ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a historical overview of the notions that have been used in different times and societies to refer to the sex trade. In so doing, I attempt not only to provide an etymological review, but also to unravel the moral, cultural and legal constructions of commercial sexuality and to map the intersection between sexual exchange, intimacy and socalled deviant behaviour. As Amalia Cabezas (2009, p. 4) compellingly argues, ‘the exchange of goods and money for sexual services is not an unambiguous commercial endeavour but a discursive construction that is contested and in motion, changing across time and space’. A broad geographical and long historical perspective allows us to identify the commonalities and differences between terms, the purposes they served, the continuities or discontinuities in their use, their limitations and their internal contradictions.
