List of prostitutes and courtesans

This is a list of famous persons who have engaged in prostitution, as well as pimping and courtesan work.

Historical

Nell Gwyn, ca 1675

Madame du Barry

Ancient world

• Aspasia, Greek hetaera, companion of Pericles
• Phryne, Greek hetaera
• Rahab, biblical prostitute who assisted the Hebrews in capturing Jericho (Joshua 2:1-7)
• Su Xiaoxiao, Chinese courtesan of the 5th century
• Thaïs, Greek hetaera who lived during the time of Alexander the Great
• Theodora, Empress of Byzantium
• Gomer, a prostitute whom God commanded Hosea to marry in the biblical Book of Hosea.
• Mary Magdalene was supposed to have been a prostitute by those who identified her with the sinful woman in Luke 7:36–50, an identification now generally abandoned.^[1]

Modern era

• Lizzie Lape, mid-Ohio madam, owner of the White Pigeon saloon and house in Warren G. Harding’s Marion, Ohio, and operator of multiple bordellos, 1880s-1900s
• Polly Adler, New York madam, 1920s - 1940s
• Josie Arlington, madam in Storyville, New Orleans
• Laura Bell, the "Queen of London whoredom"
• Cassandra, the "Golden Heels Madamme" <La Tacón Dorado> Tijuana, B.C. México 1940's - 1980's many American tourist included some politicians used to cross the border between California and Tijuana to have a special love night with Cassandra, specially during the 1950s
• Theresa Berkeley, 19th-century dominatrix
• Mary Boleyn, lover of King Francis as well as King Henry VIII, the French king referred to her as "The English Mare"
• Calamity Jane, American frontierswoman
• Pearl Callahan, prostitute from Northern California, in the film American Courtesans, sex worker advocate^[2]
• Alice Chambers, 19th century Dodge City prostitute
• Sheridan Ethen, "Whore of the Nord", famous for live-sex shows in Amsterdam
• Annie Chapman, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Gina DePalma, porn star, prostitute and dominatrix, in the film American Courtesans^[3]
• Kristen DiAngelo, brought back the term "courtesans", in order to re-brand prostitution in America, producer of the film American Courtesans^[4]
• Madame du Barry, mistress to Louis XV of France
• Veronica Franco, Venetian courtesan and poetess
• Nell Gwyn, courtesan to Charles II of England
• Mary Jane Kelly, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Nicole Leguay d'Oliva, French prostitute involved in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace who impersonated Marie Antoinette
• Carol Leigh, a.k.a. Scarlot Harlot, coined the term "sex worker"^[5]
• Amanda Brooks is an Internet escort who has written business books for Internet escorts.^[6]
• Mata Hari (born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle), Dutch spy
• Mary Ann Nichols, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Barbara Payton, American actress turned prostitute^[7]
• Shady Sadie (Josephine Marcus) Courtesan who had an affair with Wyatt Earp
• Annie Sprinkle, American sex worker, porn star, and sex educator and writer]]
• Chica da Silva, famous eighteenth-century slave courtesan in Brazil, subject of the movie Xica.
• Elizabeth Stride, one of the "canonical five" victims of Jack the Ripper
• Martha Tabram, a possible victim of Jack the Ripper
• Valérie Tasso, French author
• Libby Thompson, "Squirrel Tooth Alice," madam of a brothel in Sweetwater, Texas
• Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay, daughter of a Michigan lumberman who spent most of her life in Europe
• Lulu White, madam in Storyville, New Orleans
• Mistress Matisse, Seattle-based professional dominatrix and columnist who is prominent in sex workers' rights circles.
• Brooke Magnanti, blogger and scientist who wrote as Belle de Jour and was the inspiration for Billie Piper's character in Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
• Suzy Favor-Hamilton, 3 time Olympian for Track and Field, and the subject of intense publicity when her activities as an escort became public.^[8]
• Air Force Amy,a legal prostitute in Nevada, pornographic actress, and adult model, who starred in of the HBO television documentary series Cathouse: The Series. MSNBC has called her "a living legend in the world of sex."
• Sheila Vogel-Coupe, at 85+ the oldest prostitute in the United Kingdom and, possibly, the world.

