While some of the females were sold at open auction to other Arab slave traders, the prized ones were kept by the Royal Household Some of the females were assigned the duties of house servants, others that the ruler deemed unworthy of the harem were kept in stables in barns and used as animals to pull the royal carriage. Interestingly is the fact that many young white males were also captured and sold throughout the Arab world and to African leaders as homosexual sex slaves where in some instances they too were kept nude in male harems where they would provide entertainment and sexual services to the ruler and his guests. The white slaves, both male and female also were in high demand and would be purchased by slave traders for sale in part of Asia from India to China as well where the tradition of the harem keeping was practiced. There was also the practice of the "purdah" in Afghanistan and that part of the world but it was mainly a place to keep women subjugated to male authority. They were not allowed in public unveiled and had to wear a burqua at all times to keep prying eyes from sizing them up. The burqua is still with us today!
The harem was located in a secluded area of the sultans household and were forbidden territory to other males, except for the eunuchs that guarded the treasure trove of female property The sultan would merely enter the harem at his leisure and have one or more of the females "prepared" for him. This was usually done by the wives of the sultan who also lived in the harem. They would be responsible for bathing the slave and in other ways making her ready for the masters bed. While the wives held the prestigious roles in the household, many female slaves rose above them in rank in the palace hierarchy and some in fact would attain almost royal status where even the rulers wives would bow to her as her servant.
Not all females in a harem were prostitutes as concubines actually were, as some were royal female relatives such as the mother, sisters and various daughters where the younger women would be educated and could be royal wives at some point in their life. The Mother was the queen bee of the harem hive and largely responsible for the education of the young females in the ways of the court and it's courtesy. She was the grand overseer of the female property as they were referred to. The concubines were generally product that could be give to other rulers as sex slaves to solidify the peace between two opposing kingdoms while sisters and daughters were married off to other rulers in order to effect alliances and shared wealth. Both the slave females and the royal females were useful tools in gaining prestige, property and in many instances peace.
Not all keepers of harems were of sound mind. Take for example the reign of Ibrahim the Mad, (the name says it all!) of the Ottoman Empire who only ruled for 8 terror filled years from 1640 to 1648. In a frenzy of dementia he had almost 300 female concubines drowned in the Bosporus! One of the survivors was a young girl from Ukraine who was captured during a slave raid by Tartars and sold to the Ottoman ruler. She managed to escape and write an account of her ordeal in the harem and the attempted drowning.
Along with harems and sex come, offspring. The world champion concubine inpregnator has to be a Moulay Ismail, the sultan of Morocco who died in 1727 but not until after he had fathered over 700 children by 500 female slaves. You thought the Sultan of Swat set world records! Forgettabout it. Moulay was the foremost fornicator and vaginal afficiando of all time.
Harems had been a fixture in royal households prior to the Ottomans. In fact, prior to the pillaging Ottomans, harems were a fornication fixture in ancient Egypt. The pharaohs had voracious apetites for vaginas and were constantly demanding that the subjugated lands they had conquered send all the beautiful girls in the villages as slaves to the royal court. In another part of the glove, in Sri Lanka one potent potentate kept over 500 female slaves in his harem, and when the Spanish explored North America, they ran into the randy rowdy king of the Aztecs, where they discovered the harem Walls of Montezuma had thousands of females in already in captivity. All Aztec men of royal blood could own as many females as possible. The Spanish of course with their western way of thinking were horrified, and when the Aztecs were subdued, the Spanish put an end to the practice of carnal conquest and polygamy.
The concubine practice soon got a ticket to ride and traveled to the psyche of the Western world, so to speak, infecting the era of British colonization of Africa where the officer corp would keep African females as virtual slaves and servants who provided them with sexual services and as written about in an earlier article, some were kept literally in stables along with male servants to be hitched to carriages to parade their "masters" through town usually with a display of authority as they the riding crop came down hard to make them move at a faster pace. When they would return they would be kept locked in the stables until the officer might want to use one as a concubine as well.
There are harems still in existence today as white slavery is still flourishing however, it is more of a brothel then a royal household, except in parts of Africa and the Middle East, they still exist as well. The harems there are filled with royal concubines and again the white female is highly prized in these in Africa in Swaziland where one king keeps a healthy stable of white harem honeys. It is not called a harem as it has roots that are not in keeping with todays morals and outlook.
So if you have the potential to be a potent potentate with plenty of love potion number nine at hand, I have bad news for you. Those days for the most part are over. There are bordellos and brothels a plenty where they keep a selection of female and male "concubines" combined to serve the pleasures of the public, but if you're looking for the exotic, erotic tales of the Arabian nights you'll have to buy the book and read about it. Open Sesame may have opened the cave for Ali Baba, but today Sesame is an educational television street without harems, but they do have a delightful cast of Big Birds and Ernies and Oscar The Grouch! I know it's not the same as a romp in a female slave harem but you will learn your ABC's!