Sacred prostitution in ancient Babylon; Herodotus

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Firstly, I don't know if I want to discuss this any more, it is making me sick to my stomach these last couple of posts by you and that other lady. But your post deserves an answer, so here we go:

I am sure that you are a proper respectable woman and I respect your view on pornography. It's filth and it has always been filthy. That said, it wouldn't and shouldn't have to be like that. If womanhood itself had stood behind and embraced their prostitutes and their promiscuous ones, their femme fatales and Liliths instead of demonising them and retreating to denial and a life of sin and self judgment since they would turn all sex into sin. Sex as such is not a sin, it is the very reason why we exist in the first place. It was God's first command to humankind, to make love and fill the earth with people. We are ordered to reproduce by the Good Lord himself.

Now back to your post and the so termed Teen-porn that I suspect you are referring to in your post. A great part of what is out there on the net is porn, and a great part of that porn is so called teen-porn. Now why is it like this? Are all men perverts? Certainly not. Look instead at the age statistics of the ones who frequent these places. A great bunch of them are in fact, you guessed it, Teens. Little boys and girls secretly going to any of the thousands of "free porn" sites out there to watch people having sex that look like people of their own age. That is a fact. Normally older men live in relationships and have no need for porn. The rule these days, however, is for the society to turn their claws and horns against people watching this or to phrase it differently, who are regularly being exposed to it while in search of adult material for adults showing adult adults making love with other consenting adults, for the camera, and many of these people are in fact victims of exposure to material served on highly false pretences, making many men impotent these days actually and causing several serious sexual deficiencies in more and more people these days. That is also a fact.

And there is another important thing to consider: Extortion. Many such porn-sites are run by rather dark forces deep within organised crime, and since most people going to these sites for the quick relief (it's biolgical, in men, we need to get off from time to time to keep producing healthy swimmers, and what you refer to as, eh certain women) are exposed to this teen-porn (in most cases adult models who dress up as teens licking lollipops or having sex with some suit in front of a blackboard &c) -- and for a businessman in his fifties with teens of his own, if such a word came out on the street that he was secretly watching porn showing supposed cheerleaders and hi-school students.... needless to say there is the element of extortion involved. And using illicit software they could insert to your computer, they can encrypt and lock it and demand money for the password, and if they don't they will publish or report logs and other proof showing beyond any doubts that the subject was sitting in a compromising position, at work watching a teen-looking woman do what could ruin his career and marriage etc. even having them judged and sentenced as a sexual predator.

Especially within porn, there is a darkness. We can't make porn disappear, but thousands of victims out there deserves that we aquire some neutral fact based knowledge of the nature of porn as part of nearly all men's sexuality at least at some point in life. Often in his younger years, before he married and settled down.


ETA: Now, can we please get back to the subject of the thread. This muck makes me sick to my stomach and my day is already ruined. So please, if you need to talk about these things, start a thread about it or something.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I am not for organised marriages but perhaps things were more stable as a society when the marriage age was young. Women are biologically programmed as the optimum age for childbearing at 16 according to reports, and men are in their sexual prime at 19 reportedly, though able to reproduce at any age in theory, the quality of sperm declines with age, for example their children are more prone to autism as they age.

I think 16 is too young for marriage, mentally, in our society, though that said I was in my first serious relationship at 14, it lasted about 6 years, he was 4 years older, do the math, that was the same guy as the porn comment. I however, being a mature 14 year old, felt ready to commit to a relationship.

As our society is now, people are waiting longer and longer before commitments and marriage. Sexual immorality has pervaded youth culture via unscrupulous media and it has affected such things as sexual culture, including porn. The criminal aspect of porn is another matter for another thread I guess so I will concentrate on the morality part.

I would say the basic differences between men and women are part of the cause of the supposed 'need' for prostitution and porn and the fact that male dominated culture has bought into the whole notion of 'sexual need' instead of sexual morality, from way back. It is the unbalanced nature of our societies that has caused it. Men should all think in terms of morals and ethical societal responsibility before lust and power. One sex dominance holding the majority of power in society has led to such an imbalance and has to first be rectified before sexual morality is reinstated.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Marriage is bollocks. People should rather live like the angels of heaven and take responsibility for the new flames they kindle and for the new words they create. Marriage. Swearing of oaths. The swearing of an oath complete with rings and promises none can swear to with absolute certainty, can't possibly have a positive effect on anything.

