| Bawdyhouse
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| Category: |
Entertainment
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| Level: |
1
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| Turns to build: |
3
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| Building cost: |
1500
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| European
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| Indian
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| Requires
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| Enables
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A bawdyhouse, whorehouse, bagnio, bordello, brothel, or “School of Venus” is a business given over to the selling of sexual services.
Although considered illegal and immoral in many cultures, prostitution takes place on what can only be described as an industrial scale in many cities. It is estimated that in London as many as one in six of the population had some link to the underworld of bawdyhouses. In other parts of the world there was less stigma attached to being a prostitute, but the life is always a hard one, open to exploitation and with the constant danger of violence from both clients and bawdyhouse owners. Bawdyhouses range from very high-class establishments where customers are by invitation only to backrooms in filthy taverns - and everything in between.
Life was hard in 18th Century Europe for women; other than service, there were few honest jobs open to them and prostitution was always an easy option, especially for the young and good looking. It became the lot of many by default. Probably the most famous representation of the corruption of a woman was Hogarth’s “A Harlot’s Progress”, a series of six illustrations showing a young girl arriving in London, being inveigled into whoredom, and then gradually debauched, broken and finally dead (of the pox). It was the fate of all too many.
