I listened to Catherine Hewitt's book as an audio book
right on my cell phone, downloaded with Overdrive.
Chapter 6 of The Mistress of Paris, gives a very detailed account of the gradations of sex work in France that so very many women relied upon to support themselves and their families.
Poverty was the qualification. In this era without the contraception and safe sex options that we have today, illegitimate children were also common, and yet, having an illegitimate child could disqualify a woman from marriage. Sexual harassment was also common. And so our Mistress of the Month, Courtesan Valtesse de la Bigne, decided that if she was going to be a whore, she would become the best of them, and here is what we learn:
Though said to have hardened her heart early after the disappointment of having fallen in love and given birth to two daughters with a man who would not marry her, Valtesse, who had been prostituting herself since a teenager, put men into three categories.
The first category was the ESCORT. The escort was a man who she could go out with, be seen with, enjoy herself with, but she did not allow herself to have sex with him or him to have sex with her. (I wonder if some of these men were gay. I also wonder how firm she was about allowing a man who was her escort to advance to being her lover!)
The second category was the men who PAID. Be it the price for an hour, a night, a weekend, or perhaps a trade of gifts, that included jewelry, clothing, objects of art, paintings, houses, hotels, or a country estate crammed with valuables, she was careful to always have others waiting for a chance to be her everything when she was through with a man or he was through with her.
The third category may surprise some of you. These were the lovers she took who were not rich men, men she was attracted to, by her CHOICE. Some had some money, some did not, but offered her opportunities or introductions in art, literature, and diplomacy. Some she just liked
According to the book she was also ready to have sex at all times and could have sex with no foreplay. (Though to me this seems more the forte of the street prostitute. Why else spend a fortune on a bed (which is now in a museum) and to set the stage for seduction?)
She probably lost count of the men she had been sexual with.
By maintaining these categories, Valtesse had friendships of her own choosing and it could be said the majority of the men in her life fell into the first or third.
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