# Societies without prostitution **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 15, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265 "2013-08-15T00:37:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/1 "2013-08-15T00:37:06Z")
Are there any societies, either present day or in the past, where prostitution was/is nonexistent? Does it exist in hunter-gatherer and other pre-civilized cultures? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/2 "2013-08-15T00:46:48Z")
It’s going to depend on your definition. In every society there have been people that traded sex for food, and in some animal species as well. Is that prostitution? > **[Prostitution among animals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals)** > > Prostitution among animals is the phenomenon in which different species of non-human animals practice the exchange of sex for different benefits. This concept is also known as transactional sex. > Adélie penguins use stones for building their nests. Based on a 1998 study, media reports stated that a shortage of stones led female Adélie penguins to trade sex for stones. Some pair-bonded female penguins copulate with males who are not their mates and then take pebbles for their own nests. Chimpanzee... ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/3 "2013-08-15T03:31:47Z")
From all I’ve read, prostitution is inevitable in every human culture, even where outlawed and severely punished. There will always be people willing to pay for sex, and there will always be people willing to sell their bodies for a reward, be it cash, food, drugs, alcohol, a big favor, etc. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/4 "2013-08-15T03:39:30Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > It’s going to depend on your definition. In every society there have been people that traded sex for food, and in some animal species as well. > > Is that prostitution? > > [Prostitution among animals - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_among_animals) Very interesting. A few clicks from **coremelt** ’s link leads to [another article](http://www.zmescience.com/research/how-scientists-tught-monkeys-the-concept-of-money-not-long-after-the-first-prostitute-monkey-appeared/): > [@](#): > > When Chen and Santos first started their study, they didn’t have a particular goal in mind. It was just as simple as giving a monkey a dollar and see what would happen, which was exactly the case, instead of the dollar, however, a silver disc with a hole in its center was employed a means of currency for the capuchins. It took several months of repetition for the capuchins to learn that they could exchange such a token for fruit. After they understood this, each monkey was given 12 tokens to decide on how to spend it in her best interest on food valued at different prices. Researchers observed that the monkeys could very well budget. Researchers then changed the market and put Jell-O at a lower price, to see if monkeys would buy less grapes and more Jell-O. They acted exactly like the current laws of economics dictate for humans as well. > > They then taught them how to gamble, and saw they made the same irrational decisions a human gambler would make as well. The data generated by the capuchin monkeys, Chen says, ”make them statistically indistinguishable from most stock-market investors.” > > Do they understand the value of money or do the monkeys just follow nice treats? Well, on a particular day, a researcher cut circular slices of cucumber, similar to the discs that were handed out to the capuchin as money, and fed them to the monkeys instead of the usual cube-like shape. One of the monkeys took a slice, chewed a bit on it, and then immediately went to one of the researchers to see if she could buy something tastier with it. Oh, and then again there’s stealing too. Not a single monkey saved any of the tokens, but most of them tried to subtract a few more tokens when they were handed out. The monkeys were given tokens one at a time by inserting them in a separate chamber from that of their living quarters, but on one occasion everything sprung into chaos when a capuchin tried to make a run for it with a tray filled with tokens and ended up back with all the other monkeys. That was a tough time for researchers. > > Something else happened then too, tough , in what’s maybe the most evident form of one’s grasp upon currency. The idea is that you can use money as a form of currency to exchange for goods or services, as in not just food. Well, one of the researchers, during the chaos event, observed how one of the monkeys exchanged money to another for sex. After the act was over, the monkey which was paid immediately used it to buy a grape… (They didn’t say whether price was negotiated in advance, the prerequisite IIRC for a prostitution arrest.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/5 "2013-08-15T07:22:40Z")
This does not however imply that it is likely that prostitution will occur in all human societies. At most it shows that it is likely in societies that have the institution of money. Many, such as the hunter-gatherers mentioned in the OP, do not. I would not count, ether, on this behavior appearing with all types of higher primate. Bonobos for instance, might well get the idea of of cash in a similar way to these capuchins, but sex seems to be so freely available in bonobo society that it seems much less likely that “prostitution” would emerge. Some actual or potential human societies may be more like bonobo society than capuchin. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/6 "2013-08-15T07:38:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > From all I’ve read, prostitution is inevitable in every human culture, even where outlawed and severely punished. There will always be people willing to pay for sex, and there will always be people willing to sell their bodies for a reward, be it cash, food, drugs, alcohol, a big favor, etc. Nitpick: prostitutes do not “sell their bodies”. Selling is a transfer of ownership. They use their bodies to provide a service - as do people in a wide range of other industries. As to the OP, there is certainly no known example of a modern society without prostitution. The Chinese claimed to have eliminated it under Mao, and some scholars (particularly Marxist ones) bought into this for a while, but it’s pretty much discredited now. Where it’s severely and consistently punished (as in Mao’s China or Taliban Afghanistan) it happens in less obvious ways, but it still happens. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/7 "2013-08-15T09:34:24Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > Nitpick: prostitutes do not “sell their bodies”. Selling is a transfer of ownership. Would you consider the term “rent out” acceptable? (That’s not a rant or a snark. But as long as we’re getting pedantic, I figured I’d ask.) > [@ruadh](#): > > They use their bodies to provide a service - as do people in a wide range of other industries. I see a difference in how the body is used. In prostitution, one allows the customer/purchaser/renter to use and manipulate the body itself. But employees - and even slaves, I suppose - are in full control of their bodies, doing things that the employer wants them to do. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/8 "2013-08-15T13:47:44Z")
I see part of the problem being - it does not take women long to learn “guys will do (almost) anyting for sex” and then use it as a leverage for benefits - sometimes offered spontaneously by the male, sometimes implied or demanded by female. It can degenerate into serial monogamy - whoever is the better provider this year, month, week, or day, … or night. So where does it stop being a relationship of short duration and become prostitution? Most likely when there is money or something of equal value, when the woman does not have to maintain the relationship until the next wildebeast is killed and divided up? Actual cash, tokens that are widely accepted for most goods and services, has been a great facilitator for many human activities, allowing people to specialize instead of spending a good part of their time hunting and gathering their own food. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/9 "2013-08-15T14:08:37Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I see part of the problem being - it does not take women long to learn “guys will do (almost) anyting for sex” and then use it as a leverage for benefits That, inasmuch as it is true at all, is largely an artifact of the way sexual relations are traditionally manged in _our_ culture (an even then a bit one sided and one dimensional). It is not a point from which to start generalizing about _all_ human societies. Men like or even need sex, but so do women, and women can and do provide men with other benefits apart from sex. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/10 "2013-08-15T14:17:52Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > Nitpick: prostitutes do not “sell their bodies”. Nitpick: prostitutes absolutely “sell their bodies” because that is the way the English language describes the transaction. You can argue that this is not a definition of selling in some forms of classical economics. You could argue that other languages do not use this term. (I don’t know this as a fact, though.) But selling one’s services is the term used for many professions and most economists would include this in a description of the overall economy. Prostitution itself as a term is elastic and inexact. It is used for people who derive their entire incomes from selling sex and for an individual act for money. It is adapted to be used for barter situations and politicized to describe marriage. It is a pejorative for anyone who is perceived to lower standards in return for money or fame. While the question is legitimate, it’s too hard to answer without constraints. An analogy would be to asking if every society has doctors. If you mean “doctor” as healer, then the answer would be yes. What qualifies a person as a doctor is harder to answer. In 19th century America most of the people the term was applied to bear no resemblance to what we consider a doctor today. You can still become a naturopathic doctor with a degree and license and everything and not be considered a doctor by some. (Me, for example.) If you can’t pin down a term that exists in the law, figuring out what prostitution is will be much tougher. Even as a term, prostitutes are loose. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/11 "2013-08-15T14:29:02Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That, inasmuch as it is true at all, is largely an artifact of the way sexual relations are traditionally manged in _our_ culture (an even then a bit one sided and one dimensional). It is not a point from which to start generalizing about _all_ human societies. Men like or even need sex, but so do women, and women can and do provide men with other benefits apart from sex. > **[Lysistrata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata)** > > Lysistrata (/laɪˈsɪstrətə/ or /ˌlɪsəˈstrɑːtə/; Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη, Lysistrátē, lit. 'army disbander') is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city states by denying all the men of the land any sex, which was said to be the only thing they truly and deeply desired. Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to engage in a sex strike as a mea... …_a tale as old as time_… ---
