Spiders on Mars, Sex Work in Igboland, & a Fashion TL of Vietnamese Clothing

Three really interesting links today;

Mysterious seasonal black flecks on Mars. If you haven’t read this, do. It’s fascinating, and the photos are stunning.

 

Sex work in pre colonial Nigeria (Igboland):

Sex work as we know it today, in modern Africa, is a vestige of colonialism. As Luise White, who wrote about sex work in colonial Nairobi put it “sex work as a full-time form of labour was invented during the colonial period”. This is not to say that there was no sex work in the pre-colonial period, only that it was entirely different from how we know it today.

Sex work existed in Africa in the pre-colonial era. Back in the day, the female sex worker worked out of the house she was born in. She was a single woman, a woman who was never going to marry, and her clients were usually men who wanted to have affairs (as in most communities, and all but a few situations, it was taboo for a man to have sex with a married woman).

 

Finally, this illustrated time line of Vietnamese Clothing (women’s).

She’s also done Hats and Hair Fashion History of Vietnam.

Which reminds me I need to collate my photo-essay Hairstyles of Angkor Wat from my trip of oh so long ago.

If anyone has links/references to historical clothing timelines and/or just good links for historical clothing, please feel free to share. I can really never get enough illustrations of clothing in an historical perspective and just in a general sense.