The sex trade plays an active role in
promoting alcohol and drug problems. Pimps also use prostituted
women in forgery and credit card fraud. The community must
pay for chemical dependency treatment, insurance costs and
incarceration.
In addition to these costs, the community loses the contributions which
might have been made to legitimate community productivity by those used
up in the sex industry.
The operators of sex businesses not only do not pay for these expenses,
many manage to avoid paying taxes at all.
THE JOHNS
No business can afford to create a product for which there are no buyers.
The first step in understanding the sex industry is to understand the customers,
the johns.
Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults
of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well,
and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal,
sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to
ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made
to do almost anything.
The business of prostitution and pornography is the use of real human beings
to support the fantasies of others. Anyone working in prostitution who
tells a john too much about who they really are, interferes with the fantasy.
They risk losing a customer, and may get a beating as well. In real relationships
with real people, you are stuck with the limitations of who you are, who
your partner is, and what you can do together without hurting each other.
Some people do not want real relationships, or feel entitled to something
beyond the real relationships they have. They want to play "super
stud and sex slave" or whatever, inside their own heads. If they need
to support their fantasies with pictures, video tapes, or real people to
abuse, the sex trade is ready to supply them. For a price, they can be "a
legend in their own minds."
The most common type of prostitution customer is the user. He is quite
self-centered, and simply wants what he considers to be his needs met.
The user would deny any intent to harm anyone, and might even claim some
empathy for the sex workers he uses. However, his empathy does not extend
to discontinuing his using behavior, nor to helping anyone escape from
the sex industry. He does not care whether the person he is using is unwilling
or unusually vulnerable. He simply feels entitled to whatever he wants,
whenever he wants it. If someone is hurt, that is not his problem.
He sees himself as a respectable person, and works to protect that appearance.
Users provide a large, safe, and steady income for the pimps and other "businessmen," of
the sex industry.
Sadists are people who have the ability to take pleasure in another person's
fear, pain, or humiliation. They constitute about ten percent of the population.
Sadists vary in severity, ranging from those who just make you feel bad,
on up to those who do torture murders. There is a definite practice effect.
If allowed to hurt people often, their sadism gets worse.
Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by sadists drives their child victims
into the street, trying to escape. The pimps and "chickenhawks" take
it from there.
Sadists are attracted to prostituted women and children because they are
willing to get into a car or come to a place where the sadist can be in
control. Sadism is about control. Hurting people who cannot stop them is
their most intense and pleasurable form of control.
Sadists play close attention to matters of power. They are most brutal
with small women and children, and are more careful with larger women and
men. They avoid people who may have someone to protect them, or someone
who may take revenge on the victim's behalf.
There are pimps who specialize in supplying victims to sadists, and who
base their fees on the amount of damage done to the victim.
Sadists are found at all levels of society, including the respected and
powerful. They often use this, saying, "You are just a whore, nobody
is going to believe you." If they do kill someone, they are very aware
that, to some extent, the effort society puts into finding the killer will
reflect the value placed on the victim. People working in prostitution
are safe victims.
Necrophiles are people who can take pleasure in filth, degradation, and
destruction. They are the users of the sick, the old, the psychotic, the
brain damaged, the "tracked" and tattooed casualties of the sex
industry, in the end stages of their lives. For necrophiles, broken bodies
and broken minds are a turn on. They glory in their superiority over ruined
human beings, and feel entitled to express their contempt in every way.
Necrophiles must keep their perversion secret from their friends and families,
both to protect their social standing, and to protect their fantasies of
superiority. Normal people just would not understand.
Child molesters participate in the sex industry in several ways. Some have
been aware of a sexual attraction to children, often of a particular age
and sex, from some time in late childhood. They then make the choice to
act on it.
Some have sadistic characteristics. Children are easier than adults to
control. The molester’s own children, in his own home, are the easiest
of all to control.
Necrophilic child molesters enjoy the knowledge that, when the molesters
are finished with them, the children's lives will never be the same. They
enjoy the fact that the children may later self-destruct in addiction,
prostitution or suicide. It proves that they were right.
Sex offenders against children operate with varying degrees of sophistication.
