The Whore and the Holy One
Contemporary Sacred Prostitution and Transformative Consciousness
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3006315 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lee Gilmore (California Institute of Integral Studies, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1-14 |
| Publication date | 1998-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropology of Consciousness (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1053-4202 • E-ISSN: 1556-3537 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1525/ac.1998.9.4.1 |
| OpenAlex | W2033248192 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 2 |
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
Aesthetics · Art · Consciousness · Empowerment · Ethnography · Literature · Movement (music · Mythology · Political science · Rite · Sex work · Sex workers · Sociology · Spirituality · Transformative learning · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious studies · Sex work and related issues · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Religious Studies
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2003 - 2009 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |