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{{trope}}
{{quote|{{smallcaps|Often Licked, Never Beaten}}|One of the mottos of the [[Discworld
This is an organization that supervises, um, you know. Working girls. Ladies of the night. Women of negotiable affection. Those in the oldest profession. Those who turn tricks for goods and/or money. They who walk certain streets. Soiled Doves. Women who follow camps. Girls who are on call. Courtesans. In groups: A Tray of Tarts, a Blazon of Strumpets, an Anthology of Pros. Or pick another [[Hurricane of Euphemisms|euphemism]]. In other words: ''[[Brutal Honesty|Prostitutes.]]''
Certainly a [[Weird Trade Union]]. Sometimes the [[Hooker
{{examples}}
== Anime
* Casca from ''[[Berserk]]'' was taken in the protection of a band of prostitutes in a refugee camp when she wandered away from the protection of the elf cave that Guts left her in. So protective are they of the wayward, insane girl that they bandaged Casca up as a syphilis victim in order to keep the lecherous eyes of men off of her, as they did not force her into prostitution due to her condition. The girls are led by Luca, [[Hooker
* In ''[[Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?]]'', Orario's [[Red Light District]] has accrued around - and is run by - the temple to Ishtar, where there's very little differentiation made between sacred prostitution and the other sort.
== Comic Books ==
* The prostitutes of Old Town in ''[[Sin City]]'', who've banded together into an army to keep the police and pimps out of the district.
* In the ''[[Buck Godot:
== [[Fanfic]] ==▼
* In The Basalt City Chronicles, the Order of the Courtesan (basically a "saint" in the Smilodon religion) oversees baths and brothels. This creates some [[In Universe]] [[Values Dissonance]], as in [[Gene Catlow|Furriston]] brothels are illegal due to their tragic history.▼
▲* In The Basalt City Chronicles, the Order of the Courtesan (basically a "saint" in the Smilodon religion) oversees baths and brothels. This creates some [[In
==
* In ''[[
* ''[[Deuce Bigalow|Deuce Bigalow II]]'' has the European Association of Gigolos.
* Not a technical organization, but [[Princess Mononoke|Lady Eboshi's]] headquarters in Irontown is staffed largely by ex-prostitutes.
* The Taiwanese art-house movie ''[[Flowers of Shanghai]]'' is about the lives of Chinese "Flowers" (i.e. high-class prostitutes) in 19th-century Shanghai. The whole movie takes place within the confines of the houses of pleasure, without a single outdoors shot.
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264802/ Live Nude Girls Unite!] The women at a San Francisco strip joint unionize. Documentary.
== Literature ==
* [[
** Wait...how can you be ''sexually'' erudite?
*** It's amazing what some people can do with a labial-palatal consonant.
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** Seattle in the 1800s used the same term. Their motto was "A stitch in time will cost you a dime. All night alterations for a dollar."
** Makes some sense, given that in those days sewing was an acceptable form of self-employment for women, so many women who actually engaged in less legitimate activities would put that on any legal forms as their job.
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] novel ''[[Friday (
* The creation of an association of this kind is the main plot in [[Mario Vargas Llosa]]'s novel ''Pantaleon y las Visitadoras'' (known in English as "''[[Captain Pantoja and the Special Service]]''").
* The city of Camorr in the ''[[Gentleman Bastard Sequence]]'' series by Scott Lynch had two such organizations dividing up areas of the city. It's revealed they fought a very long and bloody gang war to take control and form a monopoly, so much so that when [[Magnificent Bastard]] Capa Vencarlo Barsavi took over the entire city's criminal underworld, over a hundred gangs all told, he choose to enter into a partnership with them in exchange for their nominal fealty to him rather than enforce subservience to the extent he does on the rest of the city.
* ''Islands in the Net'' by Bruce Sterling has The Church of Ishtar along these lines.
* [[Vorkosigan Saga]]'s Beta Colony has its LPSTs: Licensed Professional Sexual Therapists. The hermaphrodite ones are especially popular.
* [[Spider Robinson]]'s ''Callahan's Lady'' series is about a bar/brothel run by Lady Sally, wife of [[Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
* The Cult of Ashera mentioned in Neal Stephenson's ''Snow Crash'', which used cult prostitutes to spread their metavirus.
== Live Action TV ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110322053006/http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/TheGuild The Guild of Companions] in ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'', although Companions are more like Ancient Greek ''Hetairai'', or a cross between prostitutes, geishas, therapists, and confessors.
** Nandi's brothel is rather bizarre, because while on one hand it's a standard brothel run by a madam, it's also something of a mutual-aid society (given Nandi's training).
== Tabletop Games ==
* The [[
** Not quite on that last note: Sharess is [[Chaotic Good]]. Masochism and the like are the purview of [[Lawful Evil]] Loviatar, while other, darker, pleasures fall under the banner of [[Neutral Evil]] Shar. Sharess's angle is more humanitarian-both prostitutes and escorts who take pride in their professions, and those fallen into those professions who struggle to stay morally decent people.
* The ''[[
* In ''[[
* Some [[Warhammer
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[
== Real Life ==
* [[Truth in Television]]: There is such an organisation in the UK called the ''International Union of Sex Workers''
** As [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-49022743 this article]indicates, table-dancers were inspired by them to join the GMB as well.
** There is also the English Collective of Prostitutes.
** In general there are a [[wikipedia:Category:Sex worker organizations|lot of these]], including the admittedly silly-sounding Canadian Guild of Erotic Labour and the International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education, which also focuses on the collection and preservation of art by and about sex workers.
*** [[Fun
* This is also dead serious in some South American nations; they want their rights.
* The equivalent US organization is COYOTE, for Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. [[Fun
* And the Finnish sex workers' organization is called SALLI. Salli is both a traditional woman's name and the second person imperative form of the verb "allow" in Finnish.
* The German equivalent is called Hydra e.V.
** [[Marvel Comics|.
* New Zealands Prostitutes Collective were instrumental in passing the Prostitution Reform Act 2003
* One of the oldest ones is the "Rode draad" or "red thread" in the Netherlands. Being both a lampshade of the infamous red light districts and a Dutch-language pun on having something in common.
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** Appropriately, the organization takes it's left-wing, or "red" roots very seriously. It is one of the powerhouses of Dutch politics, and has done valuable work in multiple areas, including law enforcement, workplace safety regulations and public healthcare reform.
* Religious institutions have often taken on the role of "supervisor of the brothels," typically maintaining standards of cleanliness of facilities and ensuring the welfare of the prostitutes. In some cases, this was because the religious authorities held a "better allowed, safe, and under our control than prohibited, dangerous, and out of our hands" attitude towards the practice; in other cases, this was because the prostitution was a religious ritual/duty.
**
** But in Paris and Lyons in medieval France, they were part of the guild dealing with baths, which led to moral censors deciding to completely close the public baths in France as well in the 17th century.
** Slightly further in the past, most of the... "quality" prostitutes were found in temples.
*** The term devadasi originally described a Hindu religious practice in which girls were "married" and dedicated to a deity (deva or devi). In addition to taking care of the temple, and performing rituals they learned and practiced Bharatanatyam and other classical Indian arts traditions, and enjoyed a high social status. Over time, the institution became identified with prostitution.
* The temple prostitution of Ishtar is [[Older Than Dirt]]. Makes sense, as Ishtar was ''literally'' the goddess of sex.
** And of War, but not of Childbirth.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Just for Pun]]
[[Category:Always Female]]▼
[[Category:The Oldest Profession]]
[[Category:
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