If you got the money, honey, they got the time.
"Like all members of the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist."
— Miss Scarlett, Clue
No, not "semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer".
Prostitution and other forms of sex work: strippers, porn stars, dominatrixes, etc. This page is Not Safe for Work in any way, shape or form, but is legal in Australia, New Zealand (but strictly brothel only), Canada, Mexico and most of the state of Nevada.
Tropes:
- Asian Hooker Stereotype: A prostitute of East or Southeast Asian ethnicity.
- Ballad of a Sex Worker: A song about a woman in the sex industry.
- Band of Brothels: A legal organization or union that oversees/regulates prostitution.
- Camp Follower: Prostitutes who follow and service soldiers during war.
- Chippendales Dancers: Male strippers.
- Compensated Dating: Dating older men for pay.
- Den of Iniquity: Often a brothel.
- Dirty Harriet: Going undercover as a sex worker.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Prostitutes double as convenient murder victims.
- Dominatrix: A woman who dominates men for Fanservice.
- Elite Man–Courtesan Romance: A person of high rank falls in love with a sex worker.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: A woman who suffers financial hardship may turn to sex work to stay afloat.
- Family-Friendly Stripper: A stripper wears an elaborate and theoretically sexy costume that covers just about everything.
- Freestate Amsterdam: Characters go to Amsterdam for legal sex workers and drugs.
- Happy-Ending Massage: A brothel called a massage parlor.
- High-Class Call Girl: She's not a prostitute, she's a courtesan.
- Hookers and Blow: Depraved drugs and sex.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: A kind-hearted sex worker (usually a love interest).
- Human Traffickers: People who sell humans, often times for sexual purposes.
- Miss Kitty: An older woman who runs a brothel.
- Mistaken for Prostitute: Someone is mistaken for a prostitute.
- Need a Hand, or a Handjob?: Solicitation is mistaken for an offer of help.
- Pimp Duds: Usually male pimps displayed with flamboyant and sometimes bizarre fashion choices.
- Pimping the Lover: A person pimps out their romantic partner.
- Pimping the Offspring: A parent pimps out their own child.
- Pink Is Erotic: The color pink is used to indicate arousal, attraction, eroticism, and scenes of a sexual nature.
- Platonic Prostitution: A character consorts with a sex worker for non-sex-related purposes.
- Pleasure Planet: Some science fiction settings will have a Red-Light District in space.
- Porn Creator Going Mainstream: A performer or creator tries to transition to mainstream content from porn.
- Predatory Pimp: A manipulative, cruel procurer who controls their sex workers with an iron fist.
- Predatory Prostitute: An evil, cruel, and/or further criminal sex worker.
- Professional Sex Ed: A prostitute is hired for someone's first time.
- Psychosexual Horror: A subgenre that explores psychosexual development as a subject matter, including themes of sexual development and sexual activities.
- Red-Light District: An area of a city known for sex work.
- Red Light Business Rendezvous: Brothels and strip clubs are great places for secret meetings.
- School of Seduction: Trade school for sex workers.
- Secret Sex Worker: A character is Living a Double Life, hiding that they are a sex worker from those closest to them, typically out of fear of social rejection, condemnation, and/or being arrested for engaging in a criminalized profession.
- Sexbot: When the sex worker is a robot who was designed for that purpose.
- Sex for Services: A trade between sexual favors for non-sexual favors.
- Sex Slave: A slave whose main service is sexual labor (not technically a prostitute, as prostitute is defined by being paid).
- Sex Tourism: A character goes on vacation primarily to have sex.
- Sex Work Karma: An character is forced to resort to sex work as a form of karma.
- Sex Work Pays for Education: A sex worker's job is only to pay for their education.
- Shady Lady of the Night: A prostitute who's involved in other criminal activities, usually not on her own accord.
- Single Mom Stripper: A single mother who moonlights as a sex worker of some kind.
- Son of a Whore: A character whose mother is or was a prostitute.
- Streetwalker: A prostitute who walks the street in order to find clients.
- This Bed of Rose's: A prostitute gives someone a place to stay.
- Unproblematic Prostitution: Being a sex worker is awesome!
- The Wicked Stage: A Forgotten Trope where theater actresses = prostitutes.