One girl's story: Pimp bought me for $400

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/935552,CST-NWS-prost07.article

PROSTITUTION STUDY | Many lured to the life by food, shelter and drugs

May 7, 2008

BY ANNIE SWEENEY Crime Reporter/[e-mail]

At 15, her mother put her out because she was too much of a reminder of her father.

First, she slept in hallways but eventually a couple of drug dealers offered her a place in exchange for sex.

Then, a woman paid the dealers $400 for her. Soon after, the teen had new clothes and was dining out. She also was prostituting for the woman at a hotel room near Midway Airport -- first taking about eight clients a day and later 15.

That anecdote is one of many collected by Chicago researchers who interviewed Chicago prostitutes controlled by pimps.

It highlights what their work found: Chicago prostitutes sometimes are recruited into the life with the promise of nothing more than food and shelter or to support a drug habit. Money is sometimes withheld or stolen.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. And I assume the drug habit is fostered by the pimp to keep them dependent

I have nothing against prostitution if all parties are freely willing and of legal age, but the pimps are the laziest blood-sucking SOBs that exist. I don't know if legalization is the answer.

[TheWraith]

10. Some times it is, other times it just happens as a result of living in that street culture.

A coping mechanism for living in a fairly hopeless position. Or the person becomes uncontrollably addicted and turns to prostitution to pay for the habit.

[jmowreader]

22. Legalization could eliminate the pimps

Pimps are good for two things: buying off the cops so their stables don't get arrested in the first place, and paying fines and so on if they do. Otherwise, prostitutes would be better off without them.

If you make prostitution legal, so the girls don't have to worry about the city running one of those fundraising drives they like to call "prostitution stings," the need for pimps disappears.

[Bunny]

2. Now wait just a minute...As good progressives we are supposed to embrace

these life choices, and be delighted if our mothers, sisters, and daughters choose this lovely career. I mean, come on. What's the problem with sucking off 10-15 nasty-ass men in one night? No biggie, right?

:sarcasm:

The only mitigating factor here is that the lady was a child when she started doing this, and had little choice while on the streets. So let's give a big round of applause to her mother, who threw her out and left her to fend for herself. Way to go, mom! :eyes: Sickening.

[Bucky]

3. You took the sarcasm right out of my mouth

Prostitution exists because gender inequality and deprivation and desperation and crappy social attitudes exist. Relatively few posters on DU actually defend prostitution as a "liberating" profession or merely an extension of women exercising their power and social career choices. They seem to be the squeaky wheels here, but people who ignore the abuse at the center of street life don't represent this site or this party.

[Bunny]

4. I used to think that about DU, but we had a thread about this last week that stunned me.

I just tried to find it, but advanced search is down.

According to a lot of people here, this is an empowering choice that women make, and who are we to want better for our female relatives?

[NNN0LHI]

5. I thought some of those posters you mentioned would comment on this thread

They must not have seen it?

Don

[Scout]

6. oh I bet they've seen it....

:eyes:

Thanks to the OP!

[TheWraith]

9. Problem is you're starting out from a false assumption.

Specifically, that this sort of exploitation accurately represents all forms of prostitution, everywhere. It represents certain forms of illegal prostitution. I suggest you ask the women who work in the legal brothels in Nevada whether they feel exploited being able to pick and choose their clients, and still make over $100k per year.

The equivalent attitude would be to assume that Al Capone and his gang represented the only way that alcohol could be produced and distributed in America. In any situation where you criminalize something, only criminals are going to be in control of it.

[struggle4progress]

15. 'It's like you sign a contract to be raped' (Guardian September 2007)

Julie Bindel
The Guardian,
Friday September 7 2007

... During a two-year investigation, the author, Melissa Farley, visited eight legal brothels in Nevada, interviewing 45 women and a number of brothel owners. Far from enjoying better conditions than those who work illegally, the prostitutes she spoke to are often subject to slave-like conditions ...

... The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave.

"The physical appearance of these buildings is shocking," says Farley. "They look like wide trailers with barbed wire around them - little jails." The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women told her that they had experienced violent and sexual abuse from the customers and pimps.

"I saw a grated iron door in one brothel," says Farley. "The women's food was shoved through the door's steel bars between the kitchen and the brothel area. One pimp starved a woman he considered too fat. She made a friend outside the brothel who would throw food over the fence for her." Another pimp told Farley matter-of-factly that many of the women working for him had histories of sexual abuse and mental ill-health. "Most," he said, "have been sexually abused as kids. Some are bipolar, some are schizophrenic" ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/07/usa.gender

[Fumesucker]

16. Perhaps we should make prostitution illegal?

That would solve all the problems, no doubt.

It has worked so well with "drugs"..

