I'm not really sure what she's attempting with her PhD. The notion that there's anything new about sex workers being religious is naive at best. The fact that some of them incorporate their religion into their sex work to make money, well that's just looking at another kink and a specific way for the women using it to make more money.
She states that all the women she spoke to were consenting sex workers, blah and then says that she was a bit worried about Lilly:
"Lilly told me that sex work provides her with greater opportunities to earn more compared to other jobs available to her. I did feel concerned that Lilly, at times, was made to feel scared by her clients. But it was also clear to me that, for Lilly, these negative experiences do not outweigh the positive benefits she says she gains from being an escort."
The benefit Lilly gains from being a sex worker is that it's the only way she can earn enough money to live. She recites prayers in her head when she is scared of a client. That is the limit of the overlap of religion and sex work for her. That is tenuous at best.
The author is at best naive at worst so caught up in her own idea of what would make a great semi-woke PhD that her ignorance borders on wilful. Actually, what am I talking about with semi-woke? I forgot the trans Norse pagan mostly because my eyes rolled far back in my head when I read it so fucking woeful was it. At no point is there any consideration that sex work is inherently dangerous and not something to speak about so bloody blithely.