**Author:** ![a\_Webster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@a\_Webster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a_Webster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/12 "2013-08-15T14:36:10Z")
to suggest prostitution is inevitable is to say some women will inevitably fall into that class to be used by men. This isn’t a ‘benefit’ - women have never had equal access to resources, are not yet of an equal standing and are vulnerable to exploitation in every country and culture. This is the context in which prostitution takes place, so to frame it in terms of any other trade is disingenuous. Demand isn’t inevitable, and it’s pretty horrific - have you ever read through punter forums? see [the invisible men project](http://the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/) for some examples, or just pick any punter forum and read through. That’s entitlement, and it’s about male power. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/13 "2013-08-15T14:39:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **njtt** : > > That, inasmuch as it is true at all, is largely an artifact of the way sexual relations are traditionally manged in our culture (an even then a bit one sided and one dimensional). It is not a point from which to start generalizing about all human societies. Men like or even need sex, but so do women, and women can and do provide men with other benefits apart from sex. It’s not a cultural artifact. Ultimately, it’s an artifact of the fact that women get pregnant and men don’t. It’s evolutionarily advantageous for a man, if he can get away with it, to impregnate as many women as possible as quickly as possible, while remaining unattached to all of them so he’s free to impregnate the next one. Women, however, inherently must make a significant investment in order to reproduce. A single man can very easily saturate a single woman’s reproductive capacity, so it’s evolutionarily advantageous for a woman to get a man to stick around and devote his resources to the raising of offspring. As the old joke goes, a woman wants one man to satisfy her every need, while a man wants every woman to satisfy his one need. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/14 "2013-08-15T15:05:34Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > [Lysistrata - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata) > > …_a tale as old as time_… OK, so now (being very generous) you have two examples of cultures where this has been so rather than just one. Of course, our culture is descended from ancient Greek culture (which explains why its literature is still part of our canon), so they are hardly entirely independent examples, but I will concede that you have two examples out of the thousands of different cultural traditions that have have existed, and the many more that might potentially exist. > [@Chronos](#): > > It’s not a cultural artifact. Ultimately, it’s an artifact of the fact that women get pregnant and men don’t. It’s evolutionarily advantageous for a man, if he can get away with it, to impregnate as many women as possible as quickly as possible, while remaining unattached to all of them so he’s free to impregnate the next one. Women, however, inherently must make a significant investment in order to reproduce. A single man can very easily saturate a single woman’s reproductive capacity, so it’s evolutionarily advantageous for a woman to get a man to stick around and devote his resources to the raising of offspring. That is not at all what **md2000** said, or what I was objecting to. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/15 "2013-08-15T17:50:00Z")
> [@ruadh](#): > > Nitpick: prostitutes do not “sell their bodies”… That’s not what the O’Jays taught me: > **[For The Love Of Money Lyrics - The O'Jays](http://www.lyricsbox.com/ojays-lyrics-for-the-love-of-money-74l2rfl.html)** > > Full and accurate LYRICS for "For The Love Of Money" from "The O'Jays": For the love of money, People can't even walk the streets, Because they'll never ... https://www.youtube.com/embed/zcrppevM46Q?feature=oembed&wmode=opaque ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/16 "2013-08-15T18:38:22Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > OK, so now (being very generous) you have two examples of cultures where this has been so rather than just one. > > Of course, our culture is descended from ancient Greek culture (which explains why its literature is still part of our canon), so they are hardly entirely independent examples, but I will concede that you have two examples out of the thousands of different cultural traditions that have have existed, and the many more that might potentially exist. > > … > > That is not at all what **md2000** said, or what I was objecting to. I’m not sure what you are objecting to? You don’t think that (most) women have figured out how important to (most) men the urge for sex is? You don’t think that (many) women, from time to time, use that as leverage in one way or another to get their way? It may not be explicitly stated during the event, it may simply beimplied, or in actions, but women can and do force male behaviour by withholding or providing sex - and most who do are well aware of what they are doing. I’m not suggesting _every_ woman does this or _every_ man is a slave to it, but as O.Henry once said, - The race is not always to the swiftest, nor the contest to the strongest, But that’s the best way to bet on it. \* Once something is in demand by one group and another group has it available, some sort of accomodation will result. It’s just that some will sell it cheaper than others and with less strings attached. Money simple lubricates the process, so to speak. The only reasons why it might not happen? -No shortage - either the men can have their way any time (not the best society), or it’s a free love society (yeah, right, like that happens - but in fact, I believe it was in _Superfreakonomics_ they point out the real cost of sex has dropped in the last 100 years, mainly due to competition from “free”.) -Social control is strong enough to prevent violation of social norms; when has that happened? Even societies that whip prostitutes or worse (but oddly, not the Johns) still have laws and use them. The fact that of all the societies with money or relatively liquid trade goods, nobody can point to one that did not endure prostitution - shows that it’s a supply and demand situation where plenty of people are willing to commit to the transaction. The reason it’s something difficult to define or nail down, is that the acts involved surrounding sex - either simple cash-for-nookie or life-long family-making relationships and anything in between, can be very complex. It’s a sad lesson that every guy eventually learns from his first serious relationship, living together is a lot more involved that just free sex every night (for the first month). Relationships tie in status, self esteem, love (reciprocated or not), jealousy, base instincts to have and provide for children, etc. etc. The accomodations of finding, starting, and maintaining a relationship are very demanding. It’s no inevitable some guys would find a simple cash transaction, well… simpler. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/17 "2013-08-15T18:57:54Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > The accomodations of finding, starting, and maintaining a relationship are very demanding. It’s no inevitable some guys would find a simple cash transaction, well… simpler. Cost Comparison : Prostitution versus marriage for an average man in the United States : From wiki, the median income for a man with a bachelor’s degree is $52,265. By law, at _least_ half of a married man’s income basically goes to the wife. With taxes, let’s say the actual income is $45,000. (this is state dependent but this is close to being correct) That’s $22,500 a year to the wife. Quality prostitutes in the United States charge about $300 an act…so she has to provide nookie about 75 times a year to be economically competitive. Since many wives in the U.S. also work their own jobs, marriage is a better deal by far. On the other hand, in a certain country known for having the best whorehouses in the world by those who frequent them (never been there myself, but there’s a forum on the internet where these things are discussed), in Deutchland it’s about 50 euros a shag. That’s $66 USD. That means that $22.5k buys 340 shags per year. It’s a good thing that travel costs are so expensive, and that marriages provide other benefits than just sex… It also means that for a man above a certain income level, marriages for sex are a money losing proposition. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/18 "2013-08-16T06:22:58Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > Would you consider the term “rent out” acceptable? (That’s not a rant or a snark. But as long as we’re getting pedantic, I figured I’d ask.)I see a difference in how the body is used. In prostitution, one allows the customer/purchaser/renter to use and manipulate the body itself. But employees - and even slaves, I suppose - are in full control of their bodies, doing things that the employer wants them to do. Your idea of prostitution seems to be based on the notion that clients pay their money and in return get a body that they can do whatever they want to. That’s not how it works, for the most part. Even those at the lower end of the market, the drug-addicted street workers, still have things that they will do and things that they won’t do. The sexual service to be provided is negotiated at the outset and a client who oversteps those boundaries commits an assault. Where the client remains within those boundaries, and most of the time they do, the sex worker is also in full control of his or her body. Of course it’s a different matter where there actually is a relationship of “ownership”, i.e., in situations of sex slavery where a person is pimped out and forced to do whatever their owner is paid for them to do. But that’s not a typical scenario. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/19 "2013-08-16T06:27:39Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can argue that this is not a definition of selling in some forms of classical economics. You could argue that other languages do not use this term. (I don’t know this as a fact, though.) But selling one’s services is the term used for many professions and most economists would include this in a description of the overall economy. “Selling one’s services” is fine. That’s not the same as “selling one’s body”. And my main objection to it has nothing to do with classical economics or what other languages use, it’s that it doesn’t accurately describe what sex workers do. My further objection is that it’s actually very dangerous to describe it in those terms, because it contributes to the notion that sex workers have no power or right to refuse any particular activity. And this is why violent clients think they can get away with assaulting them, and why police and courts often _do_ let them get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265/20 "2013-08-16T06:36:44Z")
> [@a\_Webster](#): > > to suggest prostitution is inevitable is to say some women will inevitably fall into that class to be used by men. This isn’t a ‘benefit’ - women have never had equal access to resources, are not yet of an equal standing and are vulnerable to exploitation in every country and culture. This is the context in which prostitution takes place, so to frame it in terms of any other trade is disingenuous. You do realise your analysis completely erases male sex workers, their male clients, and female clients? > [@](#): > > Demand isn’t inevitable, and it’s pretty horrific - have you ever read through punter forums? see [the invisible men project](http://the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/) for some examples, or just pick any punter forum and read through. The quotes cherry-picked for the Invisible Men Project are a perfect example of what I referred to in my last post - men who’ve bought into the idea that sex workers are not autonomous individuals but simple merchandise to be used as the “buyer” pleases. Unfortunately, a lot of anti-prostitution feminists also promote this idea. Sex workers themselves have a lot of very thought-provoking critiques of review forums, which I’d recommend reading. See for example [this piece](http://titsandsass.com/we-need-a-better-review-culture/) as well as others at the Tits and Sass blog. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/societies-without-prostitution/666265.md?page=2)