I emailed this one to Cecil a while back, but he hasn’t gotten round to it yet so I figured I’d ask the rest of the world.
In what sense is prostitution the oldest profession? If “profession” means a way of making a living, I would think hunting/gathering would be the oldest profession. If “profession” means a vocation requiring a liberal academic education, it doesn’t seem like prostitution is a profession at all. Unless I’m COMPLETELY wrong about the definition of “prostitution”…
Take a saunter through Times Square…
The origin of the term becomes readily apparent.
“Take a saunter through Times Square”?
You haven’t been to Times Square lately, HAVE you? I have, and the hookers are gone. So is most of the pornography. The whole area is bright, clean, safe and Disney-ified.
Not that prostitutes and porn have left New York entirely, of course. The hookers have just moved, while porn has moved away from the old theaters, and into video.
As for the nickname “The world’s oldest profession,” I confess, I’ve never understood that one, myself.
Do you mean the whores in Times Square are really old? Or that if a profession is centered on a square named after Time Itself then it must be really old? Or maybe, if hookers ply their trade in place through which you must stroll, rather than drive, they are appealing to atavastic (pre-automotive) carnal desires, thus proving the ancientness of their profession?
(The original question was actually serious, but the above was not.)
Because there were hookers before there were politicians, that’s my guess.
your humble TubaDiva
Jeez. A guy makes a joke and the literalists literally come out of the wood work!
Point of the joke: Old hookers.
Date of joke: 1984
Underlying premise: Young sailor doing the big city during Fleet Week. “Doing” the big city, if you catch my drift. ::wink, wink. Nudge, nudge::
My apologies to astorian and the other denizens of “The Big Apple”.
Here’s my WAG: Sex was one of the first commodities which could be freely traded. "Ugh, will hunt. Ugh, will gather. Ugh, will share if Ooga shares. ::prehistoric wink, wink. Nudge, nudge::
We’ve been trying to research this one for the Mailbag, but haven’t had much luck. Search of the usual phrase origin books hasn’t helped. However, we have found some quotes from Bartlett’s:
“Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world.” (In Black and White, 1888)
My guess is that Kipling devised this wonderful quote, which has been cited ever since. It’s not meant literally (clearly hunting and gathering were the first professions) but it’s a literary quip. That’s my guess, but I have no authority to back it up.
Later than the Kipling, is a quote from Alexander Woolcott: “An old broken-down tragedian [actor] sharing a park bench with a bedraggled and unappetizing street-walker. ‘Ah, Madame,’ says the tragedian, 'quelle Ironie! The two oldest professions in the world – ruined by amateurs!’”
Another quote while on the road: “There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam’s profession.” – Hamlet, V,i, line 32. I dunno what it means, either.
Ah, Boris, yes, I see that the Mailbag question came from you. Cecil pushed it off to his loyal Straight Dope Science Advisory Staff, and we’re doin’ our best. Always glad to have help from the teeming millions, though.
{{{Because there were hookers before there were politicians, that’s my guess.}}}—TubaDiva
Finally! A distinction between the two!
–Kalél
Common ¢ for all ages…
The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earth worms dizzy. It will however, make cats dizzy. Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
The Oldest Profession
A doctor, an architect and a polotician were arguing over the oldest profession in the world.
The doctor said it was his job because Eve was created from Adam’s rib, a surgical procedure.
The architect said it was his job because before that there was chaos and the world was made
from this chaos with an architect.
Okay, a couple jokes from the net above. what this does say however, is that there is NO set ‘oldest profession.’ It is simply a term probably used to ‘mean’ that one profession is better than another.
Thus, prostitution, kinda low on the totem pole is brought higher by calling it the world’s oldest profession…?
Prostitute isn’t the oldest profession. Pimp is.
Think about it. A profession is something you do to make earn money or credit. Hunting and gathering was not done to make money.
Soon, early man discovered a use for the young teenage girl. Men most likely stole young woman from other clans and sold them off as sexual toys. Even fathers, I’d imagine, sold their daughters, and rented them out for a night or two.
Thus, being the prostitute didn’t pay anything. Being the pimp did.
I don’t know who first said “everyone’s a critic,” but I think it’s a really stupid saying.
I wouldn’t count hunting and gathering as a profession. If you’re obtaining your food directly for yourself and your family members, you’re just eating. Animals do this and no one claims they have professions.
A profession is when you get someone else to give you the food (or other goods) that they have obtained in exchange for a service. By this definition, prostitution may very well be the oldest profession. Sexual favors must have been a sought after commodity even before the invention of language or tools.
What about theivery? Or would that be a modified version of ‘gathering’?
As it was said, Hunting and gathering aren’t professions, neither is theivery. A profession is something you do to exchange a service for a good or another service. With that said, most of the basic human needs can be provided for by oneself, aside from the need for sex (masteurbation doesn’t count, and if you think it does, you need to have more sex).
It could be assumed that once one person knew another found them attractive, and found the other person was willing to give them something, for fullfilling a need they had anyway, and after all it’s not too much work, they decided it was a good “job”.
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
The distinction between the two is, of course, that there are some things a hooker won’t do for money.
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef
Erma Bombeck once wrote a book called Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession. A moment’s reflection will explain why. 
The Cat In The Hat
The question was not which is the oldest profession but why is or was prostitution called the oldest profession.
No one knows what the ‘oldest profession’ was.
Its only a literal term.
Well, if that’s the question, then here’s my answer: Prostitution, or more accurately, pimping (see my first post) is called the oldest profession because it is.
I don’t know who first said “everyone’s a critic,” but I think it’s a really stupid saying.
I own a book by Charles Panati called “Sexy Origins and Intimate Things” that addresses this. Here’s what he says:
“Prostitution is not called ‘the world’s oldest profession’ for nothing. It is the oldest cash-for-commodities transaction for which records exist. It is safe to assume that it predates recorded history.”
“Prostitution is also the oldest evidence of supply-and-demand economics: men demanded the goods and women supplied them. In a man’s world, women were commodities, exchanged like cattle or crops. Thus it is not surprising that the oldest recorded acts of prostitution were heterosexual.”
“Antropologists, surveying our hunter-gathere ancestors, believe that campsite mothers bartered sexual favors for food and protection for themselves and their children. The strongest men fed and protected the ‘sexiest’ women–those who remained sexually receptive for the longest periods. In this way, the genes for longer and longer estrus, or sexual heat, in the protomodern female eventually produce year-round female sexual receptivity. This explanation for the emergence of continual estrus suggest that heterosexual prostitution is deeply ingrained in our species.” (p. 384)
So, Scott, it seems your were closer to the truth than you thought!