Decency. Responsibility. If you make a lady pregnant you take the responsibility involved. Marriage doesn't secure that. On the contrary: Many children have fathers who are married and were married when they were conceived, but not to their mothers. These men often deny responsibility and refuse to pay their dues. Married Christian men who are unable to play along with the rules of the marriage game.

Much blood and misery lies in the trail of Mother Marriage. More than you'd imagine. I once promised myself I'd never marry, and if the gods be good, I will never have to stand up to the immense task of bringing up a perfect human being perfectly and being able to protect it against the dangers that lurk on every corner....

Hermes says that becoming a parent is the greatest task any human being can put upon himself. Personally, I'd rather fight the devil himself on flat land than becoming a father to raise a child in this wicked world, given I had a choice, then again, there is a certain miracle involved so I could never say never. I never understood how all those parents out there sleep at night. There's war and misery round every bend, and daily tens of thousands of children die of hunger.

Marriage, kings and devils, it belongs to the past. The Old Way of the Serpent and his Beasts, and their lover, the Church. I will never marry. Over my dead body. If it was up to me, all women were prostitutes, it would press down the prices and paying for sex would actually become something of an alternative.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

My comment wasn't advocating marriage nor about marriage it was about how society might have been more stable when marriages were at a younger age, people were expected to marry then, it was part of the commitment to a relationship.

The point is that committed relationships aren't seen as they once were and the generational age of relationship commitment 'pairing' has got far older and less emphasis has been placed on 'pairing' commitments.

For the record, I have been engaged to be married twice, each lasting about 4 years, but as yet unmarried. I am not against marriage but if I ever do it will be on my terms with written 'vows' that aren't those of a church or institution but reflect the fact that I do not believe in 'ownership' of a person nor the guarantee of everlasting love. I am however planning on settling long term with a man of my choice that I believe is suited to me and to which I am attracted physically, mentally and emotionally, that hasn't proven easy so far.

a reply to: Emma3

Please, can we focus on the subject of the thread and not turn it in to some thread about the worst crimes known to man.

In this thread I hoped we could be talking about Herodotus and his mentioning 'Sacred Prostitution' (is actually a thing, look it up) in his work The Histories and prostitution as the oldest trade in the world, or so they say.

Now in this case at least, with this thread, this has nothing to do with Satanic child prostitution rings, human trafficing, or anything other than Herodotus and his trip to Babylon in the fifth century BC. Well, I'm not going to be a nazi, there are many things that could be relevant to sort out, but please leave the children out of this for heaven's sake. It scares the breath out of me just thinking about it and knowing it exists, and I see demons on every corner, and I don't need that. The world is disgusting and scary enough as it is. So please leave the children out of this.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Back to the subject of the thread-
What a horrid custom by those ancients-Imagine your Mother,Daughter or Sister having to do that...I would not let that happen to my family,and I would prevent it by violence as a last resort if that is what it took.
Then I would end up getting kicked out of society,or probably worse.

The Ancients had a lot of wisdom that we have lost,but they also had horrid ideas sometimes.

originally posted by: theabsolutetruth
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

My comment wasn't advocating marriage nor about marriage it was about how society might have been more stable when marriages were at a younger age, people were expected to marry then, it was part of the commitment to a relationship.

The point is that committed relationships aren't seen as they once were and the generational age of relationship commitment 'pairing' has got far older and less emphasis has been placed on 'pairing' commitments.

The Babylonian prophet Daniel, explaining a dream Nebuchadnezzar had and which Daniel also dreamed of, about the future, some say our days: "...they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay."

I read somewhere that more than half of all marriages that are sworn end with divorce, most rather quickly.

And good luck in your quest to find true love

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

I understand your concerns and to most people living today prostitution is taboo and we are extremely biased in cases of prostitution and prostitutes. Promiscuity and a loose sex life is limited to males it seems. But the idea that unmarried men and women can't have a sexlife is absurd, and also the ugly among us should also have a proper way to the Tree of Life, and if a whore would be the only one willing, then bless her for it.

That said, and to your post, Jack the Ripper also showed an untamed hate towards prostitutes, you might want to calm down a bit....

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Please,don't misunderstand me-I was not angry at prostitutes at all,but to those who wish to force a girl into prostitution-so the babylonians called it a sacred duty-please...
The people who say my sister or mother MUST do that-they are bad and to be opposed even in old times.

No offence whatsoever to those who wish to be prostitutes of their own accord.

I dislike the slavery aspect,thats all.
The people I would be violent to as a last resort would be those attempting to force my family into prostitution.
Hope that explains my previous post better.

