PROSTITUTION LEGALIZATION PRIMER

(A Public Service Announcement from Suburra Publishing.)

Myth #1

Prostitution is immoral and un-Christian.

Jewish proscriptions on prostitution were originally based in economics. Early societies put a premium on population growth which provided warriors. All non-procreative sex was outlawed for this reason - not because sex was evil. Prostitutes practiced contraception and were a non-procreative sexual outlet.

The only sexual crime to make the Hebrew God's Ten Commandments was adultery as then defined - a man cannot have sex with another man's wife. This was egregious because it was a property crime against the husband.

Similarly Jesus Christ, a Jew, appears to have been bothered by unfaithfulness, not sex itself. He never spoke out against prostitution or pre-marital sex. The stigma on sex was created by the ancient Roman philosophers, the Stoics. Early church fathers instilled this stigma into Christ's religion through deceit and bribery.

2000 Years of Bad Sex - courtesy of (left to right) St. Paul, Tertullian, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome.

Moralists who cite New Testament biblical passages against prostitution are often using questionable interpretations of the Greek word porniea. Porniea can be interpreted as sexual immorality or the worship of false prophets. Moralists often make the unwarranted assumption that porniea means prostitution.

In any case, calling prostitution immoral because it went against ancient Hebrew law is not rational. Ancient Hebrew law also called for misbehaving sons to be stoned to death and allowed polygamy. It also said that if a man rapes an unmarried virgin his punishment is that he must pay her father twenty ounces of silver and then marry her. Are these laws moral and would Christ have approved of them?

For more on this issue see:

http://www.sexwork.com/coalition/christian.html

http://www.libchrist.com/bible/contents.html

The Ballet of Chestnuts - Pope Alexander VI and his daughter/lover, Lucrezia Borgia, oversee their guests chasing and copulating with Rome's finest prostitutes

Information and illustration taken from You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos, Book I  by Robert R. Arthur. Detailed documentation of sources can be found therein.

Page last modified August 29, 2007.