* It seems that your average TV prostitute is far more attractive than your real-life one. Could the likes of Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman et. al actually end up in the sex industry? A lot of women are on drugs too, and the effects of that are hardly seen in them.
** It's show business. Almost ''everyone'' is better looking than real life.
** It would also depend on which 'type', for want of a better word, of prostitute you're dealing with as well, since there's a sort of social strata; your average 'streetwalker' or 'crack whore', after several years of poverty, drug-addiction and working on the streets, will come off worse-for-wear than your average high-class escort or high-end brothel worker, who are usually more expensive and therefore can afford more in the way of expensive beauty regimes, clothes, etc. They're also screened more closely by the people who employ and hire them with regards to looks and potential debilitating drug-addictions, etc. Of course, most women who work in prostitution are streetwalkers, and most streetwalkers who appear on TV and in film are far more attractive and glamourous than the real thing.
*** At the beginning of the film, another prostitute describes Vivian as "new." Vivian doesn't do drugs and she seems fairly conscientious about her health in other respects (i.e. the flossing). In addition, she seems to be an intelligent young woman (Edward mentions her intelligence and she herself states that she did well in school before dropping out). In short, she hasn't been at this long and she's clever enough to see and avoid the pitfalls of some of the working girls around her. Maybe it wouldn't have carried her through the long run, but it's definitely preserved her looks so far.
** Television, at least, seems to be working on making this a DeadHorseTrope - especially police procedurals. (Not to mention reality shows like ''Cops'' or ''The First 48''.) Streetwalkers are appropriately not-attractive and "escorts" tend to be attractive in a porn starlet kind of way.
*** As a good for-instance, under the police procedural heading: Series/{{Criminal Minds}}, any time you see a gaggle of streetwalkers, they're dressed provocatively, but tend toward being unappetizing
*** For more of the DeadHorseTrope, watch ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''. The most attractive prostitutes are a 40-year-old overweight male, a robot (without synthflesh), and an amphibian.
*** Characters in Series/SecretDiaryOfACallGirl say they hate this film, although they are also unrealistically glamorous high-class prostitutes.
** It can happen. Even reasonably-priced brothel workers can be ''extremely'' attractive. And, really, isn't that the point?
** If you ever go to the Red Zone in the Netherlands, believe me, some girls there owe nothing in sexiness to Julia Roberts.
* Julia Roberts example is that it's set as a storybook/fairy-tale type story. At the end, you're supposed to forget all about her being a hooker and him being the type of guy who would hire a hooker.
** How, exactly, are you meant to 'forget' that she was a hooker? The film deals with this right up until the last frame.
*** Maybe not "forget," but definitely see her as something ''other'' than a hooker--to see her as a human. An underlying theme of the movie is the ability to see people as being worth something beyond what they can do for you, such as the dinner where Edward realizes that the company he's about to callously sell for a profit actually means much more than its monetary value to the man who owns it.
** It might also be worth noting that he initially hires her for PlatonicProstitution purposes, not sex-times purposes.
** Also, that the movie maybe puts an unrealistic (and even potentially damaging) gloss over the subject of poverty-driven low-income sex work is a fairly valid complaint, or at least a worthy subject of further discussion, but the idea that we are supposed to "forget" that the main characters are a sex worker and her client is perhaps not an entirely bad thing. As noted above, part of the point of the movie is to look at people for their complexities rather than just reducing them to a simplistic label. That there is more to a sex worker than her profession and that sex workers and the people who hire them are also human beings who for their flaws may be just as worthy of love, compassion and dignity as anyone else are not exactly the worst messages a movie can have.

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