History Main / MistakenForProstitute

* On ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'', Max and Caroline thought Sophie was a prostitute when they first met her, due to her short, cleavage-barring clothes and a poor choice of words to describe the maid service she runs.

* In ''Succubus x Delinquent'', by [[Creator/{{Merryweatherey}} Merryweather]] and illustrated by [[https://twitter.com/pcmaniac88/media [=PeaCh=]]], Vanessa, Satan's daughter, is kicked out of {{Hell}} so she can begin fulfilling her role as a succubus to [[SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny corrupt human souls]]. As she's navigating the mortal world, she finds an attractive SalaryMan, and bluntly tells him they should have sex. When he tells he tells her he doesn't hire prostitutes, she angrily chases him deamnding they have sex. She ends up getting arrested for soliciting sexual services.

* ''Fanfic/TheMountainAndTheWolf'': One of the Norscans tries to buy ''Melisandre'', despite not speaking the language. The Wolf thinks it's hilarious, but it turns out he's wearing a torc that cancels magic, meaning he saw through Melisandre's {{glamour}} and thus saw only his henchman trying pay a hideous old crone for sex.

* In ''ComicBook/DemonKnights'' a young girl sees [[AmazonianBeauty Exoristos]] and says she "dresses like a tart" and Exoristos not only thanks her but asks [[IsItSomethingYouEat if it's some sort of pastry]].

* A variation happens in ''Film/BridgetJonesDiary'' where Bridget goes to a "Prostitutes and Priests" themed costume party and isn't told that the costume part is off. Bridget's aunt introduces her to another guest called Penny dressed in an elaborate pink number saying that she wasn't told the theme had been called off either. There is a magnificent moment of awkwardness after Penny replies that she ''was'' told.

* ''Film/LAConfidential'', while investigating a ring of movie-star lookalike call girls, the detective mistakes the ''actual'' Lana Turner for a hooker. While she's hanging out with her mafia boyfriend.

* ''Film/{{Water 1985}}''. The governor and his wife go to meet the famous movie star filming a Spenco advertisement at the well. The actor, assuming she's the hooker he demanded, slings her over his shoulder and proceeds to carry her off to his trailer.

* On ''Series/TwoBrokeGirls'', Max and Caroline thought Sophie was a prostitute when they first met her.

* ''Series/AlteredCarbon''. Takeshi Kovacs' first instinct upon seeing that Poe brought a well-dressed woman to his room is to think she's a hooker (in fairness, he did ask Poe to arrange such services in the previous episode). She's actually his employer's attorney, who is unimpressed at this demonstration of an Envoy's legendary observational skills.
* In ''Series/{{Angel}}'' Cordelia is handing out business cards for their business with the ambiguous slogan "We help the helpless". One of the guys she hands them to assumes she is a hooker and Doyle is her pimp.

* In ''Series/AshesToAshes2008'' [=DI=] Alex Drake arrives in 1981 dressed as a prostitute, and the entire station thinks she actually is one until she produces her warrant card.

* ''Series/TheCommish''. A prostitution ring is uncovered when a businessman orders a blonde dressed as a police officer, and runs into a HotCop in the hotel lobby. She's a brunette [[DistractedByTheSexy but he's too excited to care]]. He asks to be arrested as part of the roleplay. She happily obliges.

* Lois in ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'' gets a rather trashy makeover that she has to wear for her job. When a man asks if she's a hooker she is outraged... then she thanks him and drags him into her boss's office to convince him to let her go back to her old look. Though it was also because the man she brought in happened to be her boss' brother-in-law.

* In a sketch on ''Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus'' a DirtyOldMan mistakes several posted advertisements as stealth prostitution ads ("small white pussycat for sale" etc.) but none of them are - except one.

* ''Series/SilentWitness''. In "Finding Rachel", Nikki Alexander investigates a crime in Africa, and is warned against wearing her jeans for this reason.
* ''Series/{{Sisters}}''. Daughter Reed starts an escort service. When a man asks her mother Alex out on a date, she's shocked and horrified at the lewd advances the man makes, and even more shocked when he tells her that he assumed she was one of Reed's call girls, having seen the two together.

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' a female Shepard has this exchange with a Batarian recruiter on Omega, who uses the trope as an insult.

