Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts is the second book from historian, journalist, podcast host and all-round fabulous overachiever Kate Lister. Tryst readers may be familiar with Lister thanks to her wildly popular social media account Whores of Yore, or her first bestselling book, A Curious History of Sex. This, her second offering, zooms in on one particular facet of humanity’s sexual history: sex for sale.
The first thing that will be obvious to readers from the get-go: Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts is a visual feast. From the pink spine evocative of a lace trim, the elegant layout of the contents page, to the high-resolution images throughout, the entire design of the book feels sumptuous and decadent.
All that style, however, does not come at the expense of substance. Lister takes us on a global tour of the history of sex for sale in chronological order, starting with the earliest surviving story of transactional sex from 1800 BCE: the legend of Shamhat the harlot with the wild man, Enkidu. One twelfth of the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, this account portrays transactional sex as a sacred rite through which Enkidu is “civilised”; gifted reason and understanding, although at the cost of some of his strength. This account is the clearest sighting of the revered Whore of Babylon, glimpses of whom are scattered through ancient texts.
Tryst readers may be familiar with Lister thanks to her wildly popular social media account Whores of Yore.
I’ll concede that the idea of sex work as something sacred jars with my own activism, which is firmly embedded in the discourse that: “sex work is work, and workers deserve rights”. However, Lister paints a compelling picture that the diminished status of sex workers over time is, in some cases, inherently tied up with imperialism. The Devadasi in India, once seen as sacred women supported by wealthy patrons, were castigated by British colonists as immoral and subsequently stigmatised and shunned. With that in mind, it felt important to check my own inclination to dismiss what initially felt to me a more romanticised conception of this industry.
The tale of Shamhat and Enkidu was not initially included in the original Epic of Gilgamesh; translator George Smith left out those particular 19 lines when he published his findings in 1876. The omission and downright suppression of sex worker stories is a recurring theme throughout the book. “It is primarily the voices of the rich and powerful that have been preserved,” Lister laments, as she acknowledges the difficulty of telling in-depth stories of people who are too frequently left out or even actively erased from history. Overwhelmingly, accounts are of rather than from sex workers; higher status courtesans are survived by their portraits and accounts of the titles and gifts bestowed upon them by their wealthy lovers and patrons, while the activities of poorer workers are too frequently pieced together from carceral records.
The paucity of first-person accounts, however, does not override much of the book’s indispensable work in restoring the rightful place of sex workers in history. I was surprised to learn, for example, that sex workers featured heavily among the early settlers of Britain’s colonial outposts. On reflection, it seems obvious; settlers were overwhelmingly poor people and other “undesirables”, engaging in criminalised activities to survive. But the stigma against us is so pervasive that we do not make the narrative. Even today, where convict backgrounds no longer carry the same stigma – modern Australians discuss it with a jocular kind of pride, particularly those with ancestors among the First Fleet – I have never heard anyone mention sex work. In fact, Lister inserts a salient warning that impoverished women transported to the colonies were uniformly labelled “prostitutes”, regardless of whether or not they had actually ever sold sex.
The paucity of first-person accounts, however, does not override much of the book’s indispensable work in restoring the rightful place of sex workers in history.
From artefacts to portraits to modern day photography, the 450 images featured in the book are truly spectacular. I read one review that complained of the contradictions between the smutty, fantasy-laden imagery and the bleaker aspects of sex work, which the critic – writing in The Guardian, no stranger to SWERFism – felt to be the sole reality. But societal perceptions of sex work, and of sex itself, are themselves a mass of contradictions: humans are by turn puritanical, voyeuristic, moralising, hedonistic, and more. I have fucked more men than I can count, and I still giggled like a loon at erotic Chinese paintings from the 16th and 19th centuries featuring people wearing cordial smiles while their legs bent at implausible angles. I positively howled at a photo of six brothel workers sat drinking with their cat in early 20th century France. When a second photo showed them dancing – with one particularly messy babe gleefully flashing her breasts – I snapped a shot and sent it to half the sex workers in my contacts. In short, sex work is complicated and so is our relationship with it – even as sex workers ourselves – and Lister’s book makes room for a multitude of lived experiences.
If you couldn’t tell, I loved this book. As both a reader and a sex worker, I felt like a co-conspirator in Lister’s worthy mission of making sure that our community’s lives and truths are liberated from history’s suppressors and moralisers, and brought into the light. With Whitechapel, Leadenhall, Spitalfields, Moorfields frequently mentioned in the UK-focused chapters, I remain determined that The Scarlett Letters bookshop will still set up shop in East London, historical home of the city’s sex workers. Safe to say that Harlots, Whores and Hackabouts will always have a place among our stock.
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