Some do careful "grooming." They use pornography to break down
resistance, and supply drugs, alcohol, and money. Others just start out
with forcible rape. Many claim unusual "love" for children. They
claim that sex between adults and children is not harmful, and should be
legalized. Pedophiles actually teach children that they are helpless, hopeless,
worthless, and only good for sex and hurting.
A large portion of workers in the sex trade started out as sexually abused
children. Some were even "broken in" by being shared with or
rented out to others by their own families.
There are specialist pimps who provide children to johns. The fees vary
depending on the age, sex and appearance of the child, as well as the amount
of damage the child has already incurred.
When caught, the pimps and johns claim not to have known the child's real
age. There is a market for small adults made up to look like children,
both for direct sex and for pornography. But the truth is in the fees:
real children sell for more than fake ones.
THE PIMPS
No one really wants to have sex with five, ten, or twenty strangers a day,
every day. Besides the sheer numbers involved, some of those strangers
are going to use a person in ways that are bizarre, painful or disgusting,
and occasionally fatal.
When people who have worked in prostitution call it repeated rape, they
are not exaggerating or being "hysterical." They are being legally
precise. Rape is sexual intercourse, against the will of the victim, carried
out by threat or force.
In prostitution, the john performs the sex act with the unwilling victim,
but subcontracts the intimidation and violence to another man, the pimp.
The john would like to believe he is paying for sex, but the person he
has sex with gets little or none of the money. The money goes to the pimp
to pay for the force needed to keep prostituted women and children working.
It goes to the drug dealer who provides whatever it takes to keep the workers
from becoming psychotic or committing suicide. It goes to pay the businessmen
who provide the real estate, support services, and legal protection for
the trade.
Pimps come in three general types. Media pimping, like other kinds, involves
selling fantasies that ultimately hurt people. Two of their central lies
are that women are only good for sex, and men are only good for violence.
They claim that they produce sex and violence because that is all that
sells. In fact, many other things sell as well or better. (For example,
Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg productions often are very successful.)
Media pimps often have a tremendous sense of superiority over "common" people,
yet lack the intelligence and creativity to high quality work. They truly
enjoy selling a degraded view of the human race.
Advertisers often implicitly promise that buying their products will bring
happiness, power, and sexual success. After spending their money, the victims
of this "bait and switch" scam find that they get only a pack
of cigarettes, a bottle of shampoo, or a magazine full of dirty pictures.
They are just as lonely and unhappy as before, but their money is gone.
Media pimps perform another "bait and switch" function, in cooperation
with business level pimps. They attract young people hoping for fame and
fortune in the legitimate entertainment business, and manipulate them into
the lower levels of the sex industry.
They degrade ordinary people living ordinary lives, by showing only idealized
characters with perfect bodies, high powered jobs, and plenty of money.
The characters’ problems are always solved in an hour or two, with
a liberal application of sex and violence.
Real people, whose lives cannot hope to measure up to these "ideals",
are made to feel inferior and worthless. The media pimps work to divert
people from the ups and downs of real life, into dependence on the fantasy
worlds that they sell. The sex industry, above all, sells fantasy regardless
of who gets hurt.
The media pimps have a lot of money. They own magazines and newspapers,
and produce movies and television programs. They can afford to hire law
firms and advertising agencies to further their interests. Their money
can buy access to political officials, and special treatment for their
businesses. In return they offer favorable media exposure, and large campaign
contributions.
Their money often goes to support various front organizations which work
to direct public discussion toward "free speech rights," and
away from the damaging effects of the sex industry on the women and children
used in it.
Business level pimps extract profits from the sex industry in ways that
minimize the risk of public exposure or criminal prosecution.
They own the bars and strip clubs which attract concentrations of potential
johns. They offer jobs as dancers and hostesses to vulnerable young people
who are potential candidates for more direct use in the sex trade. They
own the adult book stores, massage parlors, motels, and legal brothels.
They posture as legitimate businessmen, conceal their ownership behind
corporations and front men, and deny knowing that their property is being
used in the sex industry. They charge sex businesses far higher rents and
fees than they could get from legitimate tenants, which indicates that
they know what the businesses are doing.
Through contacts in the business community, they arrange for sexual services
for visiting businessmen, politicians, celebrities, and sports teams. By
keeping these arrangements secret, business pimps insure a degree of protection
for their other activities from their customers in high places.
Business level pimps separate themselves from the "dirty workers" of
the sex trade by treating them as independent contractors rather than employees.
This enables them to avoid having to pay taxes, overtime pay, health insurance,
and workmen's comp. If one of the workers is arrested, the businessman
is protected from any legal involvement. They subcontract any violence
needed to the street level pimps.
With support from elements of the "legitimate" entertainment
industry, as well as street level pimps, they produce and distribute commercial
pornography.
They support and have the support of "civil liberties" advocates,
who oppose censorship regardless of the harm done to the people used in
making the pornography. They disclaim any responsibility for the actions
of potentially violent sex offenders who use pornography to "fuel" their
fantasies until they are ready to commit actual violence.
Business pimps often join civic organizations, make highly public contributions
to charity, and play a role in local politics. They continually assert
their identity as legitimate businessmen. When threatened, they call on
the support of the real, legitimate, non-sex business community, often
successfully.
Unlike street level pimps, the businessmen usually manage to hold onto
their profits. They have investment skills, can afford lawyers, seldom
are addicted, and rarely take the risks involved in garden variety crime.
Often the greatest danger they face is from the Internal Revenue Service,
not from the police.
Street level pimps are the foot soldiers of the sex industry. Typically,
they are small time criminals, who have a high need for sadistic gratification.
The johns and business level pimps subcontract to these men the brain-washing,
terror, beatings, and the occasional murder needed to keep prostituted
women and children working.
Pimps are part of the business even where prostitution is legal. Brothels
do not run employment ads. The brothel owners require that any new "employee" be "referred" by
someone ready to supply whatever force is necessary to control the woman.
Street pimps learn the business from friends and relatives already in the
business, from other criminals in jails and prisons, and from other pimps
they meet hanging out in the bars and clubs. Occasionally, someone especially
talented in greed and cruelty learns the trade solely by practicing on
available victims.
Pimps tend to avoid identifying themselves as such, except to other pimps.
They like to present themselves as husbands, boyfriends, or protectors.
When caught in acts of violence, they try to prevent outside interference
by claiming that it is "only a domestic matter." In fact, the
pimps themselves are the greatest danger to those they exploit. The johns
and the police are lesser hazards.
Street pimps pride themselves on controlling their victims by psychological
manipulation. They claim that prostituted women and children give their
money to the pimps because they "love" them. (In criminal language, "She
loves me" means "I can control her.") Street pimps try to
play down their use of threats and violence, despite the fact that it is
their biggest contribution to the sex industry.
Throughout human history there has been the kind of greed that takes the
form of wanting to own other human beings. Slavery died out in most areas
because it was unprofitable compared to more modern methods of production.
The one trade where the would-be slaver can still find success is in the
sex industry. For many pimps, the gratification of owning slaves is as
important as the drugs and the money.
Contrary to the images in the media, most pimps exploit members of their
own race. Many are nearly the same age as their victims.
Most pimps are male. Women are sometimes involved in helping a male pimp
to control his "stable," or act as madams in brothels owned by
someone else. Some run "escort" or out-call services themselves,
but maintain relationships through which they can call on male enforcers
when needed.
Occasionally women are involved in supplying their own children to pedophiles,
pornographers, or others in the sex industry. The mother's own addiction
is the usual cause. Plain greed for money, and the mother's own sexual
perversity are less common motivations.
Street level pimps usually spend their money on clothes, jewelry, cars,
and especially on their own addictions. They often are involved in other
types of crime, especially drug dealing, and may go to prison for those.
Successful prosecution for pimping itself is quite unusual.
It is rare for a street pimp to hold onto his money and make the transition
to a business level operator, but there always are a few at the business
level who got their start as street pimps.
WHERE THE WORKERS COME FROM
The sex industry ultimately is about power. This is best demonstrated by
the care which the industry takes to ensure that those it uses are powerless.
The predators are neither irrational nor stupid. They watch carefully for
a kind of "victim profile," and avoid anyone who may be uncontrollable
or dangerous.
They focus on young people coming out of families that are abusive, disorganized,
or non-existent. One fundamental function of the family is protection of
its members, especially its children. The family also is a team, and all
players must do their jobs. If a member is lost or disabled, others in
the extended family or community must step in to carry on. When one or
more adults in a family are absent, addicted, mentally ill, or severely
demoralized, the children are in danger.
When the family is poor, or part of a devalued minority group, and opportunities
for education and good jobs are limited, some members of those families
may be willing to take risks. If the young people are being terrorized,
beaten, or sexually abused by the very people who should be protecting
them, many are going to take their chances on the street. For some, nude
dancing or even prostitution may look better than no job at all.
If they are underage, have no address, or cannot afford to have their parents
involved, most social service agencies will not help them. Children are
still treated as some adults' property.
The juvenile system has little interest in noncriminal runaways or "throw-aways." There
are age requirements for normal jobs, usually between 14 and 18 years of
age. The very young are practically forced into the sex industry, even
before the pimps and johns get involved. They may have to do prostitution
from age 12 or 14, until they turn 18, and can get a "better job" such
a nude dancing.
There are three general patterns for "breaking" someone into
prostitution.
In slave taking, a young male predator "befriends" a victim long
enough to be sure she is not dangerous herself, nor protected by anyone
who is. He manipulates her into a situation where she can be kidnapped
and held in isolation in a place the slaver and his friends control. Over
a prolonged period, she is terrorized, tortured, and gang raped. She is
threatened with her own death, and that of anyone she loves.
Once she is convinced that her only chance of survival is to do exactly
as she is told, she is "turned out." Her first "trick" may
in fact be a member of the prostitution organization, set up to make sure
she performs as directed. After she has been properly "seasoned," she
is put to work for her captors, or sold to another pimp.
The domestic violence transition targets young people coming out of abusive
homes who are emotionally needy, and have no real idea of what a normal
love relationship looks like. They become involved with a "boyfriend" who
initially treats them better than they have ever experienced before. The
boyfriend gradually becomes extremely controlling, and eventually violent.
He introduces commercial sex in terms of his pressing need for money, and "If
you love me, you will do this." He quickly transitions from "just
this once" into "You are just a whore, my whore!" and requiring
daily prostitution. He continues controlling the victim with alternating
emotional manipulation and explosive violence, while living on her earnings,
for as long as she lasts.
The "grooming" process is used by older and more sophisticated
predators, and is especially used on younger children. These perpetrators
become adept at identifying abused, neglected, and depressed children,
and "befriending" them. They develop a "special" relationship,
one that isolates the child from others, and makes the child feel indebted
to the groomer.
Slowly, resistance is broken down, using gifts, money, alcohol, drugs,
and pornography. In the sex industry, pornography is not only a profitable
product, it also is a working tool.
They engage the child in progressively more direct sex, and begin to merge
the abuse into the child’s identity: "You want this", "You
like this", "You make it happen", "Now you are dirty,
perverted, queer". These predators often are only interested in children
of a specific age or appearance. When they develop beyond that, the kids
may be passed off to pedophiles interested in older children. Being suddenly "dumped" for
no understandable reason often is very painful for the child.
Over a lifetime these predators may victimize an incredibly large number
of children. The emotional damage they do leaves a child even more isolated
and vulnerable to further involvement in the sex industry.
GENDER DIFFERENCES
The experience of prostitution is remarkably similar for males and females,
but there are some differences.
Most young men used in prostitution are heterosexual. They are drawn into
the sex industry by many of the same forces as are women. Many johns consider
themselves straight, and claim that only the prostituted young male is
gay. Those used in male-on-male prostitution often are left with tremendous
confusion about their actual sexual orientation. When trying to escape "the
life", they may encounter all the prejudices encountered by gays,
in addition to the stigma of prostitution.
Rape and sexual slavery are common in jails and prisons. There is considerable
public support for it as a normal part of the punishment. Some of those
who run institutions do their best to maintain a safe and controlled environment.
They may be hampered by outdated, hard to supervise buildings and lack
of staff. Others may care very little about what inmates do to each other.
Inmates who go to staff for protection often end up in protective custody
which is practically the same as disciplinary isolation. The response of
convicts toward "snitches" ranges from abusive to deadly.
