Hookerfic

You may be looking for the zine Hooker! which focuses on the William Shatner television show.

Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)	hooker AU, rentboy AU, prostitutes, whores
Related tropes/genres	Sex Work
Related articles on Fanlore.

Hookerfic is a type of fanfic where one or more of the characters is a sex worker. There are many different types of hookerfic, ranging from more realistic depictions to the more common Pretty Woman-type fantasy of a hooker with a heart of gold, rescued from life on the streets by a client.

Most of the time one character of the pairing is the hooker and the other is the client, though some stories have both characters as prostitutes (sometimes along with other canon characters, in either a brothel-type setting or living on the streets).

Hookerfic is not always a full AU. Stories set in the canon universe, but where one character is revealed to have a secret past as a sex worker (often to make their way through college) are also common. There are also stories set after some event in canon, where one character is forced to become a sex worker or prostitute for various reasons.

The term Rentboy AU is sometimes used to label slash stories in this genre. "Rent boy" is a non-fannish slang term for male prostitute, but it is used sometimes in fanworks instead of cruder terms such as "whore" or "hooker" to indicate a romanticized story.

See Sex Work for controversies related to the hookerfic genre.

Characters

Some characters are common subjects of hookerfics. In Batman fandom, any character who spent time homeless or otherwise destitute may wind up as a subject of hookerfic. Jason Todd, the second Robin was living on the streets as a teenager. Roy Harper, after his canonical drug use, also is sometimes portrayed as a former hooker. Some White Collar fics presume Neal Caffrey spent time as a prostitute along with his other criminal activities. In a similar vein, some A-Team fanworks presume Faceman Peck spent time as a prostitute prior to joining the Army, and after, often write of him using sex as a means to gain things for the team (e.g. in The Price of Doing Business by Sonora Coneja)

Fandoms

Some fandoms lend themselves to the trope more readily than others because of the nature of the canon or the popularity of AUs in general.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is especially renowned for darkfic AUs where members of the Order of the Phoenix are forced into sex work for survival. Also extremely popular is the opposite circumstance, where known Death Eaters are forced (by lack of choice or Ministry of Magic decree) to use sex work to support themselves. Interestingly, these were often different genres—i.e. not just slash—as both the Draco/Ginny fic Both Go Down (today i'll be your virginia) and Draco/Harry fics The Escape Verse show for the former circumstance. [Needs het/slash/femmeslash examples for second trope].

Stargate

{needs bit on SG-1; suspect that's a reasonably common trope "hounded out of academia for his exotic theories, how did Danny survive..."}
In Stargate Atlantis fic, John Sheppard and Rodney McKay are regularly cast as sex workers, both in AU and canon-related stories. In John's case, this may in part be due to the somewhat canon and strongly fanon portrayal of John as having very strong sex appeal. In Rodney's case it may be due to backstory of Rodney being in college at a very young age and not getting along with his parents, as well as available photos and film of the actor portraying Rodney in earlier roles making him seem like a not unlikely candidate for sex work.

Example stories

• King of Wishful Thinking, by margarks, SGA. Pretty Woman AU with John as Julia Roberts and Rodney as Richard Gere.
• Send-offs, by sardonicsmiley, SGA/SG-1. Five-part series featuring Rodney as a teenage prostitute visited by various SG-1 and SGA characters, possibly pre-canon.
• Misinterpretation and How John Sheppard accidentally became (not quite) a hooker by velocitygrass, SGA, canon-based. It starts by accident, it ends up with Rodney.
• A Victim of the Time by iibnf, SGA. Accidental time-travel shows John how Rodney was getting by in college.
• rentboy!John series by shusu, SGA AU.
• the House Call series by scribblinlenore, SGA AU. Rodney hires hooker!John.
• Hook or Crook by rageprufrock, SGA AU. Rodney thought he got a complimentary prostitute, when it turns out he didn't he's happy to keep paying John.
• Pretty Good Girl by Karmageddon, SGA, Vegasverse AU. Rodney hires hooker!John.

Supernatural

Stories involving sex work of all kinds abound in both the Supernatural and the CWRPS sides of the fandom. Some of the most popular stories in the fandom use the trope, as well as uncountable fills on the kink meme. There have been comment memes for hooker fic and sometimes it seems like every writer needs to give the trope a whirl at least once.

In the FPF side, the two most common non-AU tropes are John left Sam and Dean as teenagers without enough money and Dean would do anything to look after Sam, and Sam ran out of money at Stanford and did what he had to for textbooks. Both of these tropes work the hookerfic clichés into the canon backstory in a way that is at least superficially plausible. Debates always rage over whether the resulting story is really in character for a couple of guys who have a lot of other criminal skills they could use to raise money.

