“Young votary of Venus”

“Some things don’t change,” Stephanie remarked.

She had just returned from a trip to New Orleans. She had toured Storyville, the city’s red-light district in the early 20th century. Among the historical items she encountered were guidebooks which included advertisements for prostitutes and descriptions of services offered.

Long before Eros or The Erotic Review, printed media were employed in the service of sexual commerce. In 18th-century London, Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies was an annual directory of sex workers for a clientele that included James Boswell, Robert Walpole, and the Prince of Wales. It was published around Christmas and sold for two shillings and sixpence. One contemporary report estimated that 8,000 copies were sold each year. Historian Kate Lister writes, “[T]he list detailed the appearance, skills, and prices of up to two hundred women selling sex in the capital….As you may well imagine, Harris’s List was a hugely popular work. As well as being a practical resource, the list also provided titillation. As Delinger notes, the list functions in two ways: ‘names, addresses, and prices all point to their practical use, while the lush descriptions of women also function as soft-core pornography.’”

Here is the description for one “Jenny Nelson, St Martins Lane”:

A jolly smart wench, a good companion at table; but particularly joyous in bed; there are few whores to be found so generous as she is, often restoring the money when she likes her man.

The British period drama Harlots features a scene in which the ladies read their reviews in Harris’s List. A review describing one Emily Lacey as a “young votary of Venus” propelled the noted courtesan to a more elite brothel.

“If you can’t be chaste, at least be careful”

Mandi met me last night at the door of her hotel room in a tight black mini dress and black suede boots that went past her knees. Minutes later she teased me, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!” She seductively stripped out of her clothes, making me throb. Some fun on the bed followed, then she positioned herself by bending over the desk.

We unapologetically committed our sins behind closed drapes and shut doors. Gratifying the flesh inside a 14th floor hotel room. Away from prying eyes.

My position in the church forces me to be discreet about my sexual life. As a single minister, I publicly committed to sexual abstinence before marriage.

Which means I have to use the utmost discretion.

“Si non caste, tamen caute.”
Adalbert of Hamburg, medieval archbishop to his clerics

In one recent online article, the author extols the virtue of purity as not just an intrinsic good but as “prudent” in the digital age. “Almost anything we do on a computer or cell phone, no matter how embarrassing or sensitive, leaves an exploitable record that is difficult to expunge.” The very real danger of exposure recommends chastity.

That’s an ideal solution. But as the good archbishop said, “If you can’t be chaste….”

Outside of my brief (and admittedly very indiscreet) relationship with the Deaconess, I’ve avoided becoming entangled with a woman from my parish. (Although Heidi, with her tight jeans that reveal the contours of her smackable ass, is testing my self-discipline.) One of the advantages of hiring reputable “professionals” is that both parties have an incentive to discreetly arrange the transaction and protect their privacy. “High-basic-quality-escorts will show up on time, match their advertised description, provide the agreed-upon services at the advertised price, be discreet, and generally act in a manner respectful of their client’s privacy and safety,” writes one scholar. Both agencies and independent escorts will screen and verify their clients, treating the received personal information as confidential. “Tina” at a local agency, for instance, knows that I work at a church, but because her business traffics in the keeping of secrets, it is in her interest to not disclose such information.

This is not to discount the very real risks I take. Still, given the alternative, I strive to minimize them. A classmate once proffered these words of wisdom: “You can be smart or you can be celibate.”

Taboo

Feeling extra lustful due to this heat? Come visit!

I excused myself from church and made the hour drive to see Betty. She met me at her incall apartment in a thin black robe and invited me to sit on the couch. We engaged in a little small talk about the culture clash of driving in the South as opposed to the Northeast. I spied a book she had been reading lying on a side table. It was about the Clinton-Lewinksy scandal. After a few minutes of pleasant chatter, she stood up and undid her robe, revealing a lacy bra and pair of panties. I followed her to the bed. I complimented her on how pretty she looked.

“You look fine yourself, handsome!” she replied.

She took a condom out. First we shed our clothes, then I shed my inhibitions. I stood in front of her, my erection signaling my arousal. Then I was lying on top of her naked body. Tangled bedsheets and the faint scent of sex witnessed to our exertions.

