The Whore and the Holy One: Contemporary Sacred Prostitution and Transformative Consciousness
Lee Gilmore
Anthropology of Consciousness December 1, 1998 DOI: 10.1525/ac.1998.9.4.1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnography Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Sex workers who describe and experience themselves as "sacred whores" |
| Key findings | The author argues that a growing number of sex workers describe themselves as "sacred whores," a cultural encounter in which the women's spirituality movement's vision of sexual empowerment has merged with the sex workers' rights movement's recontextualization of prostitution and other sex work as valid, fulfilling, and skilled labor. These women position themselves as heirs to a mythology of ancient religious practices in which priestesses made love to men within temples as a holy rite and spiritual service. |
Abstract
This text explores the intersection of the women's spirituality and sex worker's rights movements in which a growing body of sex workers describe and experience themselves as "sacred whores." In this cultural encounter, the women's spirituality movement's vision of sexual empowerment has merged with the sex workers rights movement's recontextualization of prostitution and other forms of sex work as valid, fulfilling, and skilled labor. These women are establishing themselves as heirs to a mythology of ancient religious practices in which priestesses made love to men within temples as a holy rite and a spiritual service. My exploration of this movement is grounded in an inquiry into the history and mythology of the "temple prostitutes" of the ancient Near East, and unfolds into an ethnography of the currently emerging sacred whore movement.