What is the difference
between sex workers (prostitutes) and “non-commercial” women in Classical
Athens (Greece) and Ancient China?
Answer:
Women, especially those from
the aristocracy, were not educated and lived only to serve their husbands.
Prostitutes could read, sing
and dance. They’re erudite. The stigma actors face through the millennia
is related to this: Singing or dancing or reading lines is the domain of the
prostitute.
REFERENCES
Huang, Ginger. “Prostitutes and Poets: How the Prostitution
of the Past Wrote Some of China’s Greatest Poetry.” The World of Chinese, 30 Nov. 2013.
Web. <https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2013/11/prostitutes-and-poets/>.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves:
Women in Classical Antiquity. 1975. New York: Schocken Books, 1995. pp. 74, 88-92.
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Originally posted on my
Facebook wall in a slightly different form on 27 April 2020.