As we lingered in bed afterwards, covered in sweat, she talked a little about her clandestine occupation. “There’s the whole taboo aspect of it,” she briefly noted. We hadn’t just broken the law — we had transgressed. And on my part, it had intensified our encounter.

“Straight men who visit prostitutes are valiantly striving to keep sex free from emotion, duty, family–in other words, from society, religion, and procreative Mother Nature,” writes Camille Paglia. The prostitute symbolizes uninhibited female sexuality. She is a rebuke to the puritanical religion of my youth, the antithesis of the “good Christian girl” saving herself for marriage. To a repressed Lutheran boy, her tantalizing offer of sweet forbidden sex elicits desire. She embodies the taboo. Georges Bataille wrote, “With prostitution, the prostitute was dedicated to a life of transgression. The sacred or forbidden aspect of sexual activity remained apparent in her, for her whole life was dedicated to violating the taboo.” Taboo, in the original sense of the word, means both prohibition and sacredness. As one sex therapist notes, “Eros thrives when boundaries are crossed.”

I recall Stephanie once lamenting about how the stigma surrounding her profession forced her into subterfuge. Paglia retorts, “The stigma of the prostitute is the badge of her identity. That is why the client goes to her. If he wanted someone without a stigma, he’d go and screw the lady next door.”

“Prostitution testifies to the amoral power struggle of sex, which religion has never been able to stop.”
Camille Paglia

I’m leading a weekly study on C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity. Tonight we reviewed Lewis’ thoughts on sexual morality. “Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues,” Lewis writes, upholding traditional Christian sexual ethics. “[T]he old Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’” I explained Lewis’ argument. My conservative parishioners nodded in agreement. They’re oblivious to the fact that just a few hours earlier, I was briskly fucking a call girl. No one is privy to my secret transgression.

“Some things don’t change”

“Did you hear about Backpage?” Stephanie asked me as we lay naked in bed.

I told her I had read that the feds had seized the online classifieds notorious for advertising “adult services.”

Stephanie had never utilized Backpage. Many of her clients did use it as a source for providers. She didn’t understand why they didn’t stick to the more reputable local board. Some were searching for “the diamond in the rough.” On Backpage, there was a lot of rough.

I didn’t tell her that I saw a number of women on Backpage. I tread carefully on there. Amidst the flotsam, if a lady appealed to me, I’d search her reviews on The Erotic Review (TER) to see if she was legit. I managed to meet several attractive, talented professionals that way. They were probably the exceptions, though.

Now TER no longer operates in the U.S. due to SESTA/FOSTA, federal legislation recently signed into law by President Trump, who Stormy Daniels says once tried to pay her for sex. The law seeks to stop sex trafficking online by holding websites accountable for hosting solicitations for illegal sexual commerce. Of course no distinction is made between consensual activity and genuine exploitation. Some in law enforcement have expressed concern about the predictable effect of driving sex trafficking underground onto platforms that are harder to monitor.

Stephanie had just come back from visiting New Orleans for the first time. She toured Storyville, the notorious early 20th century red light district, where she saw a few of the handbills the ladies distributed. They contained offers of services remarkably similar to online ads. “Some things don’t change,” she mused.

Feminists who think they can abolish the sex trade are in a state of massive delusion. Only a ruthless, fascist regime of vast scale could eradicate the rogue sex impulse that is indistinguishable from the life force.
Camille Paglia

Steph has an established clientele and a modest online presence, so she won’t be affected much. For other providers things will become more difficult. As a client, it disrupts established ways of seeking out companions. Hopefully this dumb law will be overturned in the courts. I regret that my position in the church restrains me from publicly protesting it.

Sexual Object

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Amidst the stress of Holy Week and the approaching end of the semester, I made a brief escape this afternoon. A quick call to “Joyce” arranged an appointment with “Sara.” After returning home to shower and change clothes, I drove to the city and walked down an alley by the river to Sara’s incall. It’s a cozy loft discreetly located — perfect for a late afternoon frolic. A knock on the door and she let me in.