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Please,don't misunderstand me-I was not angry at prostitutes at all,but to those who wish to force a girl into prostitution-so the babylonians called it a sacred duty-please...
The people who say my sister or mother MUST do that-they are bad and to be opposed even in old times.

No offence whatsoever to those who wish to be prostitutes of their own accord.

I dislike the slavery aspect,thats all.
The people I would be violent to as a last resort would be those attempting to force my family into prostitution.
Hope that explains my previous post better.

Naturally if anyone would threaten or hurt the ones I love I would feel terrible, and thoughts of revenge or violence would be hard to ignore. Revenge and avenging loved ones may not always be right speaking of the law, but it is highly natural. But most times people regret their violence and that way misery feeds misery, and you end up twice hurt. Some times the best we can do is to let the law do it's thing so we can see justice be done when and where it is needed.

When a person becomes an adult he or she owns himself and he is his own master. When he is drafted for the military and he enters the army, things change, he is no longer his own master, but a subject of the king or the president. Now, right away I don't see much difference with that and slavery, and our whole society is founded on it, to render a free person an expendable subject in war and subject to the second law, which is even more fundamental in society than the law we know from the court-- it's tricky as for the morale involved. But if anything morale is all but rational, well I don't know what I want to mean about kings and their armies. Sometimes I wish I had a navy meself.

There are certain things in life both angels and demons agree upon. The right to exist, security for their loved ones and no messing with the children. Even the devil himself would subscribe to that. Humans have an unimaginable potential for evil, it must be held in check. I feel the war is coming though, the War to end all wars, the Mother of Hellfire and Brimstone. And one cannot deny it, if one is to be pragmatic about it all, violence has saved the lives of at least one of the ancestors of any man alive. Every single one of us can thank violence for us being alive. But that doesn't mean we should use more of it. Fire also saved every one of us. The primordial earthquakes too. However, in some cases violence is necessary to me, I'd rather die standing upright or fighting than having to live on my knees.

Or, war... I see a desert and a burning Sun.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I wish you had stuck to the herbal/medicinal knowledge stuff,friend.
You are good at that.

I hope you are OK,I am sort of worried for you,
anyhow,take care friend.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

No need to worry really, I just get these panic attacks when people write about or otherwise remind me of certain evils in this world. In books the evil ones are destroyed on the last pages, in reality they show up in your nightmares and perhaps on the bus, in the shop, on the street. I get paranoid and really scared sometimes, to me it is the evil Satan was designed to destroy.

I have given up on religion long time ago, much because I see it as tools in wars and in organising all kinds of these evils all over the world. Even using the words involved makes me sick to my stomach of all the sodding HUMAN evils in this world.

Had Satan existed and been in my command, I'd send him out all over the earth to test all Christian parents under severe scrutiny to see if they were fit for the responsibility, and keep on visiting them to make sure the little ones were safe; and I'd have him shake the ivory tower down in Rome and search up every single case of child abuse within the Church and elsewhere, and make sure it came up for the courts, and after that he could visit the Muslims and the Jews and onwards until the last one on earth was accounted for.

I lose control when stuff like child-abuse comes up, I lose my head, I panic completely. Had this not been my own thread, I would have stayed far away from it, simply because I know it makes me panic.

a reply to: new_here
And I never said it was right

originally posted by: Pinke
It's similar to Rome's accusation of child cannibalism leveled at Carthage

The claim was that they sacrificed babies to (Moloch was it? Or Baal?) and for the longest time it was just considered propaganda due to the Kartaginian War. But more recent archaeology found burnt skeletons in urns in some tombs of only babies. I cant remember which show it was, Ancient Discoveries, Ancients Behaving Badly, Cities of the Underworld or some such, but one that I frequent, showed that a tomb wasnt a "child cemetary" because it was only one gender. I know its hard to tell gender by skeleton and burial items, but as females were limited in position, it is easier to figure out archaeologically.


a reply to: Utnapisjtim
Psychological studies of the Catholic priesthood found that there was no more prominence of pedophilia than among the average population. Sometimes people have this absurd idea that people can 'turn' pedophiles if they cant have sex because of priesthood - but its impossible, pedophilia is a paraphilia and only comes about by childhood trauma. In fact statistically 96-99% of pedophiles reported being molested as children. So the only explanation for the church - is that pedophiles see the position as something they can take advantage of and decide to join the church.

originally posted by: Utnapisjtim
Normally older men live in relationships and have no need for porn.

LOL, complete fantasy. Older men view porn just as much as young men. They also use prostitutes just as much. Over half of men who use prostitutes are married.

