Prostitution

The cambion prostitute, Lavender Lil.

Prostitution or sex work is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment, barter, or some other benefit. Depending on the jurisdiction, prostitution is either legal or a crime, and either unregulated or organized by an institution. Those who practice prostitution as a profession are known as prostitutes, courtesans, whores, call girls, payrides, swing-doors, hookers, rent boys, hetaeras, or practitioners of the world's oldest profession. Although many prostitutes practice their trade of their own free will, other sex workers are forced slaves whose work only benefits their masters.

On Golarion

Some form of prostitution can be found in nearly every city in the Inner Sea region, although it tends to be more commonly practiced in ports. The Street of Sighs in Kaer Maga in particular is home to a large number of brothels.

Legality

Rhodel, a human prostitute.

Some cities and nations in the Inner Sea region have laws criminalizing or regulating those who participate in the sex trade, either as sellers or buyers, although enforcement and punishment for breaking the law can vary greatly in severity. Other nations, cities, or other jurisdictions place no restrictions on sex workers. Some societies, especially those influenced by the goddess Calistria (see below), see sex work as an important and honorable profession, while others consider it a terrible moral vice. Absalom, for instance, categorizes it as a "soft crime", which means that officers of the law tend to tolerate it as long as no one complains.

Slavery

Slaves (which includes both those bought and sold under a formal, state-sanctioned form of slavery, as well as those who are captured and threatened with violence should they ever try to leave) are frequently forced to work in the sex trade by their captors. Examples of this include the cambions kept as "devil-whores" in the upper-class bondage club Dusk in the Nidalese port city of Nisroch.

Nonhuman sex work

Due to their often otherworldly physical beauty, empyreans are much sought after in the sex trade. On the other side of the spectrum, cambions and others with infernal blood are often prostitutes as well. Half-succubi in particular often find themselves running brothels or working as prostitutes to satisfy their overwhelming lust. Being frequent devotees of Calistria, elves and aiuvarins are commonly found in her pleasure temples (see below), while many drow in the Darklands work as prostitutes too.

Organizations

Because those who work in the trade (including those who do not regularly perform sexual acts, such as brothel owners) often have intimate and unmonitored access to the wealthy and powerful, some have sidelines as spies and information brokers. The most famous of these are the Tallow Boys of the Varisian city of Kaer Maga. The Wasp Queens are an all-female, all-elf thieves' guild tied to the church of Calistria often found working in brothels to establish cover identities or gain information.

Religion

Followers and priests of Calistria, Besmara, Gyronna, the Osirian goddess Bastet, and the empyreal lord Lymnieris sometimes practice prostitution as part of their devotion, often within their temples, and consider themselves sacred prostitutes. Good worshipers in particular see the release of sexual needs as easing pressures that might otherwise lead to violence.

Although it is said that no red-light district escapes Calistria's touch, churches that specialize in these services include the House of Stolen Kisses in the port city of Quent in the Shackles, the Pleasure Salon of Calistria in Absalom, the Dome of the Savored Sting in Magnimar, and the House of the Silken Veil in Riddleport. Followers of Calistria and Lymnieris are especially concerned that those who work in the trade do so of their own free will, and actively fight against sexual slavery and help care for its victims.