In Supernatural RPS fic, the trope is usually a total or near total AU where Jared and Jensen are not actors, but one or both are sex workers. One of the classic stories in the fandom with over 500 Delicious bookmarks is fleshflutter's Do I Seem Bulletproof To You?, where Jensen is a high-priced call-out prostitute and Jared is his bodyguard. The story, written for the 2008 SPN J2 Big Bang tends towards realism in its portrayal, while still managing to come close to the rescue scenario.

In a big departure from the usual trope, fryadvocate's, A little less conversation takes a more serious look at the trope with a Jared who isn't looking for a saviour, and a Jensen who never understands that Jared really is just in it for the money.

The fandom has produced seemingly endless variations on the trope from extremely fluffy romances to darkfic.

Additional Example Hookerfic Stories

• At Your Service, My Prince, ^{Archived version} a frostiron fic by STARSdidathing (2020)
• By Appointment Only by Ivey and London, in which Zac is forced to take up the same career as his brother Taylor after his garage closes.
• Diplomatic Efforts by ninhursag. Star Trek reboot story in which Kirk's secret past as a hooker is revealed. Kirk/Spock/Uhura.
• Joyboy by Syn Ferguson, a Star Trek TOS AU (Set immediately after Kirk is rescued from Tarsus IV. K/S) (Before 2003)
• Paying the Rent (AO3 link) by Elaine, a The Sentinel AU with Jim and an 18-year old Blair (2001)
• A Matter of Pride by P.J., The Sentinel AU. "...one of my favorite prostitute stories of all time. In it, Jim is a famous model and Blair is an anthropology professor. Both are blackmailed into selling themselves. The plot is tightly constructed, and I found the back story beautiful and touching, in keeping with the essence of the characters. Jim and Blair don't give in to the blackmailer to protect themselves, but, rather, to shield people they care about. When they finally find each other and fall in love, it's the beginning of the end for the blackmailer." (Before 2001)
• Professional Reputation by arsenicjade. Suits canon-based story in which Mike isn't making enough to pay the bills and resorts to revisiting his call-boy past. gen friendshipfic. (2011)
• Renting Heero by bonnejeanne and Cassiopeia. Gundam Wing. PWP, Zechs x Heero. "What he was doing now might have shocked his former acquaintances, but it didn't require that he kill anybody. That made it rather higher on his list of preferred possibilities than most of the other things he was qualified for." (2002)
• Fighting Dreamers by KungFuu. Naruto, an AU Kakairu fic: "When Iruka finds Naruto abandoned, he has to take him in. He wants to give Naruto a fighting chance at success in life. That means enrolling him in Ninja Academy, but the cost to enroll is high. Iruka pays with the only thing he has – his body. And Kakashi? He ends up falling in love with a prostitute." (2007)
• Half Past The Point of Oblivion by KahtyaSofia, a Generation Kill AU. Brad unexpectedly meets a charming street hustler who insinuates himself into Brad's heart and life. Can Brad get him off the street? Does he want off the street? (2010)
• Eden (Hanson story) by multiple authors, which features Taylor and Zac working at a "massage parlor" that is really a brothel.
• Sell Your Body to the Night by Dira Sudis, a pre-canon/Canon AU Teen Wolf story (121,550 words). Stiles runs away at the age of 16 to San Francisco and becomes a prostitute. Derek aka Black Camaro is one of his customers and his favorite.
• Something Borrowed, Something Blue (J2 story) by belyste
• The Very Special Adventures of Mikey Murcock, by dancinbutterfly and returnsandreturns. Daredevil. A collection of fics starring the what-if of if Matt was a pornstar to pay for college. (2016-)
• More than Innocent, by reddishDaisy_95. BTS. Seventeen, a bad decision and a chest voids of well-functioning heart: Jeon Jeongguk is just a kid trying to solve the puzzles he can't put together that is Kim Taehyung. (2016-2018)
• electric together, by aeterisks. BTS. In Taehyung's three years of escorting, he thought he had nailed the art of being coy and detaching himself from his clients. And then Jeon Jeongguk came along.
• trying to behave (but you know that we never learned how), by christmasyoongi. BTS. It's been years since Yoongi's last seen him and the younger boy is a shell of his former self in a way that makes his heart twist in his chest. And yet, after all this time and countless days of convincing himself to let him go, he's still unconditionally, head over heels in love with Park Jimin.
• read between the (panty) lines, by TheHalesNyx. BTS. Every Wednesday, it's the same routine. It's just, the elder doesn't know it's the same routine. He doesn't know Jimin watches the same show, at the same time, in the same apartment. It's too much, almost humorous, in the way that makes Jimin want to drown himself in a bathtub full of his feelings (he has enough of them). It's just another thing Jimin keeps to himself, for the sake of their friendship. But what he wouldn't give to watch with Yoongi. This thought alone has him loosening the drawstring on his shorts, as the loading animation flashes across his screen. Watching Yoongi fall apart, moaning and whimpering - God, Jimin would sell his own kidney to see that.

Challenges

• merlin_sexstars

Resources

• Prostitution works on AO3

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.