"Many were husbands and boyfriends; just over half were either married or in a relationship with a woman."

a reply to: Ridhya

Well, all I know is that the porn business themselves explain the massive amount of "teen porn" as filling the demands of millions of youngsters who want chicks that look like their own age, and settings that will fulfil their fantasies, girls in school uniform etc. set in classrooms on the school bus or whatever. So the vast amounts of teen porn is not a sign that adult men are turning in to perverts preying on cheerleaders and schoolgirls. Can't remember exactly where I read or heard it, I think it was on a show on the radio. It all made sense when he explained it.

Depending on the context, it is likely one would find "sacred prostitution" an honorable thing. These women were supposed to be representations of the Goddess. I am certain they knew and understood this. They were acting as mediators between Goddess and man, to...in an eroto-magical perspective bring fertility, prosperity, and wealth/abundance to all (particularly farmers and the blue-collar). Payment for their mediation, was likely just a way to fund the temples, their boarding, and the relatively lively existences they probably had while there.

a reply to: HillbillyHippie1

I believe the payment was symbolic, the whole rite is symbolic. I don't think they saw it as prostitution but rather like some symbolic tradition much like how bunnies laying eggs at Easter has profound meaning most of us don't even lend a thought. Or baptism, given it's symbology it's ritual drowning, and the eucharist, cannibalism? Tossing a coin (of any value) in the lap of some girl, maybe it was one such rite only involving love and lovemaking, fertility and the Goddess? That they didn't really think through what they did, I mean I don't usually open my front door to let in half drunk disguised fat men wearing creepy masks carrying a big sack of undisclosed contents. But I am likely do it on the darkest night of the year. Catch my drift?

Apologies if this has been posted already, but Herodotus is not an authoritative source of information. He is analogous to modern producers of tourist travelogues. He is very modern in that way. It shocked me to realize how like he is to people today in the kind of curiosity and awareness he had about the world. His history is "pop" history.

He almost certainly did not visit Babylon.

www.livius.org...

It has been argued by the German classicist Detlev Fehling, that when Herodotus mentions his source, this is almost the best proof that he is not telling the exact truth. Unsatisfied with the real events, he decided to improve upon them, making it possible to show better the meaning of the events. There is a lot to be said for this suggestion; at least, it is almost certain that Herodotus did not go to Babylon. (Compare the comments on Herodotus' first book.) Some have argued that Fehling's criticism is a bit far-fetched. After all Herodotus had to write his tale many years after he had visited the place, and he never had the comfort of a map. This will no do: the Halicarnassian researcher wants us to believe that the walls of Babylon are 100 meters high - if he had indeed seen the town himself, he would not have written down such nonsense.

I like Herodotus, but one must weigh what he says. Most of it is "hearsay", travelers' tales, some true and accurate, some absurd tall tales. He is quite scrupulous in including obvious fantasies in his history. Anything at all, even fantasy from that period is welcome and useful from some standpoint in enhancing our understanding of his time.

I don't know about sacred prostitution, how it may have been conducted or if it was conducted, but if it was conducted, I think that one could say that the ancients had one thing about sex right, that it has a "sacred" dimension. I doubt if they were sanctifying prostitution for itself, but maybe that was part of their intent as well.

It makes more sense than vilifying prostitution, to me.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim
Of course they would explain it that way!! Think of the inverse example: Makers of cigarillos explain it that older people want tobacco that tastes like candy. My ass. Its a way of getting underage kids to start smoking.

Of course they wont publicly admit that they're appealing to people who fantasize about underage girls. But they are. Teen porn is a common fantasy. Though some wouldnt, I would classify it as a paraphilia. There is a whole trade of it in asian countries with "girly boys" and underage sex rings in Thailand, for one. In the west there is a plethora of porn of old men having sex with girls who appear to be underage.

In Japan too, its SO common, that they gave a specific name to it, which I cant think of off the top of my head (and I dont desire to look it up) - but their porn frequently depicts underage (appearing) girls with old men, and their comics even depict literally child porn.

We had this discussion among colleagues, should comic depictions of illegal acts (specifically child porn) be allowed? I dont believe it should, as it just fuels the fantasy...

a reply to: ipsedixit

All agreed and thanks for your reply. Herodotus was like you say a traveller writing traveller tales and stories he collected among the people and places he visited. The field of historiography was still in the making and many things we take for granted today like scrutiny on sources and referencing etc. was not considered as important -- but he is still a highly valuable gem from a time when supposedly, the tower of Babylon was still standing so to speak.