[struggle4progress]

17. Why not read the post to which I responded and the link I posted in response?

My post was in response to specific claims made by a previous poster about the nature of legal prostitution in Nevada

[Dorian Gray]

25. It's already illegal.

[Fumesucker]

29. Not everywhere

And that is obviously the problem..

Once we have made prostitution universally illegal, all the problems associated with legalized prostitution will be gone.

Just like with drugs, make them illegal and all the problems with legal drugs go away.

It's really very simple.

[The Doctor.]

7. Sick.

That mother should be shot. Most women and girls that find themselves in that postition have nowhere else to turn. It just so happens that demand for sex is so overwhelming, that the door to that life is always open and too easy to walk through.

Until we can undo several million years of evolution, the only reasonable approach I can think of is legalization and regulation.

[Fumesucker]

8. Most women and girls that find themselves in that postition have nowhere else to turn.

Just wondering.. What do men and boys who find themselves in that position turn to?

The market for male prostitutes is far smaller than that for females..

[rusty quoin]

11. That recent thing that happened down in Texas...

that church that still did polygamy, well they dropped their teenage boys off in cities, because the old guys didn't like competition. The boys didn't know how to survive in the real world, and would many times end up in prostitution. At least this is what Roseanne Barr said when she was a guest host on AAR.

[Fumesucker]

12. How does a fifteen year old of either sex

"Survive in the real world"?

I'm kind of familiar with the issue of survival because my younger brother was sixteen when our parents died and I took care of him for two years illegally to keep him from going to foster care.

Our parents were immigrants and we had no other family in the States to turn to.

America can be a very hard place if you are young and unwanted.

[rusty quoin]

13. Truer words cannot be said.

[Juche]

14. Crime

Robberies, drug dealing, things like that.

[The Doctor.]

19. That's pretty much the point. They certainly can turn to prostitution,

but they have a smaller, scummier (hard to believe) segment of the 'market'.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the 'market' is heterosexually wired males and pedophiles.

Many men and boys wind up resorting to crime as an expedient means to survival.

[intaglio]

20. Don't you believe it

The market in male prostitutes is big and silent.

Coercing anyone into sexual activity should be classed as rape and treated as such. There are also those (probably a minority) who decide to earn money by selling their bodies for sexual use; if such people are over 21 they should not be harrassed by the police or pimps.

[Bandit]

27. You think you have to coerce teen age boys into sex?

Strange things are heard in this land Amerika...

[seabeyond]

31. most of these boys

are not gay. they do not lean towards male. they get cash and let males use their bodies. fucked in a manner they may not be oriented to. go down on a dick. it is not about them getting off. it is not about them having sex. it is not about meeting their wants or desires. it is about letting a man use their body to get off to get money so they can eat

the delusion males go around envisioning of interacting, both getting off and sexually gratified, of equal opportunity scenerio when viewing prostitution is amazing. these are bodies used. someone pays to get off. not get the prostitute off. the prostitute doesnt matter.

[The Doctor.]

32. Yes, it is large, but still nowhere near the scope of female prostitution.

[MrSlayer]

18. "At 15, her mother put her out because she was too much of a reminder of her father."

That is the problem and the cause in this case and many others. What else can a girl on the streets do, what other skills does she have? It's tragic to throw your kid away like that and leave them at the mercy of the predators.

[seabeyond]

21. damn good thing no worse than mcdonalds or financial advisor....

and she is making love with some gorgeous richard gere and life is a bowl of cherries.....

[gollygee]

23. 15 Richard Geres a day!

Lucky girl!!

:sarcasm:

[seabeyond]

24. lucky girl. you got it.

that is exactly what i am told.....

[lightningandsnow]

26. That's awful.

I know some people are using this to show how obviously all prostitution is bad; but, keep in mind, this girl was a child who was lured from her home.

A lot of people are coerced into sex work, and they certainly need a way out. But I don't think we should be painting all sex workers with the same broad brush.

That mother should be shot. What a piece of work.

On edit: I never once said sex work was "empowering". Just that it's something some people choose to do (and choose is the operative word here), and if they have indeed chosen to do it (they're a consenting adult who does it without coercion), they should be left alone, unless they want to leave the sex industry. If they don't, people should mind their own business.

[Lars39]

28. She wasn't lured, her mother kicked her out.

[lightningandsnow]

30. Even worse.

Sorry for reading it wrong. The sentiment is the same though; she was underage, kicked out of her home, and coerced into prostitution.

Which is totally different than an adult woman choosing to do sex work.

[JanMichael]

33. No no no! Prostitution is a right! It's good old fun.

Everyone that does it wants to be exploited sexually for a few buck. It's free will, that's real freedom. It a legit JOB, like another JOB.

...Fucking idiot assholes believe the above.

This is a slow path to...