ProMomme: a sex worker’s guide to parenting

On a yellow background, a young child with long hair touches the face of a seated adult.

Edition of 300
August 2024, English, 8 x 11 in, 72 pages, color, softcover
ORDER FROM (and Co-published by) Sming SmingCash Machine

What do erotic labor and child rearing have in common? How do these (normally unpaid) private practices inform one another? ProMomme: A Sex Worker’s Guide to Parenting is a poetic, honest, and practical look into the experiences of parents who work in the adult industry, challenging societal impulses to separate Madonna from Whore. Through essays, poems, interviews, and art, sixteen parents and sex workers share their wisdom, creativity, humor, and grit to reveal how their dual roles as “providers” overlap in complex ways, and how each role helps inform, strengthen, and poses challenges for the other. Inspired by the aesthetic of vintage parenting magazines, ProMomme offers guidance and companionship to SWers and civilians alike, touching on topics ranging from talking to one’s children about sex and sex work, to navigating postpartum bodily changes working in an industry of commodified desirability. ProMomme uplifts these personal experiences to destigmatize doing sex work as a parent to celebrate intimate labor in all its forms.

Design: Sophia Coleman

Contributors: Carmen of Angeles, Emme Witt-Eden, Frenchie Stoner, Gaby G., Honey de Vil, Julia SH, Lorde Destroyer, Lucy Khan, Piggy Lu, Princess Marx, Mari V, Maxine Holloway, and Yin Q

ProMomme was created in collaboration with Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOPLA) as part of Kim Ye’s CA Creative Corps fellowship generously supported by the California Arts Council and administered by Community Partners.