* Also subtly done in ''VideoGame/UnderNightInBirth'', when [[GuestFighter Akatsuki]] meets Hilda:

* ''VideoGame/MurderInTheAlps'': In the chapter “Ladies of the Night”, the heroine, Anna Myers, is writing articles on prostitutes and because she goes to a brothel to get her information, the owner indicates that clients who came to the brothel have assumed that she was a prostitute herself. Later, three men harass her under the same assumption, but not only does [[AmazonChaser Max Frost]] come to her aid, she takes two of the men down herself while Max takes out the third! The trio [[LetsGetOutOfHere wisely bolt rather than get another beating.]]

** "Seamstress" is the accepted euphemism in Ankh-Morpork. In ''Literature/NightWatch'', Dr Lawn explains there was a certain amount of confusion when Sandra Battye arrived in the city hoping to work as an ''actual'' seamstress. Inverted when Vimes questions why she's still hanging out with the "seamstresses", and Lawn points out there are plenty of men who make the opposite mistake, and are genuinely looking for someone to darn their socks.

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel ''Literature/MenAtArms'', Angua finds a notebook in Captain Vimes' quarters with a list of women's names and dollar amounts. Having spent most of the book with a rather low opinion of Vimes, she naturally assumes they're prostitutes. [[spoiler:They're widows and orphans of Watchmen.]]

->'''Max Rockatansky''': I've got skills, I could trade them.\\
'''The Collector''': Sorry, the brothel's full.

* ''Film/Derailed20002'': When Madeline discovers Galina in the bathroom of Jacques' cabin, she assumes Jacques is cheating on her and that Galina is an escort.
* In ''Film/GodBlessAmerica'', a pedophile mistakes Roxy for a child prostitute and Frank, for her pimp.

* ''Film/AGoodWomanIsHardToFind'': Sarah gets hit on repeatedly by an older man who works in the market and believes she's working as a prostitute-he hints that he's interested, to her dismay.

* This cropped up with an amusing case of intentional ValuesDissonance in ''Series/AdamAdamantLives'' when after Adam (from the turn of the 20th century) passed out from a mixture of exhaustion and disorientation in the apartment of Georgina (from the, then current, 1960s). He couldn't apologies enough about how inappropriate it was for him to have spent the night on her sofa. Her trying to explain it wasn't a big deal, and that he wasn't the first man to spend the night on her sofa, lead him to assume she'd been driven to prostitution and to immediately offer to find her some menial work.

* In the ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}} Special'' OVA, Lina and Naga the Serpent are hired by a woman who wants to make her son Jeffrey into a man... which the two interpret as the woman trying to hire Naga to sleep with him. Lina has to explain to the woman that even though Naga's outfit is {{Stripperiffic}}, the two of them don't do that sort of thing. Turns out she just wants to hire them as bodyguards.
* Inverted ([[PlayingWithATrope sort of]]) in ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon''. Haruhime, the prostitute, is the one who mistakes [[TheHero Bell]] for a customer when he accidentally enters her room (he was actually there against his will and trying to escape), and she quickly starts offering her "service" before he can clear up the misunderstanding.

* ''Series/{{Impractical Jokers}}'': PlayedForComedy in the episode "Scarytales". Q is punished by beimg forced to portray a children's book author with a story the other guys wrote for him, entitled "The Remarkable Misadventures of Q the Dung Beetle", which he shows to a group of children and parents. The book itself features a fight between Q the Dung Beetle and his wife, who storms out. The next page is just her walking by a car which features another male dung beetle who asks [[http://www.natalieleiderman.com/characters?lightbox=imagec6q "How much?"]] Q's response?

* A staple of cheap romance novels of the "Rake meets Virgin" kind — of course, the hero would never rape a ''decent'' woman, [[SarcasmMode but he's hardly to blame]] if he mistakes her for a prostitute... [[DoubleStandard as raping prostitutes is okay if he can pay.]] Or so we're told. Lots and lots of UnfortunateImplications.

* ''Film/CarryOnHenry'' has Henry VIII picking up a farmer's daughter, who demands to be paid for sex. She is obviously not a prostitute, but she probably wants him to leave her alone.

* ''Series/TheWhiteLotus'': The hotel's lounge singer mistakes Mia for a prostitute and straight up asks her how much she charges. In his defense, Mia herself had commented earlier that her outfit and makeup did made her look like a prostitute. It's somewhat understandable as she came with her friend Lucia, who ''is'' a prostitute.