A report from the Urban
Institute this week looks
at the scale and scope of the “underground commercial sex
economy” in the United States. The researchers interviewed
people from many facets of the commercial sex industry—including
pimps, streetwalkers, high-end escorts, massage parlor staff,
brothel owners, law enforcement officials, and public defenders—in
eight cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle,
San Diego, and Washington, D.C.
It’s some fascinating stuff once you get to the actual quotes
and interviews with sex workers, but it is long (348
pages). I went through and pulled out some of the
findings that seemed most interesting. Particularly notable for our
purposes is that the report includes evidence that a) police have
gotten more aggressive at targeting sex workers for arrest since
the 1970s and 1980s, and b) many of the problems sex workers face
could be ameliorated if the commercial sex industry wasn’t
driven underground.
1. The sex economy is shrinking. Between
2003 and 2007, the size of the commercial sex economy decreased in
five of the eight cities studied. The overall worth of the
commercial sex economy in these cities is estimated to have been
between $39.9 and $290 million in 2007.
2. Brothels don’t employ underage
sex workers. Sex trafficking and pimping of minors
occurred primarily through street and Internet based prostitution
and rarely through brothels or massage parlors.
3. Gang involvement varies by city. In
Denver, San Diego, Seattle, and D.C., gangs had a notable
presence in sex trafficking and prostitution; no such connections
existed in Atlanta, Dallas, Kansas City, or Miami.
4. There’s no evidence of a link between sex work and
gun trafficking. The connection between prostitution
and/or sex trafficking and weapons trafficking was found to be
nonexistent.
5. Prices are fairly consistent across
cities. Sex work rates were “fairly consistent”
across cities, the report said; bigger determinants of prices than
geographic locations were the age, race, and ethnicity of the sex
worker. White women and girls were reportedly more expensive and
drug-addicted men and women least expensive.
6.Pimp demographics vary. Pimps were about 85
percent male, 12 percent female, and 3 percent transgender. The
majority (66 percent) were black, followed by Latino (9.6 percent),
white (8.2 percent), multi-racial (8.2 percent), and Asian (2.7
percent). Most had at least a high school education, while about 27
percent had completed some college, 5.5 percent were college
graduates, and 4.1 percent had attended a technical
school.
7. Pimps don’t like being called
pimps. Respondents said the word is too associated with
violence and excess in the public mind.
“Pimp is like the tooth fairy, from the old ’70s movies with big
hats and big ol’ chains. That’s not me,” one 27-year-old who
had been incarcerated for pimping said.
“A pimp keeps all the money and dishes it out. That hardly
happens anymore,” another said. Only 15 percent reported using
violence or force to control employees.
8. Pimps employ non sex workers,
too. A quarter of pimp respondents said they employed
people to fulfill business related tasks outside of sex work,
including drivers, secretaries, nannies, and marketers.
9. Sex worker* demographics. Of the
respondents, 33 percent identified as black, 17 percent as white,
11 percent as Latino, and 8 percent as multiracial. More than
three-quarters (78 percent) were cis-gender females, 19 percent
transgender females, and 3 percent were male.
10. Most sex workers have been arrested.
Fifty six percent had received a warrant, been arrested, or been
sentenced due to sex work related charges.
11. Police have gotten more aggressive, more
sting-happy. Longtime sex workers said police have gotten
more aggressive over time. In the 1970s, “it was cool,” one
48-year-old sex worker said. “The police didn’t really give you no
problems, as long as you’re not killing nobody, hurting
nobody, they don’t really care.”
Police crackdowns and undercover stings on street-based sex
workers picked up in the 1990s and 2000s, the report says.
“They’re everywhere” these days, one D.C. based sex worker
said.
12. Longtime, street based sex workers think it’s gotten
more dangerous, less convivial, less profitable. Sex
workers who conducted street based sex work in the 1970s
and 1980s described the conditions as much less competitive,
more lucrative, and not as dangerous as in later years. “Sex
workers looked out for one another, partied with one another, and
in some cases, considered each other family,” the report notes. A
46-year-old D.C. sex worker who had been in the business since 1982
said “compared to now, there were way more (on the streets) back
then. We all got along with each other. … We would all help each
other out. We would go to restaurants in the morning.”
13. Crack blamed for shift in street based sex work
conditions. The shift mentioned above coincided with the
spread of crack in the mid-1980s and 1990s, according to the
interviews with longtime sex workers. During that time period,
smoking crack “became almost a normative behavior in (sex
workers’) social circles,” the report says. Widespread crack use
coincided with more (and younger) women taking to the streets, more
competition between street based sex workers, and lower prices/less
profitability, according to those interviewed. In the 1970s and
1980s, street-based sex workers charged an average of $50 to $100
for oral sex and $60 to $300 for sex; in the 1990s and today, the
rates have dropped to between $5 and $150 for oral sex and $5 to
$250 for sex.
14. The Internet has been good and bad for sex
workers. The Internet era has expanded the pool of
potential clients, removed the need to hit the streets for some,
and made it easier not to get caught. Online prices are also higher
on average than street based prices, but also more unpredictable
and inconsistent.
15. Police and recession responsible for less street
clients. Many sex workers surveyed said it’s more
difficult now to find wealthy clients on the streets. The reasons
for this include tougher financial times as well as law enforcement
crackdowns on sex work.
* Though the term sex worker is used broadly to describe people
involved in a wide range of sex related activities (stripping,
webcam shows, adult modeling, etc.) it’s use here is solely to
refer to individuals involved in trading intercourse or other
direct sexual acts for money.
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