Love for Sale

The exchange of sex for money is often cited as the first profession, and is certainly the most controversial: from Lilith and Mary Magdalene to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, the prostitute has been a catalyst for changing notions of love, morality, and sexuality. |n this book, Nils Johan Ringdal delivers a magisterial -and extremely readable - world history of this most maligned, and most persistent, occupation.

Love for Sale encompasses the entire recorded history of prostitution, from the ancient world right up to the modern red-light district and beyond and is packed with fresh insights and anecdotes.In ancient Rome, for example, prostitutes were so central to all levels of society that even priestesses were sometimes also hookers.Ringdal analyses the British Empire's campaigns against prostitution in India and the 'comfort women' who served the armies in the Pacific theater of World War II.He also takes a realistic look at the real risks and rewards of prostitution in the present day.
Love for Sale is a lively and uninhibited account of a phenomenon that is almost as ancient as mankind.