Sacred prostitution in ancient Babylon; Herodotus

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Most modern women don't know their history. My opening line to them, "I demand thee in the name of the goddess Mylitta", goes right over their heads and they call the bouncers.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

interesting (and obscure) post, S&F'd
i remember reading about something like this @ indian religions, where the girls were reared (excuse the pun) by the temple & used in this way to raise funds (there's some peculiar stuff in the old greek records too)

/waits for someone to post pics from kama sutra

..seems people like miley cyrus & others keep these traditions alive in the 21st century

a reply to: Aleister

can't beat the old club-over-the-head-and-drag-back-to-the-cave-technique

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Most modern women don't know their history. My opening line to them, "I demand thee in the name of the goddess Mylitta", goes right over their heads and they call the bouncers.

Guess there was no need to demand all male Babylonians should participate in these customs. Guess the men back then had this rule written in their hearts, just like with Jesus....

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I wonder who's keeping track of all the women to make sure they 'fulfill their duty.' I mean, if I didn't want to do it... and/or I'd been sitting there 'ugly' for several months, I think I'd just get up and walk home and say... yup, fulfilled my 'duty.'

Who is there making sure every single woman complies???

Sick practice, btw. The men get to choose, the women have no choice. Fer-git that!!!

a reply to: Pinke
Yes its rather hard to prove Herodotus' experiences and whatnot, and it is doubtful that "all" Babylonian women had to do it. It was probably just in one city that he visited (if he even did) or a misunderstanding on his part related to him by a priest.

But! institutionalised prostitution and kings with young priestesses was a commonplace thing in mesopotamia, ritual sex was practiced for "fertility" but in reality I think it was just to abuse power for pleasure.


a reply to: new_here
The women wanted to do it, because it was considered an honour, and prostitution wasnt looked down upon quite like it is today...
Of course all over the world, not just mesopotamia, had women unable to refuse a proposal. Women being chosen for their beauty and having no say in the matter is an ancient concept...

then of course there are the Khans, kings, caliphs, sultans, emperors, lugals, who would select the hottest among their subjects and force them into personal harems.

a reply to: Ridhya

Of course all over the world, not just mesopotamia, had women unable to refuse a proposal. Women being chosen for their beauty and having no say in the matter is an ancient concept...

then of course there are the Khans, kings, caliphs, sultans, emperors, lugals, who would select the hottest among their subjects and force them into personal harems.

Still wrong. Don't care how pervasive it was. A gazillion wrongs don't make a right.

originally posted by: Ridhya
a reply to: Pinke
Yes its rather hard to prove Herodotus' experiences and whatnot, and it is doubtful that "all" Babylonian women had to do it.

We're still giving Herodotus more credit than the daily mail, and I'm still not certain we should. The daily mail would be a good source for a historian one thousand years later. It's still unreliable and salacious.

Herodotus investigated various myths and, in ancient aliens style, decided that if enough myths were similar they must be true. Yes, it's handy for historians, but this is like letting the ancient aliens guy describe reality for you then digging it up a thousand years later.

Don't like double barrel quotes but:

But! institutionalised prostitution and kings with young priestesses was a commonplace thing in mesopotamia, ritual sex was practiced for "fertility" but in reality I think it was just to abuse power for pleasure.

originally posted by: Utnapisjtim
Indeed. I know Herodotus is controversial. Then again, we know about temple prostitutes from other sources too, and in the same area

Thanks for the other sources Utnapisjtim, though I still feel this is similar to modern media.

The fact that Herodotus is placing a value statement on the act makes this much more suspect to me. It's similar to Rome's accusation of child cannibalism leveled at Carthage or the story that Cleopatra bedded hundreds of men in a single sitting. More recently would be Lawrence of Arabia's 'experience' as a prisoner of war. There has to be an element of truth to it or people would never have bought it, but I think we should advance with doubt first.

I wouldn't go as far as siding with writers who claim sacred prostitution was entirely male sexual fantasy. We have these types of cults today so we most certainly had them back then, however it was easy for the Greeks to think themselves superior to the Babylonians as it is for us to think we're superior to all ancient people. It makes these types of stories easier to believe so we should doubt them.

a reply to: Pinke

Well, like you say, and there are serious scholars who agree and have proposed-- that this whole thing with temple prostitution in the ancient Middle East is a myth all together. But others like Samuel Noah Kramer claim things like how: "kings in the ancient Near Eastern region of Sumer established their legitimacy by taking part in a ritual sexual act in the temple of the fertility goddess Ishtar every year on the tenth day of the New Year festival Akitu." en.wikipedia.org...

