There are many slang terms for full-service sex workers, but one of my favorites is working girl. I cannot be completely sure when I first heard it, but I knew it in passing before I began sex work in the early 2010s in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Once I was working, it likely popped up from one of the more experienced working girls in a dressing room. When I talk to civilians about the sex industry, I will usually say that I do “sex work” and discuss the figure of the “sex worker.” I am conscious of how the jaunty informality of working girl might not make it the most helpful term for conveying more serious messaging. It is anachronistic, almost deliberately so, and it both is and isn’t a euphemism. Instead, it feels more like shop talk. Sometimes I might shorten working girl to working. I will casually...

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