[1][2] Playing the Whore was published by Verso Books in association with the magazine Jacobin as part of a series focusing on socialist perspectives to culture and politics.

She argues that the social process which turns a "woman" into a "prostitute" involves dehumanization and allows for exertion of control over women sex workers.

[2] Grant criticizes the United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) intervention in Cambodia made with the aim of "eradicating" prostitution.

[9] The author also discusses changes in red-light districts: she reports that many have become gentrified, leading many sex workers in such environments to be more isolated or less safe.

[8] Eilís Ward in the Community Development Journal summarized that the book is "an excellent read for anyone [...] open to thinking through their position on the sex trade".

[3] Michaele L. Ferguson in Perspectives on Politics found the book an "uncompromising call for sex workers' rights as human rights is an important reminder of what a radical political vision might look like", but criticized a failure to address the issues of the gendering of sex work, in which labor is most commonly performed by women and purchased by men.

[5] The Washington Post's Mike Konczal praised Grant as "one of the most interesting policy thinkers" on the topic of U.S. sex work.