In Hebrew there is even a separate word for this type of prostitution, קדשה or Kadesha which is from the root קדש or Kadesh meaning 'Holy' or 'Set Apart'. Kadesha thus means "Concecrated"-- and there is a law against it in the Torah:

“None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute (Kadesha), and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute (Kadesh). [ESV] Deuteronomy 23:17

Also, we know ritual sex from India, where whole temple complexes are filled with statues and art depicting ritual sex, and in modern times we have Rasputin and of course we have old Crowley and his modern "sex majick". Or the hippies. Then again it's miles apart and not the same thing.

But I agree, it's more than likely that these stories of sacred prostitution or temple prostitutes-- it could all have root in rumours and imperial bullying of Babylon as "the Hoe of Hoes".

This made me sick to my stomach, as Satanic cults are very likely to use rituals based on that with children. Disgusting.

Subversion and abuse in the name of......

Nothing new and not much altered since then really, slavery by another name.

I really do wonder about mankind often and the inhumane way that certain cultures treat women. Humanity should stop validating precedence on ancient disputed texts and animals before their fellow humans.

a reply to: Emma3

Well, I certainly found your comment there disgusting. Such people are the most vicious and dangerous people on the planet. Scares the living daylights out of me to be honest.

ETA: The Dragon hates ritual rape of children, I'm sure. The Dragon is God's right arm the way I see it, he is the punisher of the Law. For all I know his hate for people raping children is the very fire that makes him all red and furious, and for all we know it was the very reason he was created.

a reply to: theabsolutetruth

Fair and square I suppose. Forced prostitution is slavery, then again, old buddy of mine is actually planning to marry his lady who has worked as a prostitute great parts of her life. She's a nice lady and says that apart from a few lousy men here and there it was good work and nobody made her do it. I respect her for that. It wouldn't cross my mind to judge her because of her line of work. Sex is a good thing, and some men (and woman mind you) have great difficulties with keeping a relationship or 'feeding the beast' in other ways, so prostitution the way I see it, is vital in any society, and how society treats these prostitutes and prostitution can tell a lot about that society. I for one have never managed to keep a lover longer than a couple of months, and there have been times where I've been terribly lonely, so who knows what might have happened if the circumstances were different? One can but speculate. I read somewhere that in Holland, people receiving welfare payments or who have certain medical issues or disabilities are entitled to an hour with a prostitute a month, payed by the government. I like that. I think it's lovely actually. And in many ways touching even. But I was unable to find a source for this. Anyway: Woman is the Tree of Life. Woman completes Man. Feminism has much to learn there.

That said, there is a darkness.

originally posted by: St Udio
Sacred prostitution


it seems that modern ISIS & Its Islamic Legal Authorities are building upon that ancient Sex & sex-slaves as a intregal aspect of Islam...

the article is on Yahoo News (if you can get Yahoo site to stabilize, I have real problems with the Yahoo page crashing today (oct 14th noon eastern time)

here is just one report/article about ISIS renewing the ancient Islamic Tradition of using captured civilian women & children as forced sex slaves

...“The Islamic State’s litany of horrific crimes against the Yezidis in Iraq only keeps growing,” said Fred Abrahams, special advisor at Human Rights Watch. “We heard shocking stories of forced religious conversions, forced marriage, and even sexual assault and slavery—and some of the victims were children.”
In the article, "The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour," the magazine stated that "the enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers," adding that, "the Yazidi women and children were then divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State ...

news.yahoo.com...

a reply to: St Udio

I guess the "sources" here (as for ancient "Muslim" prostitution practices involving warriors like those of the hot potatoe ISIL/IS) are based on myths surrounding the ancient order of the Assasini and the 'Old Man of the Mountain' who supposedly promised his trained Assasins the usual 'beer and ladies in the afterlife' for his martyrs. There has never been supported any serious proof to my knowledge that the Ismailis belonging to the Assasins-- drugged their aspiring knights and took them to a certain secret garden where wine and honey flowed like water and devising beautiful prostitutes to fool the young and strong to believe they were in Paradise. Sifting fact from fiction and truth from lies here is not just difficult, it's often impossible since there are no evidence of it other than word of mouth by certain Christian commenters like William of Rubrick a Flemish priest who travelled the Near East in the 13th century and supposedly met this Old Man of the Mountain and saw his secret garden. I'd say bollocks, but you can't prove a thing for the priest said he was there and saw it, and the world turned accordingly and the myth still lives on.

If these stories are ancient, they are ancient propaganda. I bet ISIL uses similar myths concerning Westerners actively in their propaganda. The first casualty in any war is Truth. Just thought I should remind you all about that.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I'm not sure if you think I was making some kind of sick joke with my comment and you were calling it disgusting because of that or if you actually got that what I said is pretty real... Satanic Ritual Abuse is its name.

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

I am unsure of the societal validity of prostitution. I lean towards the 'against' camp I guess. I see 'sex' as more an act of love, bonding and requires some emotional commitment. Though I am a woman and my carnal desires are perhaps not as lustful as the average man or certain types of women.

I truly think there are things that make men more inclined to lust, and perhaps the more unethical their approach, is in fact the real 'feeding the beast'. Such that looking at or even thinking of certain practices is an err on the side of 'devilment' of sorts.

An ex of mine many years ago, showed me some of his porn, I was disgusted even though it was a probably consenting adult woman, dressed as a milkmaid and there were some close ups, I looked at him as lesser than before knowing he bought such things and considered it a sort of depravity. He promised he wouldn't buy any after that.

Some years after, some guy gave him some really disgusting porn and he showed it to me and I couldn't even look at it, it was really disgusting, he held the book and showed about 2 pages, I estimated the ages less than 16. I told him it was probably illegal and told him to bin it, the guy whose it was, was there at the time and he took it back. That was more than 20 years ago, I was about 17. If it was now, I would have told the police.

I really went off that ex soon after that, I couldn't get my head round how he thought and wondered about his ethics amongst other things. I also made sure he ditched that so called 'friend' of his.

a reply to: Emma3

If you compare the number of documented cases of 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' to use your own words -- and compare that number to the number of documented cases of 'Christian Ritual Abuse' -- what do you see?

You will soon understand that while there is plenty of child-abuse cases within Christian communities like the Church itself, the boy-scout movement, missionary stations, orphanages, charities etc. -- there are in fact very few such cases involving Satanism. Satan invented Kosher for heaven's sake, he's not some nearsighted pervert with a bent knife and black candles.

The Church and Christianity seems to be a haven for all kinds of child abuse, for not only do they provide the perfect environment for these predators, the Church even quite evidently has a long history of covering up any such occurrence, and there are so damn many such cases, so as the Apocalypse prophesy: Babylon's judgement involves a millstone being cast in the sea. A subtle reference to Jesu' warning against child abuse in Luke 17.

How do you explain this?

a reply to: Utnapisjtim

Satanic Ritual Abuse is actually a thing, look it up. I didn't name it.

originally posted by: Utnapisjtim
a reply to: Emma3

If you compare the number of documented cases of 'Satanic Ritual Abuse' to use your own words -- and compare that number to the number of documented cases of 'Christian Ritual Abuse' -- what do you see?

You will soon understand that while there is plenty of child-abuse cases within Christian communities like the Church itself, the boy-scout movement, missionary stations, orphanages, charities etc. -- there are in fact very few such cases involving Satanism. Satan invented Kosher for heaven's sake, he's not some nearsighted pervert with a bent knife and black candles.

The Church and Christianity seems to be a haven for all kinds of child abuse, for not only do they provide the perfect environment for these predators, the Church even quite evidently has a long history of covering up any such occurrence, and there are so damn many such cases, so as the Apocalypse prophesy: Babylon's judgement involves a millstone being cast in the sea. A subtle reference to Jesu' warning against child abuse in Luke 17.

How do you explain this?

Anyway... Besides Satanic Ritual Abuse actually being a term (not made up by me, which shows you don't know that much about this whole situation), why do you assume I agree with what whatever church says? Because I don't. Even less if it is the Catholic church you're referring to. I don't care what pope this or that thinks and when a preach teaches the word of God and abuses children, that's against God's will (the same cannot be said about Satanism). As for Luke 17 you said it yourself: Jesus is against it.