Europe
Sexuality in Premodern Europe - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Sexuality in Premodern Europe write by Franz X. Eder. This book was released on 2023-10-19. Sexuality in Premodern Europe available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. How did sexual relationships work before, in and outside of marriage in the pre-modern era? What problems did contraception and sexually transmitted diseases pose? How did people deal with prostitution and pornography back then? What were the possibilities for same-sex and queer desire and practice? Using numerous examples and sources from across the continent, Sexuality in Premodern Europe shows that even in earlier centuries, sexual life had an elementary significance for the coexistence of couples and communities. It was just as decisive for how individuals saw themselves and others as it was for maintaining the social, economic and political order. Franz X. Eder interestingly emphasises the socio-historical view of sexuality, offering an apt foil for the cultural perspective which is so prevalent in the field. In this book, sexual behaviour is understood and thought about as social practice. From this vantage point, Eder deals with the function of the sexual in upbringing and socialization, its significance for the image of men and women, its role in marriage initiation, and the importance of sexual life for marital relationships and concubinage. Deviant and discriminated sexual forms such as prostitution, pornography and same-sex acts are also addressed throughout. The book explores the ways in which many people gained sexual experiences before, besides or beyond marriage, even if these experiences were forbidden in former societies. While research into the history of sexuality has so far dealt with such forms of the sexual primarily from the point of view of regulation and sanctioning, here they are understood as 'positive' practices that allowed people to understand and take ownership of their sexual desire.
Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction
Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction write by Anway Mukhopadhyay. This book was released on 2024-09-05. Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A cross-cultural study that explores and redefines what philosophy, philosophizing, and philosophers are through the lens of literature. The academic discipline of philosophy may tell us, too rigidly, what a philosopher is or should be; but fictional narration often upholds the core conundrums of humankind in which philosophy germinates. This collection of essays explores whether a study of 'philosophers' at a planetary scale, or at least on a broad cross-cultural spectrum, can decouple philosophy from its academic aspect and lend it a more inclusive domain. Contributors to this volume play with three conceptual poles, making them interact with each other and get modified through this interaction: 'fiction', 'narrative' and 'philosopher'. How do these three terms get semantically modified and broadened in scope when we speak of the figures of philosophers in imaginative writing? How do these terms assume different connotations in different cultural contexts, interacting with the multiplicity of not just 'thought', but also the media and tools of 'thought'? Do we always think only rationally? Or do we also think with and through emotively powerful images, symbols and tropes? In the end, Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction insists on the need to 'de-elitize' and democratize the concept of a 'philosopher' by reflecting on the possibility of seeing a philosopher as one who sees things clearly, from any vantage point.