I’ve seen Sara about a dozen times. With her long blonde hair and tight, athletic body, she makes for an entertaining playmate. She’s quite sweet, but she doesn’t reveal much of her personality. Halting attempts at conversation with her have gone nowhere. Joyce advertises her as “GFE,” and while Sara may provide a lot of services on the menu, she doesn’t really fit that (admittedly vague) description for me. Little emotional intimacy is shared. Our encounters are marked by raw physicality. There are times when I seek a genuine personal connection with an escort. Other times, frankly, I just want to fuck. Sara is the perfect companion for those times.

Today she met me in an outfit that was totally slutty, advertising her sexual availability. She offered me a glass of water. Few words were spoken before we were stripped naked, French kissing on the bed.

“Let’s fuck,” she said sweetly.

Sara’s instrumental, impersonal approach to sex (even her moans were obviously feigned) is erotic in its own fashion. Having little sense of her as a person, I consented to her sexual self-objectification. She had been reduced to a “fucking machine,” an assemblage of tits and ass and pussy which was designed solely for my sexual gratification.

The prostitute does not satisfy the need for a woman or even the demand for a particular sort of woman. She accommodates the client’s desires for a woman who ceases to exist when she is no longer wanted. A man seeks a prostitute in order to avoid the inconvenience of sexual relations with another subject. Indeed, he pays her to disguise the subjectivity expressed through her individual needs, interests, and desires. With a prostitute, a man can have sex when and how he wants it…. The consequences she bears for their sexual encounter need not concern him.

– Yolanda Estes, “Moral Reflections on Prostitution”

But, as Kant and others have asserted, isn’t all sex ultimately objectifying? In his Lectures on Ethics, Kant writes that sexual activity is inherently objectifying because the participants use each other as means to an end, which is sexual satisfaction. “[A]s soon as the person is possessed, and the appetite sated, they are thrown away, as one throws away a lemon after sucking the juice from it.” Sex also entails self-objectification, since in the throes of sexual passion one abandons rationality and descends to the level of animal instinct, using oneself as a mere means for sexual pleasure. Sara and I merely made explicit what is implicit in all sexual activity. I used her to obtain an orgasm. She used me to obtain $300. We fucked without pretense.

Erotic Saints

“The original whore was a priestess, the conduit to the divine, the one through whose body one entered the sacred arena and was restored.”
Deena Metzger

In ancient religion, prostitution was sacralized. We find evidence of sacred prostitution in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Code of Hammurabi. Herodotus wrote, “Women of the land…sit in the temple of love and have intercourse with some stranger…. After their intercourse, she has made herself holy in the sight of the goddess.” The ritual practice of sacred sexual intercourse within the temples of Innana and Ishtar in Mesopotamia was understood to unleash divine fertile energy upon the land. The temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, according to the Greek historian Strabo, had over 1,000 prostitutes. Hesiod, a poet in the 8th century B.C.E., observed that the prostitutes’ sensual gifts “mellowed the behavior of men” by bringing sexual joy. Sexual intercourse with a temple prostitute was ritualized, the union of male and female in a fertility rite or the hieros gamos (ἱερὸς γάμος), the divine marriage between the god and the goddess. According to Julius Evola, “Ritual sex was the instrument for man’s participation in the sacram.” Sexual union was communion with the divine. Nancy Qualls-Corbert writes, “Desire and sexual response experienced as a regenerative power, were recognized as a gift or a blessing from the divine. Both a man’s and woman’s sexual nature together with their religious attitude were inseparable.” The sacred prostitute herself, according to Qualls-Corbet, was an image of the eternal feminine, “a woman, who, through ritual or psychological development, has come to know the spiritual side of her sexuality, her true Eroticism.” She consciously used sex as a means of enlightenment. The sacred prostitute was a sexual priestess who empowered men desirous of the “wondrous vulva” to connect with spiritual realities through pleasure. The French philosopher Georges Bataille noted, “The prostitutes in contact with sacred things, in surroundings themselves sacred, had a sacredness comparable with that of priests.” Prostitutes retain to some degree this consecration; they are votaries of sex. They are priestesses of the sacred sexual mysteries. “Erotic saint,” one writer suggests, is a term that should be applied to any “woman decent enough to service a man sexually.”

