Meanings
- not comparableOf or pertaining to female entrepreneurs in the Internet sex industry.
2000 August 13, Now, cybersex industry, in The Tribune, Chandigarh, India, The Tribune House (2000), editorial page, The new 'Scarlet collar' worker is typically a 25 to 35-year-old former prostitute or lap dancer with young children and a desire to better her income while working from home.
2 more examples
1995, Nadine Strossen, Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex and the Fight for Women's Rights, Scribner (1995), p. 190, Given the relatively high pay, many 'scarlet collar workers' make an economically rational choice to enter the sex industry rather than to pursue more socially acceptable, but less remunerative, work.
'Scarlet collar' workers are the feminists of the modern age, say psychologists, free from coercion and the dangers of the traditional, male dominated business.
2002, Dànielle De Voss, “Women's Porn Sites-Spaces of Fissure and Eruption or "I'm a Little Bit of Everything"”, in Sexuality & Culture, volume 6, number 3, Transaction Publishers, pages 75-94
Origin
From the color traditionally associated with adultery, combined with the word collar in imitation of similar constructs such as blue-collar and white-collar.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
scarlet-collar. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/scarlet-collar
“scarlet-collar.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/scarlet-collar. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “scarlet-collar,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/scarlet-collar.
Source: scarlet-collar on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.