Female prostitutes were the only Roman women who wore the toga, a formal garment otherwise only male citizens were permitted to wear. This crossing of gender boundaries has been interpreted variously. Expensive courtesans wore gaudy garments of see-through silk.[11]
Some passages in Roman authors seem to indicate that prostitutes displayed themselves in the nude. Nudity was associated with slavery, as an indication that the person was literally stripped of privacy and the ownership of one's own body.[12] A passage from Seneca describes the condition of the prostitute as a slave for sale: