The current Exotic Underground, a magazine for kinky straight people, is not something I generally pick up—I just flipped it open and landed on the sentence “Vaginal moisture problems are difficult for all parties concerned”—but I was at Neumo’s waiting for a band to go on, casting around for something to read, and I found a long article about prostitution that has some excellent sidebars, including one called Weird Tales of Whoredom Through the Ages. There are lots; here are three:

Roman Emperor Tiberius liked his prostitutes so young that he was known to force unweaned babies to perform fellatio on him. In 84 A.D., such excesses led Emperor Domitian to outlaw prostitution for any child under seven.

(Unrelated: Don’t you think this bust of Tiberius looks like Eminen?)

The lawyer for an ancient Greek hetaera (high-class courtesan) named Phryne, sensing he was losing his client’s trial for “impiety” charges, abruptly tore off Phryne’s clothes, revealing her legendary breasts to an awestruck courtroom. The judges acquitted her.

In 2002, an Israeli man requested an escort for his hotel room and suffered a heart attack when his daughter arrived.