Sacred prostitution

Inanna/Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of sex and fertility, depicted on a ceremonial vase

Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, cult prostitution,^[1] and religious prostitution are rites consisting of paid intercourse performed in the context of religious worship, possibly as a form of fertility rite or divine marriage (hieros gamos). Scholars prefer the terms "sacred sex" or "sacred sexual rites" in cases where payment for services is not involved.

The historicity of literal sacred prostitution, particularly in some places and periods, is a controversial topic within the academic world.^[2] Mainstream historiography has traditionally considered it a probable reality, based on the abundance of ancient sources and chroniclers detailing its practices,^[1][3] although it has proved harder to differentiate between true prostitution and sacred sex without remuneration.^[4] Authors have also interpreted evidence as secular prostitution administered in the temple under the patronage of fertility deities, not as an act of religious worship by itself.^[5][6] In contrast, some modern gender researchers have challenged it entirely as the result of mistranslation and cultural slander.^[1][3]

Outside academic debate, sacred prostitution has been adopted as a sign of distinction by sex workers, modern pagans and practitioners of sex magic.^[7][8][9] Social authors have both decried it as a subproduct of patriarchy^[1][3] and embraced it as a symbol of women's empowerment.^[10][11]

Ancient Near East[]

Inanna depicted wearing the ceremonial headdress of the high priestess

Ancient Near Eastern societies along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers featured many shrines and temples or houses of heaven dedicated to various deities. The 5th-century BC historian Herodotus's account and some other testimony from the Hellenistic Period and Late Antiquity suggest that ancient societies encouraged the practice of sacred sexual rites not only in Babylonia and Cyprus, but throughout the Near East.

The work of gender researchers like Daniel Arnaud,^[12] Julia Assante^[13] and Stephanie Budin^[14] has cast the whole tradition of scholarship that defined the concept of sacred prostitution into doubt. Budin regards the concept of sacred prostitution as a myth, arguing taxatively that the practices described in the sources were misunderstandings of either non-remunerated ritual sex or non-sexual religious ceremonies, possibly even mere cultural slander.^[15] Although popular in modern times, this view has not gone without being criticized in its methodological approach,^[16] including accusations of an ideological agenda.^[7] A more nuanced view espoused by Vinciane Pirenne-Delforge, who also called for caution on Budin's categorical denial, suggests that some form of temple prostitution might have existed in the Near East, though not in the Greek or Roman worlds in classical or Hellenistic times.^[17]

Sumer[]

Through the twentieth century, scholars generally believed that a form of sacred marriage rite (hieros gamos) was staged between the kings in the ancient Near Eastern region of Sumer and the high priestesses of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare, later called Ishtar. The king would couple with the priestess to represent the union of Dumuzid with Inanna.^[18] According to the noted Assyriologist Samuel Noah Kramer, the kings would further establish their legitimacy by taking part in a ritual sexual act in the temple of the fertility goddess Ishtar every year on the tenth day of the New Year festival Akitu.^[19]

However, no certain evidence has survived to prove that sexual intercourse was included, despite many popular descriptions of the habit.^[20] It is possible that these unions never occurred but were embellishments to the image of the king; hymns which praise Ancient Near Eastern kings for coupling with the goddess Ishtar often speak of them as running 320 km (200 mi), offering sacrifices, feasting with the sun-god Utu, and receiving a royal crown from An, all in a single day.^[21] Some modern historians argue in the same direction,^[15][22][23] though their posture has been disputed.^[18]

Babylonia[]

According to Herodotus, the rites performed at these temples included sexual intercourse, or what scholars later called sacred sexual rites:

The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, "I invite you in the name of Mylitta". It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfil the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.^[24]

The British anthropologist James Frazer accumulated citations to prove this in a chapter of his magnum opus The Golden Bough (1890–1915),^[25] and this has served as a starting point for several generations of scholars. Frazer and Henriques distinguished two major forms of sacred sexual rites: temporary rite of unwed girls (with variants such as dowry-sexual rite, or as public defloration of a bride), and lifelong sexual rite.^[26] However, Frazer took his sources mostly from authors of Late Antiquity (i.e. 150–500 AD), not from the Classical or Hellenistic periods.^[27] This raises questions as to whether the phenomenon of temple sexual rites can be generalized to the whole of the ancient world, as earlier scholars typically did.

In Hammurabi's code of laws, the rights and good name of female sacred sexual priestesses were protected. The same legislation that protected married women from slander applied to them and their children. They could inherit property from their fathers, collect income from land worked by their brothers, and dispose of property. These rights have been described as extraordinary, taking into account the role of women at the time.^[28]

Terms associated with temple prostitution in Sumeria and Babylonia[]

All translations are sourced from the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary.^[29] Akkadian terms were used in the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, and Babylonia. The terms themselves come from lexical profession lists on tablets dating back to the Early Dynastic period.