Seconding - and also, in the show, some pretty interesting portrayals; the one detective learning the local language from one of the workers; said worker coming to his side when an attack lands him in the hospital, and his "partner's" simple reaction betraying the partner's own inner conflicts.
Two of the main characters in Steve Perry's "The Man Who Never Missed" series from the 80s were current or former SWs in the course of the series. Dunno how these stories read in the present day, but the characters were pretty matter-of-fact about it.
I didn’t see a mention yet of Ryka Aoki’s “Light from Uncommon Stars” and I’ll take almost any chance to hype this novel. Katrina Nguyen is (barely) subsisting on risky sex work at the outset.
Gene Wolfe's 'The Fifth Head of Cerberus' has one storyline with the owner of a brothel, and my own work 'And What Can We Offer You Tonight' is a full cast of sex workers!
The women who work for Fortunato in the Wild Cards shared universe books. Mainly in the Lewis Shiner stories in the early books, though also in Zelazny's Croyd Crenson stories.
Oh oh! Also Becky chambers the space born few (third book in the wayfarer series, but totally stand alone) builds an entire feasible infrastructure around sort of clean free no judgement brothels and shows the friendship forming between a female priest and her male prostitute named sunny
Hadeer Elsbai's Alamaxa Duology features a brothel as base of operations for the political rabble rousers in the main cast, with a lot of SWs among the radicals. One of the POV characters and the closest the book has to a hero is a SW in Indra Das's The Devourers, though that's a little more horror.
There's a whole side plot in there where the Whores Guild helps support the Temple of the Rat in their legal record keeping initiative. They benefit by working to decrease police corruption , benefiting active members, and training and career path for those who want to age out of more active work.
Comments
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Legged_Hootch_Dancer
(Title and cover are spoilers for the story. 🙄)
(Bujold has a lot of *mentions* of Beta Colony's professionals, and some second-hand recounts of Barryaran ones in... _Barrayar_, I think?)
It’s also just a great book.
(Because sex workers face a lot of exploitation and abuse, they’re some of the workers who would most benefit from unionization.)
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
The Apothecary Diaries (light novel/manga/recent anime)
the comfort (?) bots in Murderbot
Well, sort of.
Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross.
When Gravity Falls (and the sequels) by George Alec Effinger.
The women who work for Fortunato in the Wild Cards shared universe books. Mainly in the Lewis Shiner stories in the early books, though also in Zelazny's Croyd Crenson stories.
https://www.neonhemlock.com/books/and-what-can-we-offer-you-tonight
"Joi hires replicant prostitute Mariette as a surrogate for Joi to have sex with K." says the wikip plot summary.
(yes I did have to cut and paste from search engine :) )