“Sex was brought openly and with reverence to the very altar of the goddess. In her temple, men and women came to find life and all that it had to offer in sensual pleasure and delight.”
Nancy Qualls-Corbett, The Sacred Prostitute: Eternal Aspect of the Feminine

Bataille also wrote, “Not every woman is a potential prostitute, but prostitution is the logical consequence of the feminine attitude.” Women, insofar as they make themselves objects of desire, are conditioned to provoke a male response. The prostitute merely adds a commercial aspect to the feminine disposition and embraces the objectification which other women more subtlety accept. “Prostitution made them into objects of masculine desire; objects which at any rate heralded the moment when in the close embrace nothing remained but only a convulsive continuity.” The prostitute is the protagonist in this drama. Feminist critic Camille Paglia writes, “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture.”

“With prostitution, the prostitute was dedicated to a life of transgression,” Bataille continued. “The sacred or forbidden aspect of sexual activity remained apparent in her, for her whole life was dedicated to violating the taboo.” If the heart of eroticism is in transgression, as Bataille contends, prostitutes are priestesses of transgression. That is their vocation and allure.

Paying for Sex

“Stephanie” leaned up against the wall, clad only in french maid lingerie she had recently purchased at Victoria’s Secret. I had just discretely placed an envelope on the table containing my “donation.” She is a self-described “professional companion” with a playful smile and a soft touch. A tantra chair sat in the living room. Madonna’s “Justify My Love” played in the background.

“Religion says sex is so bad,” she protested with a mischievous smile as she unbuckled my belt.

“But perhaps it is true,” I said, quoting Martin Buber. (I think that may have been the first time Buber was quoted during foreplay.)

Stephanie was one of my favorite escorts. Smart and sweet and naughty, she worked in real estate in addition to entertaining as a call girl. Experimenting with her sexuality, she worked as an exotic dancer before she tried escorting. When we first met, having learned of my background, she asked, “Isn’t this very Mary Magdalene?” (I explained to her that the tradition of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute has no textual basis in the New Testament.) She was raised Catholic but called herself an agnostic. She couldn’t reconcile the Church’s sexual ethics with her sexual appetite. “I love sex,” she said forthrightly, adding that there is no better form of therapy than getting sweaty in the sheets. She admitted to me that she couldn’t be monogamous, and she was promiscuous even before she became an escort. In a addition to her partner, she had “secondary” boyfriends. She also confessed to being turned on by having sex with strangers. An avid reader of erotica, she found 50 Shades of Grey rather tame. Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty trilogy is much more risque, she said. She confessed that she was scared of death and afraid that, if there is a God, she’d be condemned to perdition for her lust. (I tried to assure her of God’s mercy.)

“You’re not going to feel guilty over this, are you?” she teased.

“It may be a perverted taste, but I love prostitution, and for itself, too, quite apart from its carnal aspects. My heart begins to pound every time I see one of those women in low-cut dresses walking under the lamplight in the rain, just as monks in their corded robes have always excited some deep, ascetic corner of my soul.”

– Gustave Flaubert

The majority of my sexual encounters have been with prostitutes. I’ve admittedly come to see sex as a commodity. Convenience explains much of it. One call to an escort service or an independent provider can arrange a sexual liaison in minutes. Many of the call girls I’ve seen were extremely attractive. “Professionals” tend to be, to put it delicately, skilled. I’ve met a remarkable number of charming, intelligent women who work as escorts. There’s a certain honesty in prostitution. Like any commercial transaction, the prostitute will provide a service in exchange for payment. No games, no manipulation, no hurt feelings, no false professions of love. Moreover, the very act of paying a woman for sex is erotic. Discretely handing over an envelope with three crisp $100 bills in expectation of sexual gratification brings a frisson of excitement. (It can work both ways. One lady confessed to me, “It’s really hot being paid for sex.”) But there’s more.

Now Stephanie was on her knees, pleasuring my cock with her soft mouth. I gently caressed her hair as she serviced me. After putting a condom on me with her mouth (quite a skill, I must say), she bent over the bed. She hadn’t been wearing any panties under her lingerie. I accepted her invitation and positioned myself behind her. I entered her, clutched her feminine hips and started to pump. Stephanie’s girlish moans heightened my arousal. I grabbed a fistful of her long blonde hair and quickened my pace. Slapping my pelvis against her ass, I thrust madly, losing myself in the euphoria.