Sex work is all over TV right now. Which shows are telling the real story?

If you’re a consumer of the titillating, you’ve been well-fed recently. The rise of 'romantasy' fiction, the success of audio erotic apps like Quinn and the phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry means that sex, or at the very least the aesthetic of sex is everywhere again.

Not since Fifty Shades of Grey – which unleashed a flood of “kinky” fiction in television, film and print media – has there been such a commitment to the mantra that sex sells.

Amid all this, there’s been a steady increase in the interest surrounding sex work. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is centred on a divorced mum who’s having regular sessions with a cam boy, the new season of Euphoria has Sydney Sweeney’s character Cassie creating content for OnlyFans, and the platform is also at the heart of the Elle Fanning dramedy Margo’s Got Money Troubles and a new Stan* reality series Turned On: Dirty Sexy Money.

After more than a decade in the industry – and now viewing it from the relative distance of semi-retirement – I am noticing the change. Sex workers are no longer always written as cautionary tales. We get to be funny now. Smart, savvy businesswomen – it’s almost always still women – with home lives, relationships and taxes. Occasionally, we’re even emotionally well-adjusted.

Seeing sex workers portrayed as ordinary people shouldn’t be revolutionary, but it still feels surprisingly fresh. Yet representation alone isn’t the same thing as understanding.

Turned On, for instance, claims to “pull back the curtain on an industry shrouded in mystery and controversy”. The series features plenty of real sex workers, yet it often seems uncertain about what it wants to reveal. Focusing on the “opulent and outrageous lives of adult content creators on the Gold Coast”, it follows a group of women who work at the same talent agency – some of whom make “over $1 million a year for as little as two days’ work a week”. To judge by the first episode, it’s less focused on the realities of sex work and more on the business of turning sex work into a brand, as well as the aspirational lifestyle that comes with a specific level of success and privilege.

It’s probably important that I come clean here: I did not make millions on OnlyFans. I didn’t even come close. For a period of time, I was far too busy doing the kind of sex work that might make some of this show’s cast visibly uncomfortable. And that’s part of the tension sitting quietly underneath the series.

The conflict between cast members Ruby Drew and Mia Bailey briefly brushes up against a very real divide: the tendency for some online creators to