Sarah Levin-Richardson (University of Washington)
Feminist approaches to the economy, in the words of Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, have “focused on the legitimate contribution to economic life made by nonmarket and alternative market transaction, unpaid labor, and noncapitalist economic sites” (Gibson-Graham 2006, 75). I argue that one such type of economic activity—emotional or affective labor—existed in antiquity, and explore its use by sex workers. If this unexplored facet of the ancient economy is hard to quantify, it nevertheless had real value: it offered the hope of economic stability and perhaps even social mobility for the women who performed it, and for those who managed or invested in sexual labor (such as pimps), the emotional labor of their workers could boost profit margins through increasing the number of paying clients or encouraging repeat customers.
I first provide a short introduction to emotional labor, which sociologist Arlie Hochschild theorized as “requir[ing] one to induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others” (2012 [1983], 7; see also Hardt 1999 on affective labor). Scholars have found emotional labor a useful lens for highlighting women’s involvement in care work (e.g., Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2003, Rodríguez 2007), international matchmaking (Meszaros 2017), and most relevant for this paper, sex work. Hoang (2010, 2013) illuminates emotional labor as a strategy among a spectrum of sex workers in modern Vietnam, from low-end workers who restrain their own negative feelings about clients to higher-end workers who evoke feelings of love in order to maintain a high standard of living or emigrate out of Vietnam.
I then turn to evidence for emotional labor among Greco-Roman sex workers. Pompeii’s purpose-built brothel (VII.12.18–19) provides epigraphic evidence of greetings among prostitutes and clients and praise of clients’ sexual prowess (CIL 4.2173–2296, 3101a; Levin-Richardson 2011, 2019, 62–63). The material finds (namely, glass cups and a bottle) might suggest that similar conversations, aimed at fostering relationships and boosting egos, took place over alcohol (Levin-Richardson 2019, 36). Literary representations of sex workers across a range of genres (especially Greek and Roman comedy, but also oratory and historiography) parallel and add to the types of affective labor seen in the graffiti of the purpose-built brothel (e.g., Xen. Mem. 3.11.10, Plaut. Men. 357–359, Ter. Eun. 193–196, Sen. Controv. 2.4.1, Plut. Vit. Pomp. 2.3, Luc. Dial. Meret. 13:317). If depictions of sex workers performing emotional labor were common enough to become a literary trope in some genres, they also suggest possible ways in which emotional labor could have value, namely, in attracting and retaining clients, and from there, lifting sex workers out of poverty or improving their standard of living (e.g., Luc. Dial. Meret. 6:292–4, 8: 300; cf. Plaut. Men. 193, Ath. 13.558d–e).
Ultimately, acknowledging the existence and value of affective labor contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the ancient economy, one in which women—even those working at the margins of society—have fuller roles than previously acknowledged.