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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   5916 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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This. A very important part of keeping prostitution illegal, or at least in a gray market, is so that it remains low status. But if a woman can engage in postitution with no legal risk, no personal risks, she benefits from it, she makes lots of money, well, that is going to be a high status job and it will make prostitution high status over time. It actually takes large societal effort to prevent prostitutes from having more status than mothers, it does not just happen naturally. Relatedly, young single women earning more than young single men has been seen as a consequence of modernity making male skills less valuable. I am skeptical. It may just be a result of DEI plus the legalization, protection, and normalization of "soft sex work" -- marketing, sales, being a secretary, etc. If young women were allowed to monetize their femininity in any era, they might have been out earning young men.

But if a woman can engage in prostitution with no legal risk, no personal risks, she benefits from it, she makes lots of money, well, that is going to be a high status job and it will make prostitution high status over time.

I don't think that has been demonstrated historically. You can have hetairai, geisha, and Les Grandes Horizontales, but while they achieve fame, a degree of wealth, and social influence, they never become high-status enough to overcome falling back into poverty; extravagance was expected of such women, but eventually the source of wealthy lovers dries up.

The Second Empire was undoubtedly the golden age of French courtesans, who became idols of their time. Legendary women, whose wealth and power were astounding, whose beauty and seductive charm overcame the reason of men... Virginia Rounding doesn't simply recount their lives; she also strives to describe the mythical aura that surrounded them. Take Marie Duplessis, for example, who became the prototype of the virtuous courtesan; Apollonie Sabatier, who knew like no other how to put everyone at ease in her salon, where the most bawdy conversation was the norm; La Païva, a Russian émigré who seemed to enjoy the fresh flesh of wealthy young men; and Cora Pearl, a flamboyant English beauty, who had the gift of "making bored men laugh." The Great Courtesans offer us a vibrant portrait of nineteenth-century Paris and its most brilliant personalities. A venal woman was judged not only by the price she commanded for her favors, but also by her degree of freedom in choosing her clients. The humblest prostitute, at the very bottom of the ladder, had no choice but the common man; the elite of the demimonde, the renowned courtesan, had an almost infinite selection at her feet. Generally, the size of the fortune outweighed the personal qualities of the potential lover—but still, she had a choice. At least, that was the optimistic view of her situation; in reality, the more luxuriously the courtesan was kept, the more she spent, and the greater her need for money became. Her role consisted of spending, rather than saving, the money with which her wealthy patron showered her, for the conventions of the time demanded that a man of the world's mistress be a highly visible ornament, proof of his social standing, and not a liaison hidden away in a discreet apartment.

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