Hooker with a heart of gold

The hooker with a heart of gold (also the whore with a heart of gold or the tart with a heart) is a stock character in which a fallen woman, a prostitute who sells sex for cash or drugs, is in fact a kindly and internally wholesome person. This character is often a pivotal, but peripheral, character in literature and motion pictures, usually giving key advice or serving as a go-between. She is sometimes established in contrast to another female character who is morally perfect but frigid or otherwise unyielding. The stereotype owes a debt to Mary Magdalene, and is pervasive enough in myth and culture that it might be considered an archetype.

Related Topics:
Stock character - Prostitute - Mary Magdalene - Archetype

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A variation on the theme, the stripper with a heart of gold, is a tamer version of the character, a stripper and sex worker but not a prostitute.

Related Topics:
Stripper - Sex worker

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