Perhaps it was because I grew up on a diet of westerns, Sunday afternoons spent watching John Wayne riding a horse and the only women would be the soppy wives of whatever soppy landowner needed his help. The only women with any spunk would be the whores at the saloon, women, for the most part, in the movies at least, who were in charge of their own destiny. (Give or take that fiesty little broad in True Grit, my favourite movie of all time.)

Now this is no place for a serious discussion of the pitfalls of sex work. We all know how it can go terribly wrong, be terribly wrong.

Yet it’s been interesting how popular culture has treated prostitution over the years, from Julia Roberts’ Pretty Woman street walker who finds her prince, television shows such as The Girlfriend Experience and Hung (an interesting show where the prostitute is a straight white male, a school teacher who has been made redundant but still needs to pay the bills) to numerous songs which idolise pimp culture.

But the idea that a woman has always had a commodity - her body - to sell to those who want it - men - has always fascinated me.

So imagine my sheer delight when I stumbled across Harlots, on SBS on Demand, which looks at the lives of the harlots working in two rival brothels in 17th century London.

In 1763, the opening credits said, one in five women in London were making a living selling sex. In an age where women were their husbands' properties, the opportunity to earn their own money, and have some choice, was empowering, I know a word too often used to condone prostitution.

The most empowering thing about Harlots is that it’s rare to find a show with so many women at its core, one that explores friendships and rivalry, and power and subservience, family and our basest needs.

I love it. So much so I binged season one overnight. I’m not spoiling it for myself, not reading ahead, I’ll probably finished season two (and welcome Liv Tyler) tonight after I have written this column.

The series was inspired by British historian Hallie Rubenhold’s 2005 book The Covent Garden Ladies, which concerned itself with the annual guide called “Harris’s List”, published from 1757 to 1795, that served as a menu of sorts for London prostitutes.

Basically each entry would detail a woman's age, her physical appearance, her specialities, the address of her brothel, her price.

For example, Miss Clicamp, of number two York Street near Middlesex Hospital, was described as "one of the finest, fattest figures as fully finished for fun and frolic as fertile fancy ever formed ... fortunate for the true lovers of fat, should fate throw them into the possession of such full grown beauties."

(Aside: You don’t know me very well at all if you don’t think I haven’t been up all night wondering how my own Harris’s List entry would read.)

What’s also fascinating about Harlots is that it’s from Hulu, who also brought us The Handmaid’s Tale.

In her article on Mashable, Alexis Nedd discusses the similarities between the two shows:

“There’s a show on Hulu about women who are trying to survive in a patriarchal society,” she writes. “They dress in easily recognisable outfits. Better-situated people call them sluts or whores, and the men they have sex with are sometimes horribly violent and always transactional. The worst thing that could happen to these women is being sent to “the colonies”, but that’s only if they aren’t hanged first. It’s a fascinating look at the micro-worlds women create to protect themselves and their agency, and also there are at least nine towering, silly-looking powdered wigs per episode.

“Oh, right. Not that show. The other one. This one’s actually a lot of fun.”

And the other thing about Harlots is that it is written and directed entirely by women, with Alison Newman, Debra Hayward and Moira Buffini at the helm.

Perhaps only women could explore female relationships with such depth and honesty. Mothers, daughters, friends, enemies. There is love and pure hatred, humour and horror.

In Handmaid’s, women struggled for power of any sort, handmaid or wife, here in Harlots the women have power, literally in some cases in the palm of their hand. Sex is a transaction. When one of the girls falls in love, she tells her lover as they fall into bed, that she doesn’t know how to do it for real, without faking it, the only time in the series where she has submitted and relinquished her power.

I can’t wait to see how the series unfolds, how the rivalries are settled, how the men are seduced. So if you’ll excuse me, season two calls, and so too my entry in the list.