Babylonian Woman # 1 (illustrated by Max Rugers)

In Brief Lives, while discussing prostitution and the sex industry, Nancy tells Ishtar and Tiffany about the Babylonian women she learned about in a class.

Every Babylonian woman went into the Temple Of Ishtar and waited for a man to come to them. They would give them a coin and the women would go into one of the temple rooms and make love to them. Once they had made love, they were free to leave the temple and begin their lives.

Ishtar commented that that after awhile this ritual began to decay and fall to the wayside. She considered this ritual to be one of the most important and terrifying rituals of the civilization for both men and women because they were to give themselves up to lust and previously unknown pleasures. This woman is one of the Babylonian women waiting in the temple courtyard.

This Babylonian Woman appears in Sandman # 44, page 12, panel 6.

This is a lovely portrait from Max. I like that he did not make this character overly sexy and actually gave her the expression of insecurity, which goes along with Ishtar’s explanation of the ritual.