I try to find the funny in academic research whenever I can, and I was amused to come across the "spinning hetaira" this week. The spinning hetaira is to be a woman on Greek vases, who is approached by a man or boy holding a pouch as she spins wool. It is presumed that the pouch holds money with which to pay for the 'hetaira''s services. A few problems with this, as argued by Gloria Ferrari (in Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece): 1) The women are not dressed as hetairai 2) It was part of a hetaira's mystique to avoid dealing directly with money 3) Identical pouches are identified as holding game pieces, not money, in other contexts.
But what's really enjoyable is the way Ferrari gets to poke gentle fun at the attitude that all spinning women in the vicinity of bags are courtesans:
"A prim figure (fig. 5) enthroned and spinning, is labeled the madam of a brothel. A scene of men and boys approaching, bag in hand, a figure wrapped like a mummy and holding a mirror can be described as "a hetaira seated in the porch of what is surely a brothel." (Fig. 6). A sense of the grotesque makes a fugitive appearance in Keul's remarks on this vase: Is the whole family on an excursion to the neighborhood whorehouse? Surely not, even in classical Athens" (13)."
It's all in the adjectives: prim figure, fugitive appearance, etc. Funny stuff (for academic writing anyway).
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