Almost all of these traumatized men eventually are released. Many dissolve
into alcohol and drug dependence, or are disabled by psychological symptoms.
Others wander the streets, intoxicated, armed, and ready to react explosively
to any threat of harm or humiliation.
Women used in prostitution usually have children sooner or later. Mothers
who cannot protect themselves rarely can protect their children. In the
endless whirl of sex, drugs and violence, the children may be neglected,
traumatized, or even become merchandise in the sex industry themselves.
One of the most painful events in the life of prostitution is losing custody
of children, regardless of how good the reasons for that loss may be.
Most prostituted women want very much to be good mothers, often trying
to give their children the love and care they never received themselves.
The birth of a "trick baby", that is, one fathered by some unknown
john, produces very complicated feelings. Some mothers can separate their
feeling for the baby from the anger at the way the baby was conceived,
but others cannot. Some "trick babies" are given up for adoption
by mothers who fear that they otherwise might abuse them.
If the baby was fathered by a pimp, or is at least claimed to be in official
records, the courts may fail to recognize, or ignore, the real nature of
the relationship. The pimp may be given visitation rights or even custody.
This gives the pimp a new person to threaten and a new means of controlling
the mother. It makes escaping from the sex industry even harder than it
already is.
Both male and female survivors of prostitution usually develop a tremendous
hatred of men, especially those in authority. They hate both for the actual
harm done, and for the help that was not given when it was terribly needed.
SOCIETY’S ROLE
The larger society provides the pimps with a very powerful weapon. It makes
prostitution an identity, not an occupation. Once you have taken money
for sex, you are a prostitute. Society does not allow an expiration date
on that identity, nor a way to be publicly accepted as something else.
Society offers help to people in trouble largely based on the value set
on that person. It is much easier to get help for a married, middle class,
domestic violence victim, than for a refugee from the sex industry trying
to escape from a pimp.
Many people prefer to view prostitution as a "lifestyle choice," or
even an "addiction" to a lifestyle. They think most people in
the sex industry are there to support their drug habits, when actually
the drugs are used to cope with what is happening to their lives. Society
assumes that nothing can be done to help them, so there is no need to try.
The pimps count on it.
Being trapped, under the control of violent and merciless men, without
hope of outside help, sets the stage for Stockholm Syndrome. When the victim
cannot successfully fight or flee, she may try to form a protective relationship
with her captor. She hopes that if she can prove her love and loyalty to
the pimp, she can "love" him into being good. This can become
such a desperate attachment that she actually believes she loves him, and
passes up chances to escape. Stockholm Syndrome often is the real reason
for what others see as the "choice" to stay in the sex industry.
Prostitution and the drug trade go hand in hand. Customers for sex often
are buyers for drugs also. Many pimps are supporting their own habits,
and dealing drugs as well.
The pimps consider drugs and alcohol a cost of doing business. Without
the chemicals, their "livestock" may become psychotic or commit
suicide. In addition to the brainwashing and violence, addiction provides
a form of control. Drugs also produce isolation from people who otherwise
might try to protect a victim or help her escape. The only creature less
worthy of help than a prostitute, is an addicted prostitute.
The health effects of prostitution are devastating. Prostitution, especially
in childhood, is at least as effective as war in producing post-traumatic
stress disorder. Survivors usually have some combination of depression,
anxiety, and dissociative disorders. Brain damage, psychosis, and suicide
are common. Long term psychiatric disability, serious medical illness,
and the effects of accumulating injuries shorten lives.
CONCLUSION
People who have had luckier lives, as well as those who profit from the
sex industry in some way, frequently refer to prostitution and pornography
as "victim-less crimes". They point to a tiny fraction of sex
workers who actually might be involved by choice. They selectively read
history to find some tiny minority, somewhere, at some time, who gained
something in the sex business.
The very selectiveness of their attention indicates that, on some level,
they know that for almost everyone, involvement in the sex industry is
a terrible misfortune.
As many an old cop will say, "Anyone who thinks prostitution is a
victimless crime, hasn’t seen it up close."
Copyright 08/04/98 by Joe Parker, RN
"It
takes a village to create a prostitute."
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