I'm looking for a manga where the protagonist or one of the main characters is in the sex industry, but is keeping it a secret from their lover/family/friends/colleagues. It's a bonus if there's this 'big reveal' in which everyone is shocked... But it doesn't matter whether it's ever found out. Secrecy's the main thing, with the protagonist trying (or needing) to keep it all hidden. Oh, and they don't have to hide it from everyone, just from those people who are really important to them, whose opinion really matters to them.

Roles that the protagonist might have in the sex industry: prostitute/hooker, pimp, host, porn star, porn voice actor (for animations, etc), high-class escort, professionally-employed dominatrix or slave (like, at an S&M club), teenager secretly making money through compensated dating, cameraman/director/writer for adult films, brothel owner, erotic novelist or artist, scout/recruiter for porn or 'active service', people smuggler (specializing in prostitutes), mafia frontman or enforcer for the gang's sex businesses, bodyguard or doorman at a brothel/sex club, soapland girl or boy, etc.

Any genre EXCEPT hentai, ecchi or heavy smut. I want the sex industry to be treated seriously, not in a puerile/pornographic way. (Ironically enough!)

Recommend, please!

some chapters on Confidential Confessions, like chapter title "Pain". The BF found out.

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Try Koibito Play. Though the secrecy part your looking for is inverse. What I mean is, the important character/s knows or knew in some point of the story the job/fetish of the main girl protagonist.

Oh and sadly its in adult/ecchi category but more so because sex/fetish is treated not just an act of pleasure but more so as part of the plot and how the characters move/evolve/interact around it.

Overall, it's a good read if your interested in human interactions/reactions about sexual preferences.

Last edited by syracuse at 3:11 am, Jan 23 2011

Thanks, comel and syracuse!

I'll give Koibito Play a try if the sex isn't actually about the sex - which seems to be the case, as you've put it. I don't mind mature or even explicit content as long as its purpose is obviously not to titillate, but to shed light on the characters and their psychologies. I guess there's sort of a gray area where the content is meant to titillate and be thought-provoking, but that's relatively rare and difficult to achieve, unless the artist has real talent...

Thanks so much!

Edit: Oh, I'm going to add H, as that has a teacher working as a host and keeping it a secret from his colleagues (in order to save his job, lol). And Shout Out Loud!, in which the poor seiyuu Dad does his best to hide from his son that he is, in fact, a yaoi voice actor - for an uke character, no less.

Last edited by tartufo at 5:47 am, Jan 23 2011

I'm afraid I remember little of the story for this one, but your question struck a chord, and so I would suggest you check out Delivery. It may be a complete bust, and in that case I apologise.

Miman Renai - he's for an eroge company and falls in love with a young girl so pure that he can't tell her what his work is xD