Feminists and caregivers in various helping professions are exploring the concept and practice of sexual healing in a variety of ways. For some, this endeavor is linked to an ideal or vision of an archetypal and mystical sacred prostitute, sourced in stories about ancient temple priestesses who welcomed men back from war and cleansed them, left them renewed. For others, the sacred whore is a stereotype freighted with negative female gender-role expectations that problematically conflate sex work with therapeutic approaches while minimizing the contradictions between these two fields. This article discusses the author's research 10 years earlier into the embodied sacred whore in contemporary U.S. culture and reflects upon what has changed and remained the same over the past decade in relation to this topic.
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