By Joseph Parker, Clinical Director
The Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation - Feb. 26, 2004
INTRODUCTION
Prostitution, pornography, and other forms of commercial
sex are a multibillion dollar industry. They enrich a small minority of
predators, while the larger community is left to pay for the damage.
People used in the sex industry often need medical
care as a result of the ever-present violence. They may need treatment for
infectious diseases, including AIDS. Survivors frequently need mental health
care for post-traumatic stress disorder, psychotic episodes and suicide attempts.
About a third end up chronically disabled and on Social Security.
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, videotapes, 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 feels that the fee he pays covers any damages.
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 from their homes 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.
Prostitution buffs are like police and fire
buffs, that is, people with an intense interest in those occupations even
though they do not belong to them.
Prostitution buffs are people with a morbid fascination
for or obsession with prostituted persons and their activities. Some characterize
themselves as "researchers", and amass hundreds of pages of notes and
photographs, that somehow are seldom published.
Others claim to be intent on religious redemption of
"sinners", and spend huge amounts of time in vice areas, but never quite
manage to offer anyone practical help.
A third group consists of "community livability" activists,
who blame the people being prostituted for the behavior of the johns, pimps,
and drug dealers.
As with any obsession, with some people it may get
out of control. Police buffs may take unlawful police action, and some fire
buffs eventually set fires.
Each type of prostitution buff strongly believes his
or her rationalizations for their activities, and would vehemently deny any
personal sexual interest. The trouble is, it is obviously there. They show
a lot of subtle signs, which, to someone working in prostitution, indicate
that they may be potential customers.
When a prostituted person approaches the buff to offer
their services, the response may be unpredictable and dangerous. Sometimes
the buffs will accept their services, and the worker may never realize that
they are anything but a normal trick. At other times, they will be met with
rage, as if they are making a hetero- or homosexual attack on the buff. They
may be beaten, knifed, or thrown out of a moving vehicle.
Most of the "research" and "religious" buffs are men,
and spend enough time studying their subject that their identifications of
who is and is not prostituting are fairly accurate.
Many of the "community livability" activists are women.
Some may pepper spray or draw weapons on young people who are in no way involved,
but who fit whatever stereotype the activist has for what a prostitute should
look like.
CUSTOMER STREAMS
Three forces generate streams of customers for
prostitution: Isolation, sexual abandonment, and unusual interests. Prostituted
people are used to service populations which are physically isolated from
the life of their communities. These customers come from military bases,
logging or mining camps, and from farm labor camps. Operators of these facilities
are often involved in arranging for services through local pimps.
Other customers are isolated by travel, such as seamen,
truckers, and traveling businessmen. Hotels and motels, bars and other businesses
providing support services for travelers also participate in arrangements
for sexual services.
In some religious cultures, and some individual family
cultures, sex is regarded as an unpleasant duty of marriage, and once the
childbearing years are over, one partner may cut the other off from sexual
activity. The sex industry does not reach out to middle-aged women, so their
only choice is to have affairs. This may be morally unacceptable to them,
or eligible partners may not be available. For them, there may be no
solution.
For men, prostitution is quite available, and many
men may see it as less wrong than having affairs, or as requiring less effort.
These men provide a large and steady income for the sex industry.
Most of these johns would be classified as "users",
and an unclear proportion of them might not be prostitution customers if
they were not isolated.
Customers who remain in or near their home communities
are more likely to use prostituted people due to unusual interests, such
as sadism, pedophilia, or sexual addiction. They are isolated by the nature
of their desires, rather than their location. For example, men who prefer
sex with boys, but who do not view themselves as homosexual, support a whole
segment of the industry involving prostituted males. It is unclear whether
local law enforcement efforts, or the openness and aggressiveness with which
with the sex industry is allowed to operate in a community, affects the stream
of "special interest" customers.
A large portion of prostituted people are also used
in and around the communities where they grew up. The fact that survivors
often meet previous tricks in local grocery stores and other random places
can be a considerable problem for their recovery.
For those whose special interests place them at serious
legal risk in their own community, there is sex tourism. Some cities in the
US are well known to run more 'wide open' than others, that is, there are
fewer and weaker laws on the books, and police and other officials are
discouraged from enforcing them. These conditions are often the result of
cooperation between business and elected officials, who are repaid by the
sex industry in various ways.
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,
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 do high quality
work. They very much 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 bookstores, 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
indicate 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 brainwashing, 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 their finesse, 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 becoming more and more
involved as active operators in the sex industry. Some are 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 perversities 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 with 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 under age, 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 "throwaways." 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 as 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 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. They are at higher risk
of HIV than prostituted women.
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. Thismis 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."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Herman, Judith Lewis. (1992). Trauma and
Recovery. New York: Basic Books.
-
Jarranson, James M. and Michael K. Popkin.
(Eds). (1998). Caring for Victims of Torture. Washington, D.C.: American
Psychiatric Press.