The sex worker rights movement is having an incredible literary moment right now; sex workers are being published by major publishing houses, starting their own independent presses, and writing novels or creating anthologies of topics relevant to our community. We are out here doing the damn thing: raising funds to self-publish through Kickstarter, applying for and receiving fellowships and grants for sex worker literary projects, and shaping the narrative.
For once, we are getting a chance to tell our own stories rather than being spoken about or portrayed as 'street legs' (the classic clip on the news which shows sex workers only as a pair of legs leaning into a car on the street: we call this 'the street legs phenomenon').
And, we are doing so through literature, a medium which sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) and others outside of our industry who see us only for the stigma of our profession would think of us as – to speak plainly – too dumb or too embroiled in trauma to access or produce. All of the following publications are by sex workers from the past four years.
- All Hookers Go to Heaven by Angel B.H. (2024) ~ Angel B.H.’s debut novel about a girl from a conservative Christian background in Nova Scotia, Canada, who discovers she is queer – and enters into sex work to create a new life for herself.
- The Holy Hour: An Anthology of Sex Work, Magic & the Divine (2024) by Working Girls Press (which I reviewed) ~ An anthology of forty-five different contributors about the intersection of sex work with spirituality, witchcraft, mental health, and magic.
- Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez (2020) ~ “When did you last read a novel about a young, black gay Jehovah's Witness man from Wolverhampton who flees his community to make his way in London as a prostitute?” - Bernardine Evaristo. Rainbow Milk is a semi-autobiographical novel about a young West Indian man who is outed as gay by members of his community. Fleeing homophobia and violence, he immigrates to the United Kingdom and enters into sex work to find sexual freedom.
- Working Guys: A Transmasculine Sex Worker Anthology (2024) Edited by Jack V Parker ~ An anthology of the experiences of twenty-one transmasculine sex workers. Reviewed for Tryst by Marin Scarlett here.
- ProMomme: A Sex Worker’s Guide to Parenting (2024) by Kim Ye ~ An anthology curated by sex worker, artist, parent, and dominatrix Kim Ye on the intersection of sex work and parenting. Funded by a fellowship from Creative Corps, the California Arts Council, and Community Partners, and co-created with the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP) of Los Angeles, ProMomme features illuminating contributions by sixteen sex worker-parents on why we should refuse to separate the Madonna from the Whore.
- Upcoming: I am also one of the contributors for the upcoming book I Hate My Job: Thots on Capitalism, Labor, and Sex Work edited by Adrie Rose and coming from Working Girls Press in November 2025: “I Hate My Job is an anthology that features essays from sex workers, both former and current, who explore the intersections of criminalized labor, working in an underground economy, respectability politics, class division, capitalism, and Carol Leigh's coining of the term ‘sex worker.’”
Happy reading!
empress mirage, also known online as thepasteldomina, is a writer of smut and cultural commentary. a former fssw, bondage model, and str!pper, she now creates online content as a findomme and living goddess. dip a toe into the cool waters of mirage at: https://direct.me/thepasteldomina and find her on all the platforms as: thepasteldomina
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
We started the tryst.link sex worker blog to help amplify those who aren't handed the mic and bring attention to the issues ya'll care about the most. Got a tale to tell? 👇☂️✨