In literature

• Bella Cohen, Florry, & Zoe, in Ulysses by James Joyce
• Belle, Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O'Neill
• Belle Watling, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Candy, in Candy: A Novel of Love and Addiction by Luke Davies
• Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
• Chandramukhi, in Devdas
• Eccentrica Gallumbits, "The Triple-Breasted Whore of Eroticon Six" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
• Elisabeth Rouset, in Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant
• Fanny Hill, in Fanny Hill, by John Cleland
• Fantine, in Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
• Lady Sally, a.k.a. Callahan's Lady

Vasantasena from the Sanskrit play Mṛcchakatika

• Marguerite Gautier, from Alexandre Dumas, fils' work La Dame aux camélias, inspired by real life Marie Duplessis, 19th century courtesan
  • Violetta, main character from the opera La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, is also inspired by Alexandre Dumas' La Dame aux camélias. "La Traviata" means "the reprobate".
• Jenny Smith, in Kurt Weill's Mahagonny and Threepenny Opera
• Juliette, in the Marquis de Sade's Juliette
• Kamala, in Siddhartha
• Lozana, Portrait of Lozana by Francisco Delicado
• Lulu, in Frank Wedekind's plays and Alban Berg's opera of the same name
• Moll Flanders, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
• Molly Malone, Irish urban legend
• Mother Goose, in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
• Nana, Nana, by Émile Zola
• Nancy, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Odette, in Marcel Proust's Un amour de Swann
• Phedre no Delauny of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel novels
• Pie 'Oh' Pah, from Imajica by Clive Barker
• Romulus, central character in The Romanian: Story of an Obsession by Bruce Benderson
• Mrs. Rosie Palm, brothel owner and president of the Guild of "Seamstresses" in various Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
• Satine, in Moulin Rouge! by Baz Luhrmann, a story based on the Paris nightclub of the same name.
• Séverine Serizy, in the 1928 novel Belle de Jour and the 1967 film based on it
• Sonya Marmeladova, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Suzie Wong, from The World of Suzie Wong
• Talanta, La Talanta by Pietro Aretino
• Tra La La, Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
• Tristessa, Tristessa by Jack Kerouac
• Vasantsenaa, a Nagarvadhu, or wealthy courtesan, in Śudraka's Sanskrit play, Mṛcchakatika.
• Yumi Komagata, in Rurouni Kenshin, by Nobuhiro Watsuki
• Zaza, in Zaza by Pierre Berton and Charles Simon

In film, television, and musical theater

• Belle de jour, Belle de jour by Luis Buñuel
• Irma la Douce, central character in film and musical of the same name
• Inara Serra, Firefly by Joss Whedon
• Mrs. Miller, in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, by Robert Altman
• Vivian Ward, central character in Pretty Woman
• Belle the Sleeping Car, train in "Starlight Express" by Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Donna, in Tricks, by DeAara Lewis
• Iris, central character in the 1976 film "Taxi Driver"

Maggie Thorpe, Dorothy Bennett and Blanche Simmons in Tenko are all to some degree prostitutes.

Symbolic or allegorical prostitutes

• The Whore of Babylon
• Oholah and Oholibah
• Moll Hackabout, the prostitute in The Harlot's Progress by William Hogarth

Prostitutes in myth and legend

• Agatha - English prostitute, mother of Mother Shipton
• Basileia (Ancient Greece) - in Pandemos, this goddess was mainly a goddess for prostitutes or courtesans
• Bebhinn (Celts of the British Isles) - the goddess of pleasure
• Belili (Sumer, Babylon, Assyria, Philistines, & Canaanites) - her worship required sacred prostitution
• The daughters in the Saint Nicholas legend (Asia Minor) - they were sold to a brothel keeper by their father
• Naamah (Hebrews) - an angel of prostitution, one of the succubus mates of the demon Samael in Zoharistic Qabalah
• Shamhat (Sumer/Babylon)
• Xochiquetzal (Aztecs) - the goddess of prostitutes, pregnant women, & dancing
• Alexandra Dé Broussehan (Irish Celts) - a woman turned spirit of prostitution, caused a war between the Callahan and Lawlor Clans. Often associated with Korrigan whose worship involved sacred prostitution^[9]

References

Bibliography

• Quan, Tracy. Opera, in Melissa Ditmore (ed.), Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work 2006