Sex workers in Singapore — and most places around the world — tend to be dehumanised, glamourised or sensationalised by the public and media alike. Rarely do mainstream narratives centre sex workers’ voices and agency. The Missing Anthology presents fifteen bold new voices from sex workers, whose writings resist society’s simplistic assumptions about sex work. In these works, authors recount their lived experiences, share their struggles and triumphs, and imagine different futures for the sex industry.

Born from an open call and writing workshops organised by Project X — the only non-profit organisation in Singapore that provides social, emotional, and health services to people in the sex industry — these pieces daringly experiment with form, genre, and perspective. In these pages, you’ll find two “chickens” discussing their dreams while blowing up a condom; pieces on the dynamics of domme-ing and servicing second-hand hearts; essays on the importance of activism and its obstacles; short fiction exploring fantasies of violent liberation; tender letters to loved ones and younger selves that reflect on their journeys and how far they’ve come.

The Missing Anthology re-centres sex workers’ voices from the margins, bringing them into the conversation about an industry often treated as illicit and taboo. By doing so, it aims to address issues of inequality, social and economic mobility, stigmatization, and safety that are fuelled by misconceptions about sex workers and their profession.

Advance Praise

"I’ve been a sex worker since 2011, and even I found my eyes opened reading this collection. The stories, vignettes, and poems within feel like whispers of secrets, fragments of dreams, or the kind of raw, unfiltered honesty you only get from a deep chat with an old friend. Through the voices of Singapore’s sex workers, this remarkable anthology reveals the incredible diversity of joy, rage, hope, and humanity that exists in our lives.

Too often, others try to tell our stories for us — flattening them into stereotypes or sensationalised clichés. But this collection refuses to let those distant assumptions speak. These are our stories, told in our voices, with all the complexity and richness of lived experience. Reading it was deeply moving, at times heartbreaking, and profoundly real.

It is a rare privilege to see the world through these eyes — to be reminded of the shared, challenging, and beautiful gift of life in all its forms. I am honoured to recommend this work. It is vital, human, and, above all, true."

EVA OH, also known as 'Mistress Eva' — award winning International Dominatrix

"An inter-generational, inter-genre, and inter-spatial exploration of the lives of sex workers and their labour conditions in Singapore. Exciting, intimate, endearing, vengeful, repressed, and cathartic all at once, The Missing Anthology reflects the sweeping diversity of sex workers' experiences, motivations, and lives. From the streets of 80s red light districts in Singapore, the online chat rooms of the aughts, and the transgressive imagination of the empowered millennial, the anthology is a landmark publication that stabs a stiletto heel against the singular story and image of a deliberately misunderstood labour class. The stories of sex workers strain against a society’s ability or inability to accept its own desires and the people who work to fulfil them. This book is as necessary a reading as any about the nation, for behind these stories, the country finds an unwritten one of its own."

DIANA RAHIM — visual artist, writer, community worker and editor of Beyond The Hijab

About the Editors

Vanessa Ho (she/they) joined Project X in 2011 and became its executive director in 2019. Her tenure at Project X has provided her many valuable opportunities to meet and connect with sex workers in Singapore and around the world. She has also written and spoken extensively about sex work, human trafficking, rape culture, and LGBTQ rights in Singapore. Vanessa holds the view that if people can speak about sex, gender, and sexuality in open and in non-judgmental ways, society will become a safer place for everyone.

Raksha Mahtani (they/them) is a researcher-writer-facilitator and vice-president on the board of Project X. Notable contributions include working on the organisation's membership model, the voluntary industry exit programme, and report writing. Their master’s thesis research examines labour market hierarchies in Singapore’s sex industry, with research interests that nestle at the intersections of social inequality, friendship, migration, feminism, and multiracialism. Raksha has been published in rivulet 10 and Exhale, and has also performed spoken word as part of Sekaliwags and Mass Hysteria.

nor (they/them) is the Programmes Manager at Project X. Their favourite part of working at Project X is being able to experience the generosity shown by sex workers in telling their stories. Outside of Project X, nor is a multidisciplinary artist, poet and 1/6th of the Studio Ong collective.

時代精神書屋

Nine Yard Sarees: a short story cycle◎Prasanthi Ram

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Nine Yard Sarees is a multigenerational portrait of a fictional Tamil Brahmin family. Comprising eleven interlinked stories, this short story cycle traces the lives of nine women from 1950 all the way to 2019, shedding light on the community and its evolution through the decades. As the stories take us from India to Singapore, Australia and even America, we follow the experiences of the women in the family: Raji the matriarch who lives in seclusion at an ashram; her daughter Padma who struggles to raise her family the traditional way; Padma’s daughter Keerthana who is about to be married and don the nine yard saree, a symbol of womanhood. Tender, dynamic and full of heart, this cycle is a resonant portrayal of female solidarity and the complexities of the diasporic experience in contemporary Singapore.

“There is so much to appreciate in Prasanthi Ram’s debut collection, Nine Yard Sarees. As a portrait of a family, these stories connect to form a layered narrative about women, migration and identity. As a work of diaspora fiction about the Tamil-Brahmin community in Singapore, these connecting stories comment on questions of belonging and the pertinent tension between tradition and modernity. Ram writes with precision and clarity about this family while also treating the characters with the warmth and compassion that they deserve. Shifting narrative perspectives and covering a wide landscape of time and geographic space, Nine Yard Sarees confronts diaspora in all its complexity. A thoroughly enjoyable and meaningful work of fiction about family, community and the reverberations of migration and displacement.”
—Balli Kaur Jaswal, Author of Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

“The madisar, the eponymous nine-yard saree, weaves these stories together beautifully and artfully, these stories about Tamil Brahmin women living mostly in Singapore, but also living, in Prasanthi Ram’s deft, sensitive and humorous telling, in full, human complexity in their loves and hates, joys and sorrows, envies and regrets. Nine Yard Sarees is an uncommonly rich and precise debut, closely observed, magically empathetic and formally ambitious. If you love the stories of Jhumpa Lahiri and Alice Munro, you will love these stories.”
—Jee Leong Koh, Winner of the 2022 Singapore Literature Prize in English fiction

"A gripping, masterfully crafted work that is both haunting and comforting. I read it in one night."
—Akshita Nanda, co-winner of the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize in English Fiction

The following stories contain some references to sensitive topics which may warrant content notices:

Rakshasa—casteist rhetoric; fat phobic language
Agni’s Trials—sexual harrassment
The Perfect Shot—sexual assault
Nine Yard Sarees—racism; fat phobic language
Loose Threads—self-harm; pregnancy loss
In Her Graveyard, She Bloomed—homophobic language; pregnancy loss
Before the Rooster Calls—domestic abuse

While the content of these stories is fictional, these topics reflect real issues. We recognise that the ways in which readers might respond to and deal with these issues may vary, as our relationships to these topics are unique. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or not in the right headspace to experience the stories, do put the book down and talk to someone about how you feel.

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