Lots of girls work, for example in an office. Why are they not called 'working girls'?
Anybody have any idea why this term 'working girl' is mostly associated with this hobby?

Girls working in offices are called Office Girls. That's why ;)

They are also called "chickens" in Chinese and many of the Asian countries.

Here's an etymology lesson on "chicken" as it relates to prostitutes:

We have to go back to Britain during the early 19th century. English (being from England, not America) slang at the time referred to girls as "birds."

In America during the late 19th century, the slang word "chicks" began to be used. In the English language there's a word and descriptive distinction between grown chickens (chickens) and the cute little baby chickens (chicks). "Chicks" are young chickens (the actual bird, not the slang meaning here), and chickens are birds. See the double meaning here?

Still in America and now in the 20th century, the slang word "chicks" took on a slightly different meaning. Now "chicks" meant young, dolled up girls.

During the mid to second half of the 20th century "chicks" became associated with young, slutty and dolled up girls. At this point in time, American slang crossed over to Asia. Street prostitutes often dress slutty and Americans in Asia called local prostitutes "chicks." In the Chinese (Cantonese) language there's no word distinction between chickens and chicks -- they're both called 鸡. So the English-to-Chinese translation happened where Chinese people began calling prostitutes "鸡" -- and translated back into English it means "chickens."

would you also be asking how walk up and walk in came about ?

I don't know how the term 'working' girl' came about but it makes sense and pretty much universal ...

as for "Walk UP' the term came about in the early days of the English forum when a few senior bros including myself started referring to the 141 girls working in very old buildings 'walk ups' because mostly these buildings don't have lifts and everyone had to do their exercise before seeing the girl ... soon everyone started using this term and even the 141 DB adopted it ... although some have suggested it should be changed to 'walk down' for the buildings that do have lifts, the bros always went to the top and walked down the original 'walk up' sounded better and that's the way it was and forever will be ...

For 'walk in' there were many bros visiting HK who wanted to do hotel girls but was pretty much clueless of everything, the most asked questiosn were do the girls cone to you or do you need to rent a hotel room ... everything was already explained in our extensive FAQ but these questions persisted ... at that time the 141 DB was going through a change and I suggested to our Admin that since they were already using 'walk up' they should use 'walk in' for the hotel girls section, my reason being that almost all transactions were done in the girl's hotel room. After the 141 DB also adopted this, some have said it sounded stupid ... so for those that thinks this

I think bro tAw sums up the defn for walk up and walk in, from historical jargon/term and how it was adopted by this forum/admin.


Back to "working gals".
I recall when we first join the forum and started to chat in code/mongering term, only common to punters.
We adopted "WG" as the acceptable and less derogatary and negative.

To most people and general public, they use the term "chicken", "prostitute","hookers", "whores", "hos", "hags", "kokok", etc.
These terms are very unkind, degrading and belitling towards these gals.

So to come up with something complimentary, postive and less resentful among punters community, somebody started to use "Working Gals".
I cannot recall who started to use this term and how it was imported to this forum.
But as conversation goes along, members of the forum use this term collectively.

We also refer working gal as "service provider", another less scornful and more professional term.

Same like in country such as Brunei and some Asean, they use the word "Contractor".
Why? This is their hidden code/term. Similiarly, it sounded more commercial and professional business like.


On the other hand, we also introduce the work "Civillian gal" or "Civvie gal" in 2008/2009, referring to common/normal/ general/ non-working gals.
If I am not wrong, the first bro who introduced this term was Bro. Bethpageblack and myself.
It sounded good , so we tag along.
The word "Civvie" sounded more universal and general to represent this group.

[ Last edited by  hunter at 13-3-2013 18:13 ]

I think the simplest reason why a working girl is called a 'working girl' is because way, way back in history, about 99% of all women never left the home ever. When she was single and unmarried, she lived with her parents. Once she was married she moved to her hubby's home. She was not earning a salary as she was fully-supported by parents at first, then hubby.

So a girl without family/hubby support was usually cast away by in-laws or community and had to go out an earn a salary in order to live. Hence the best way for her to survive was to be a 'working girl' (prostitute) because it didn't require much skills.

In N. California, the term "relaxation assistant" or "relaxation associate" is used, abbreviated to RA.

it's definitely not a forum-originated term ... it's in the online dictionaries

I like Doghead's etymology ... the other definition of a "working girl" is a girl who supports herself ... which back in the mysogynistic days where women were denied an education and not even considered for well-paid jobs, it's only a short stretch of the imagination to see that a girl who supported herself may have had few options apart from the 'oldest profession'.

well thank you every body that's been most informative.