Books By Sex Workers You Should Really Read

I enjoy reading books about sex work, my chosen industry: political examinations of selling sex, essays on the nature of the work, and I’m also really partial to a sex worker memoir. I’ve read A LOT on the subject. As such, I’ve compiled a list of books by sex workers that you should add to your reading list. 

Political/Theory

Neon Girls by Jennifer Worley

Neon Girls is the tale of workers creating a union at a peepshow in San Francisco in the 90’s. Classic 90’s sex work vibes! Mistress Koshka reviewed it on our blog. Personal and political, it’s an important story of collective bargaining and sex worker solidarity.

Hooker Mentality by Jack Parker

Jack Parker’s Hooker Mentality is a collection of essays on leftist theory through a sex worker’s lens. With pieces on gender, policing, and capitalism, it’s a powerful book that “covers all the ways that selling sex can give hookers an insight into the systems which control us all.” Find info on buying this book here.

Revolting Prostitutes By Molly Smith and Juno Mac

A valuable treatise on the realities of sex work, Revolting Prostitutes disects the politics, policing, and feminist views of selling sex. A vital read for sex workers and allies alike. Vita Volition reviewed it for the blog in 2024.

Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work by Melissa Gira Grant

Journalist and former sex worker Melissa Gira Grant tackles myths about sex work and the harms perpetuated by those myths. Critiquing criminalisation and sex working conditions, in Playing the Whore Grant calls for “an overhaul in the way we think about sex work.”

Indie Porn by Zahra Stardust

Australian author and academic Zahra Stardust’s Indie Porn examines the intricacies of independent porn, what it does, and what it could do against a backdrop of fast-changing laws and platforms. This book is meticulously researched and dense as all hell, but well worth reading.

Anthologies and Essays

We Too edited by Natalie West

Written as a response to the #MeToo movement, We Too features essays from Melissa Gira Grant, Audacia Ray, femi babylon, Yin Q, and more. It speaks on subjects like toxic masculinity, survival, motherhood, and violence. For workers and allies alike, Heather Berg says, “We Too places sex workers at the front lines of an anti-violence movement for the rest of us.”

Coming Out Like a Porn Star edited by Jiz Lee

This anthology edited by Jiz Lee is an assembly of coming-out-as-a-sex-worker tales from a huge range of folks from the porn industry. It includes essays from Annie Sprinkle, Joanna Angel, Nina Hartley, Bella Vendetta, Phoenix Askani, and many more. Violet Blue says that Coming Out Like a Porn Star “will change a fuckton of conversations that needed to be changed like yesterday."

Hustling Verse edited by Amber Dawn and Justin Ducharme

A collection by current and former sex workers, Hustling Verse is a varied and beautiful anthology of poetry. With verse by Amber Dawn, Daze Jeffries, Lorelai Lee, Pluma Sumaq, Tracy Quan, and more, this book is an exploration of identity, intimacy, and resilience.

I Want It, I Need It, I Make It by the Sex Work Narrative Salon

During Australia’s Covid lockdowns, a group of sex workers gathered online to write together. It inspired this anthology of essays and poetry. Featuring Pris, Darcy Deviant, Elena Jeffreys, Mia Walsch, Paz, and Soraya, it’s a varied and exciting collection of sex worker writing. You can see more info on where to find it at the Sex Work Narrative Salon insta.

Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex edited by Matilda Bickers, peech breshears, and Janis Luna

With stories of triumph and solidarity, this collection features a really broad array of essays, illustrations, poetry, and personal accounts by sex workers the world over. Michelle Tea calls it “true outlaw writing.”

Fiction

Nothing But My Body by Tilly Lawless

This novel is about eight days in the life of a queer sex worker in Sydney, Australia. While it can be didactic at times, the book is otherwise really beautifully written and is a great piece of own-voices fiction.

The Service by Frankie Mirren

In The Service, Mirren tells intertwining stories of three characters with varying levels of skin in the sex trade. The novel starts with the fictional shuttering of the main sex work advertising platform in London and explores the consequences. Familiar???

Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn

Amber Dawn’s debut novel is a dreamy speculative fiction tale of a fantastical world of sex workers called Glories. We follow the main character, Little, into the underground of Sub Rosa, a place of missing girls, magic, and myth. 

Memoirs

Shagger and Bampot by Miss Marilyn

Self published and scattered with illustrations, notes, and photos, Miss Marilyn (aka Margot Thr0bbie on insta) shares her tales of love, sex, sex work, and mental illness in these two highly personal volumes. You can find them here.

Happy Endings by Bella Green

Comedian and sex worker Bella Green’s Happy Endings is a hilarious ride through Australia’s peepshows, brothels, standup comedy stages, and the independent sex worker scene. One of the funniest and most relatable books about sex work that I have ever read, Bella published this before her death in 2023. Vale, Bella.

Prostitute Laundry by Charlotte Shane

This memoir came from a series of newsletters Charlotte Shane created over several years that gained a cult following. Searing and poignant, Shane’s writing is immediate, dropping the reader right into her life with little explanation or preamble. 

Anything But A Wasted Life by Sita Kaylin

Student Sita is turned on to stripping in college while studying law. Her book is funny, relatable, and a little wild, exploring themes of mental health, relationships, and the kind of adventures you can only live through in the club.

Modern Whore by Andrea Werhun

Andrea Werhun’s memoir-cum-art-book features photography by Nicole Bazuin. It’s the story of Werhun’s jaunt through escorting and stripping, told in a heartfelt and almost gleeful manner. However, it doesn’t shy away from the realities of the sex trade and the rights stripped away from workers. 

There are so many wonderful memoirs of working in the skin trade that I couldn’t include them all, so here’s a further list of some I’ve enjoyed: 

Rent Girl by Michelle Tea
Callgirl: Confessions of a Double Life by Jeannette Angell
In My Skin by Kate Holden
Come by Rita Therese
Money for Something by Mia Walsch
An Honest Woman by Charlotte Shane
Whip Smart by Melissa Febos
Insatiable by Asa Akira
Candy Girl by Diablo Cody
Whore of New York by Liara Roux
How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustlers Memoir by Amber Dawn
Sugarbabe by Holly Hill
Strip City by Lily Burana
The Beaver Show by Jacqueline Frances
The Happy Hooker by Xaviera Hollander
Gather Together in My Name by Maya Angelou
I Am Jennie by Jennie Ketcham
Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna

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