It seems like back in the day, prostitutes would have been having constant children or constant abortions. Either of these done to the degree a prostitute having constant unprotected sex would do must wreak quite some havoc on one’s body. What did they do back then?
I’d imagine alot of back alley abortions took place. On the upside, if you are pregnant, that means no period AND you can have all the sex you want without fear of getting pregnant.
Seems to me that the rampant STDs of the day (gonorrhea in particular) were likely to render women sterile after a while.
Plus maybe women had at least some idea of when they were fertile and thus maybe knew enough not to have sex during those few days?
How are you defining pre-condom/pre birth-control? Condoms and other forms of BC have long and complex histories.
I thought there were ‘natural’ condoms that didn’t do anything STD wise but would reduce the chance of pregnancy …
Couldn’t you substitute “married women” for “prostitutes” and still be as valid?
:dubious: Lots of people still use birth control after they get married.
I don’t know for certain, but I would guess that that people involved in unprotected sex in this era relied mostly on the withdrawal method. Although it generally has a negative reputation, the withdrawal method is only slightly less effective than the condom when used correctly for birth control (pulling out in time), acccording to this, which suggests that the condom has a 2% failure rate while the withdrawal method has a 4% failure rate (for example 4% of women using the withdrawal method experience an unintended pregnancy during a year of typical use). According to the study, the sponge, spermacide and diaphragm methods have an even higher rate of failure than either of these methods, assuming perfect use.
To some degree, certainly. But I think it’s fair to assume the average sex worker has a good deal more sex than the average married non-prostitute.
Yes, but if prostitutes can’t get birth control in a given time period, then neither can anyone else.
not in the pre-condom / birth control era they didn’t. That’s why large families were the norm.
Large families were/are not the result of lack of BC, it’s more of a practical, economic question. Large families were the work force and Social Security of society, among other inspirations.
Herbal BC and abortificants can be traced back to as early as Cro Magnon women.
Cite? I don’t doubt that they were in use then, but how would we know?
There *was *no pre-birth control era. There were plants (still are, but they cause extreme illness and no, I won’t tell you what they are; they’re too dangerous to use), there were irritating vaginal suppositories and douches (the Egyptians were fond of ashes and crocodile dung shoved up the twat. Very irritating to the mucosa, and would effectively act as an IUD. The Victorians used strong vingar douches and later women douched with Listerine), shells and bone scrapers for abortions, there was avoiding intercourse near the full moon (absent artificial lights, most women apparently ovulate near the full moon and menstruate at the new) and there was infanticide. Okay, I guess that last one isn’t really birth-control, but same affect - no child to have to raise.
There were also prostitutes who catered to men who like to have sex with pregnant women. Prob’ly still are, for all I know.
Refer also to this by Cecil: Did the Romans use a natural herb as birth control?
In the Old West, prostitutes, especially Chinese prostitutes, lived short, nasty, brutish lives. Not really a “viable” lifestyle at all.
Depends on the era. Obviously, it was viable for some. Pregnancy was an issue, but, as other people have pointed out, abortificants were known. And, in the Middle Ages, the woman could always leave off her baby at the church (some had doors especially designed to the baby wouldn’t be left in the cold, but where the mother could hide her identity).
STDs was a problem, but things were different. Syphilis really wasn’t a factor until the 16th century. But people had a different attitude to STDs back then. You got the pox or the clap and got on with your life. The odds were a prostitute wouldn’t live long enough to get tertiary syphilis anyway, and there were plenty of customers who didn’t care.
Also “pulling out at the last miniute” oral sex, and other forms of sex that did not involve introducing semen into the vagina.
I can’t provide a specific reference that says it’s exactly the way I put it, but about twenty years back my interest in cro magnon society, and possible interactions between cro magnon and neanderthals, was piqued. I did some reading about the subjects and was quite surprised at the archealogical evidence available and the conclusions drawn from it. You can do some searches and you will get an abundance of hits, some more scientific than others. The levels of sophistication of these peoples was amazing to me.