Sacred prostitution
Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, cult prostitution, or religious prostitution is a sexual ritual consisting of sexual intercourse or other sexual activity performed in the context of religious worship, perhaps as a form of fertility rite and divine marriage (hieros gamos). Scholars have long considered such practices to be customary in the ancient world; however, more recent scholarship has cast doubts on this picture, based on doubts about the reliability of ancient sources.
Some scholars prefer the term "sacred sex" to sacred prostitution, in cases where a payment for services was not involved. The Greek term hierodoulos or "hierodule" has sometimes been taken to mean "sacred prostitute", but it is more likely to refer to a former slave freed from slavery in order to be "dedicated" to a god. The Hebrew term qedesha is often translated as "temple prostitute".
Ancient Near East
Ancient Near Eastern societies along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers featured many shrines and temples or "houses of heaven" dedicated to various deities. According to the 5th-century BC historian Herodotus, the rites performed at these temples included sexual intercourse, or what scholars later called sacred prostitution: