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Often, when we talk about prostitution, we talk about the women who sell sex and the men who buy it. But there's usually another person involved in the transaction: the pimp. Pimps facilitate prostitution, often taking all of the women's money in exchange for their protection.
Popular culture often depicts pimps as likable, even comical characters. They are known as kings of bling who drive flashy cars and dress to be seen. Their stereotype is proliferated through television shows like MTV's "Pimp My Ride." The 2006 Oscar win for Three 6 Mafia's song "It's Hard Out There for a Pimp," served to raise the popular profile of pimps even higher.
According to experts (pdf) and law enforcement officers, real-life pimps are violent criminals who often abuse women. Some compare pimps to modern slave traffickers. Others say pimps, not prostitutes, are the real criminals in the sex trade. State and local officials are working to change Oregon law to treat prostitutes as victims, rather than criminals.
Six bills in the Oregon Legislature aim to address sex trafficking in a way that punishes sex sellers and buyers and provides shelter and other services for prostitutes. Earlier this year, Multnomah County started a Sex Buyers Accountability and Diversion program — better know as "John School." And in Portland, Mayor Sam Adams's State of the City address reviewed collaborations between the city, county and nonprofit organizations aimed at combatting child sex trafficking. He said, "Because of our efforts, victims of human trafficking have a safe place to sleep tonight."
What role do pimps play in Oregon's sex trafficking trade? How does their depiction in popular culture affect law enforcement efforts to curb human trafficking? How has your family or community been affected by prostitution?
GUESTS:
- Ian Clanton: Probation and parole officer in the Multnomah County Department of Community Justice
- Jody Raphael: Senior research fellow and visiting professor at Schiller DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center at the DePaul University College of Law
- Julian Sher: Author of Somebody's Daughter and writer for the Globe and Mail
- Dan Saltzman: Portland City Commissioner
- Floyd Prozanski: Oregon State Senator (D-Eugene)
Tagged as: pimping · prostitution · sex workers
Photo credit: Taberandrew / Creative Commons
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For those not old enough to recall a very different America, I assume you think a dicussion topic like this is quite normal and even educational. I remember when prostitution was rare in the US and pimps considered the most odious of human beings.
And my years as a Marine located occasionally in sea coast cities gives me some background of knowledge concering what it was like in the 50s in respect to this activity.
Lets be truthful, for once, here. As presented by TV and the movies, the pimps appear mainly blacks. I submit pimping and whoring like dreadful language on TV and in movies along with the degradation of women have became common place, and seemingly acceptable hence the subject is treated by a public discussion forum. I also believe the growth of vulgarity in the entertainment industry and in music not mention the openly practiced pimping snd whoring are all the indirect result of integration.
I never ever heard woman routinely referred to as "ho's" and "bxxchs" in the media and in music and films until black behavior become somehow acceptable to a large segment of white Americans.
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perhaps you should follow your own advice to see if it works for you J.
if you have been trying, i gotta tell you, it hasn't worked yet, but i 'd urge you to keep tying
bad jokes and doggerel verse make only the wrong impression on me, whether you get it at the top of the page, in the middle or as the last word just before they close comments -
all it does is cement a certain idiocy in stone and i try not to over-participate in it -
unlike you, i try to use you good reasoning, but what i really feel you need is a good loud "SHUT UP ALREADY!", but even the dog doesn't understand that, so how could i expect you to
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What role do pimps play in Oregon's sex trafficking trade?
As a multi-racial person I have no direct experience with pimps or prostitution because it overly affects my racial group. I've observed prostitution activity along MLK boulevard but steer clear.
I grew up seeing "blacksploitation" movies Like Super Fly, Shaft and many others in which the lady's man, pimp, hustler was a hero. But I separated reality from entertainment and moved along. Sex trafficking creates suffering through thoughtlessness, depravity and self destruction.
Since people are going to engage in prostitution it should be legalized. Meanwhile sex trafficking needs to be stopped. Difficult situation to be sure. Prostitution isn't going away unless we get lucky and promote several more centuries of enlightenment. Good luck with that.
How does their depiction in popular culture affect law enforcement efforts to curb human trafficking in the state?
Media depictions of pimps and prostitution made it easier for law enforcement to profile stupid miscreants who decided to model their lives based on what they perceived via media. A Cadillac with the "pimp" personalized license plate makes a pretty good target for police.
Generally, the existence of pimps and prostitutes represent a middle finger to "civilized" society. The message is, "If I can't be accepted in this society as a fairly-treated and contributing member then I'm going to flaunt my contempt for you by getting paid while saying 'f-you'." In this sense, sex trafficking represents rebellion against a racist, elitist society that profits from supporting a permanent underclass. At least that's how some oppressed people view the situation.
What new laws and programs are helping stop sex traffickers?
Today I'm not aware of the new anti-sex-traffic laws. Seems like the job has gotten much harder now that sex traffickers use the Internet and more discretion. Prostitution on the street is not as obvious as it used to be.
Pornography, where women and men are "paid" for sexual performance, is not prosecuted as prostitution. Adult clubs, where sex traffic business can be conducted, thrive.
I've heard that johns' cars can be impounded and their crime reported publicly.
I'm most aware that female prostitutes are harassed most while they suffer the brunt of male exploitation. Law enforcement efforts against prostitution always seemed backward.
I caught a john and prostitute "conducting a business transaction" in his car in front of my house. I shined my flashlight in the car and made enough of a nuisance of myself that they pulled up their clothes and sped into the night. Three cheers for coitus interruptus! So gross to find exploited condoms in my yard. Fortunately that hasn't happened recently; prostitution has moved to someone elses' front yard.
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comedy central may have openings
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true G, there was no prostitution in the americas before the arrival of the european ancestors - since then it's been rampant upon the land in one form or another - don't limit artificially the word's meaning - most of us are prostitutes at work nowadays, willingly or not
- 'Pimp' is just another word for the capitalist ideal - middle management
people who develop self-worth (as opposed to self-importance) during childhood don't get drawn in to participate as procurer, item, or consumer
as usual, the real solution is not chasing the mice around, but making unavailable what they come in search of - an incomplete analogy, granted - so attack that, or think for yourself
PLEASE - no more song quotes, meaningless verse, and most of all, statistics meant to deceive (nor those which deceived you - how you'd know the diff.? that's up to you)
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"as usual, the real solution is not chasing the mice around, but making unavailable what they come in search of - an incomplete analogy, granted - so attack that, or think for yourself"
SOMEHOW WHEN I READ THAT I THOUGHT IT WAS SOMETHING CHARLIE SHEEN MIGHT SAY.
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oh deafened
but of course you have nothing intelligent to write (AGAIN) do you?
would you even know if you were bored with yourself?
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lolo >.. your screen name is so appropriate >. U MAKE ME LOL
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I have to admit that I have a very low regard for people who exploit humans as cheap-labor and a pimp sure has to be one of the lowest of those.
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If the noble blackman has become a pimp it is due to the suffering inflicted upon him by our European ancestors.
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you write this deafened, but from you it does not ring true
and of course you repeat what i wrote above, so you agree with me.
why does that make me wonder? i would expect you to take the more execrable opinions of gereng to heart -
please - no more false compliments from you, it's worse than your moaning and ALL CAPS
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I guess the most we can hope for, lolo, is for Dfund's keyboard to freeze up, so that he can't submit any more incoherent all-caps comments.
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for Defund,
I fully agree. All the vice and criminality and sociopathic behavior of blacks are the fault of white people. Four yrs working in Belize and 6 and a half yrs in black Africa (Liberia, Uganda and Somalia) where the black man's inherent nobility, humanity and intelligence were all clearly evident certainly convinced me that the problems they seem to have here are all the fault of white people.
That is evident in Africa. 100,000 aid workers, and fifty yrs of endeavor and about $500 billion in foreign aid is the reason Africa is still mosty a hell hole of violence and poverty and unimaginable cruelty.
In Haiti, white racism is also the reason why after about 200 yrs of independence that country is, well, still, Haiti. Everywhere black people live white racism has held them back and caused black people all their problems. I am so ashamed of being a white person I can't stand it. Excuse me while I stand in a corner and feel bad.
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@ g
clever is a word for your vocab - but cunning is more like what you try today
and to say you are too clever by half would over-compliment you grossly
i would like to believe what you write above, but your usage, and your usual posts belie what you really mean, and that makes what you write today unpalatable and scheming at best
speaking in code because what you really mean is so anti-social as to be criminal - you abuse free speech and make it cheap
barely human, why should you stand in a corner and pretend to feel bad? perfidy, anyone?
feel better now, spook?
belatedly i've come to realize i am not responding to those who have a real argument for one side or another, but rather am responding to trolls, plants, spooks, and the sort who would sign NDA's and brag about it as if that put them in an important profession rather than one which does things so bad for society that they must keep it closed up -
i will continue to occasionally point out your flaws in reason, and your lies, and while i will try to keep it civil from my end, i can wait for the fireworks you'll use - partly because that will demonstrate the paucity of your reasoning faculties, and show you as opinionated and not the holders of any reasoned opinion.
i would hope some others might also taunt you for your bigotries and deceptions. i am not against conservatives per se, but against liars, nut-cases, the ill- and mal-informed and really mean and evil folks, like what a few of you, G, D, and J, come immediately to mind, seem to present yourselves as -
it would seem you've given up the choice of being reasonable - and maybe that talent has become lost to you - do go out and try to find it, won't you?
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Lolo: You insult other commenters here rather than deal with the issue at hand. You attack the Messenger, not the Message.
I THINK YOU CROSS THE LINE OF CIVILITY WHEN YOU INSULT.
What does 'cleverness or cunning' have to do with Pimp Legislation? What are you reading in code? It speaks more about your paranoia. Why are you math phobic? Why are you closed-minded? Why insult Gereng, who has served American policy, Dept of State, and Government as a 'spook." What have you done for US Foreign Sevice? Why are you scheming? What is your AGENDA?
Please be civil. This is a Open Forum not an INSULT CAGE. Seek help.
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Lolo: Read Your Response....Now the Topic is Pimp Legislation.
WHAT DOES THIS RANT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?
WHY ARE YOU PAINTING THIS AS PARTISAN MEGA-APOCALYPSE?
WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR DEFFECT BESIDES PARANOIA? ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ALWAYS SO OBSCESSIVE, COMPULSIVE AND FIXED? CAN YOU MAINTAIN FOCUS ON A SIMPLE TASK LIKE THIS DEBATE?
WHY DID YOU STOP TAKING YOUR MEDICATION? HOW DOES YOUR FAMILY FEEL ABOUT THIS, IF THEY STILL TALK WITH YOU.
SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP. Good luck.
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J- 1st -get a life
next- read the comment above for you - you dispensing advice is like a marmot deciding it should vote
have you heard of the word "hypocrite" yet - good golly - look at your own stuff
what does that crud on the top of this page, which you put up there to be first again, have to do with anything but your bad taste?
do you have a reasoned, even if pointed, response ??- or shall we just continue to yell over everyone else's head and (hopefully) entertain, but not totally annoy, a few?
for some actual fact based things, i almost agree with some of your ideas (which really gives me qualms), but when it comes to social matters, you are a throw back and out of touch and basically dangerous to a society which is learning to function in spite of diversity, not out of spite for it or because of homogeneity - get a better education, dude, if you want to learn to think better - it'll change your head around and make you feel better eventually - one will have nothing worthwhile to believe in until one learns to think clearly- actually, here's a hint - the mind has this capacity all on its own - you have to learn to unlearn a lot of stuff that has been stuffed in there and clogs it all up- drano, in every brain, once in every week, so to speak - there - i got my joke in
i don't hate anyone here, but some of the ideas some of you think you get to put out unchallenged for everyone to see are terrible, contagious and need to be countered
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Once again, lawmakers have found a way to let millionaires escape responsibility for their actions. Only the super-rich could afford to pay a $20,000 fine and flout the law; everyone else gets publicly shamed.
In Scandinavia, fines are often based on a percentage of income. Sadly, innovative ideas for bringing both the rich and poor to justice rarely occur to our legislators, too many of whom are millionaires themselves.
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"In Scandinavia, fines are often based on a percentage of income."
I thought it was "percentage of wealth" but either way I think it is a good idea, at least in this case.
I've heard of huge fines for rich speeders and I haven't thought out whether that is a good idea or not.
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Considering that they exploit underaged girls, aren't pimps really sex offenders, a type of pedophiles, who ought to be registered as sex offenders and made to wear those GPS type ankle bracelets and tracked, and or taken out of society permanently just like any other dangerous sex offender?
Being a pedophile or enabling pedophiles, is apparently what they do, so why not treat them as that?
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It is only rarely that any 'pinp' is actually tried for anything that carries serious penalties. One reads about these under aged girls pimps hook on drugs and turn into prostitutes, but nothing about being charged with child abuse or any crime connected thereto.
I believe the reason for the leniency is politically charged and surrounded by politically correct attitudes. For to prosecutre what is overwhelmingly a black crime for what is often child sex abuse or endangerment would be a tough issue for the power structure in any city where whites are still a majority and black and Latinos, minorities. Granted the liberal undercurrent in every city toward minorities, black male pimps receive a slap on the wrist more often than not. Unless they get caught beating to death an unwilling girl it is a safe and profitable job for a black male.
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this seems to me to be hogwash, G - only your biases and unfounded opinions - I'm surprised (but grateful) you didn't try to bury what you write under a mountain of bogus statistics -too much work for you to locate so many semi-believable lies to quote?
apparently, to you, the white girls who advertise themselves as 'escorts' and 'models' really are that, and either don't do it for money, or do it for so much money as to make them ... mm... blameless? and they have 'handlers' (PUN!) and not pimps to set them up? "A Madame makes it modest'? is that it?
your 'stories' (experiences) read like something out of "Argosy" - do they still publish that rag? or do you have a collectors' trove and extravaganza in your garage, and you pinch stories from it, here and there? Does this stuff really come out of your head??
and really - what you wrote before, "standing in the corner, ashamed" - you? you should be there, but you aren't
the experiences you bring up really seem to me to make you more culpable rather than simply an observer, even if i just take them at face value
you do not present a point of view opposed to mine, but opposed to civility and civil or academic standards, then you moan when someone points out the flaws in your "reasoning"? you are lucky i am not a professor of philosophy - then i could eviscerate your bogus arguments in a few short words - you wouldn't know what hit you
Unless the African-American community is completely undermined by the misconceptions of persons such as yourself, it will likely continue to take corrective actions in its own way upon the part of the problem you over-amplify- you do them NO SERVICE WHATSOEVER in what you write - unless you are so cloddish as to be unaware of what your words actually mean - and as i earlier wrote, you seem viciously cunning, but not innocently clever
You don't have 'reason to believe', but prejudices which cause you to have badly formed opinions, and the right to an opinion does not make it a right or well-formed opinion
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There is an organization in Vancouver Washington that is working on these issues. My teenage daughter and I took their videos to her school to educate kids there. "The Defenders" is their program to get men and boys to pledge to stop buying sex. They also have an educational program that gets the word out about changing laws and sentences for pimps.
Thanks for making this issue more public!
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Idiots worship this pimp culture. So what? A book about what idiots value? What is the goal of this topic? I can’t decipher it. In what part of society are pimps exalted? Certainly no part I have ever been part of. Apparently, the part of society that values the pimps is the problem. Pimps have been glamorized by the folks dumb enough to also be pimps. What a great load of sociology this is. It is quite possible that if pimps became at all glamorous, it is because they hang out with hookers. The business depends, centrally, on the human physical world, and sex generally ends in the realm of the glamorous. If anything, hookers are equally as romanticized by our society as pimps are. I can understand the need to say that pimps are bad, but find a better way to do so, then hinging it on some half-baked idea about the lure of 'pimp culture.'
Uh, how about we make prostitution legal?
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It can be controlled.
In the fifties when Hong Kong and Singapore were both still under British control, I have reason to know that prostitution was almost completely eliminated. US servicemen used to wide open prostitution in US occupied Japan would spend half the night in fruitless search for prostitutes. Later in Saigon before the French military departed, the French military controlled prostitution and imposed stringent medical procedures on the industry. I know, I was there.
In US cities it was also controlled by local police departments. By the late 50s it all started to change in the US. I recall while stationed in the 7th Marines at Camp Pendleton, in 1958, our black Navy corpsman used to brag that on the week-ends he traveled up to LA and checked his "hos" (that was the first time I heard that word) and collected his money. The other men in the platoon didn't know whether to believe this guy or not. In any case, by 1958 black men could make this brag to a barracks full of whites apparently already sure no exception would be taken to a statement of that kind. The rot was already established.
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I have wondered how many girls went to LA because of that movie "Pretty Woman", with the romantic idea that they could end up marrying a millionaire.
Like there are two sides to that movie, the uplifting romantic side and the sex trade downside.
I worked in Las Vegas for a while building a movie theater and I counted some 170+ pages in the phonebook of "exotic dancers". I thought that was a lot of demand for dancers and it took me a while to realize what it really meant.
And I drove past some of those legal brothels in Nevada on my way down and back to LV and the brothels are some bleak looking places, usually just trailer houses.
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I lived in Boulder City Nevada for 8 yrs. I iived there because the lady I was to marry lived there and she found the climate to her liking and she did play the poker machines 2 or 3 times a week. When she passed away I put the house up for sale and left Nevada, asap.
To my taste LV and Reno are moral cesspools. The only time I ever went to LV was to drive my wife to her doctors' appointments. I absolutely loathed the place.
Everything about it is tawdry, bogus, cheap and trades on the weaknesses of people visiting there, most of whom can ill afford to lose as much as they eventually lose. The lap dancing, the whores, the gambling, and the easy accessability of drugs are the lure.
The casinos are designed by industrial psychologists, and the lighting, enterior layout, the noise of the machines, and the free booze are all designed to confuse and bewilder the gambler and keep him/her sitting there sticking coins in the slots.
The cops were always rounding up street hookers, and many of these were seriously underage. But except for being jailed over night and perhaps fined, nothing else happened to them. Their pimps WERE black! This was an accepted fact of street life there. But the newspapers never carried stories about their arrests and trials. In fact the cops left them alone. Paid off I assume.
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what a sad experience G, i guess it has to do with something - somewhere, sometime
but all these places you've lived, for all these times - it's starting to seem to add up to more than what one man's life can contain
hmmm...
interesting you should seem to observe so many black men and mestizos doing things, and then making a big deal of mentioning it, but white folks... i guess, they're just lilly white, and in church all the time? do you mind if i ask if you're perhaps blind? I mean that would be a terrible thing, and i would certainly hope not
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So far, no compelling reason why the new legislation would be effective. OK. Higher fines and so forth...all of the defenses currently in place will be in place with the new law.
Higher fines will just move the trade further underground and into further levels of internet screening for a john to get together with a prosty.
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In some European countries, they've legalized prostitution itself but solicitation and pandering are still illegal. That way, the victim (the prostitute) will not be punished under law and won't have a criminal record working against her if she chooses to leave the business and seek gainful employment.
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HIV/AIDS are still raging among certain groups, and I think any guy that was sober and not drugged and still ready to buy the services of a street hooker is monumentally stupid or crazy desperate. Since many, if not most of the hookers are using drugs and for that reason doing business even when they know they are ill, the chances of picking up an STD from one is pretty good.
The inmates of the licensed cat houses in NV at least have occasional medical check-ups and thus their customers are less likely to take home an unwanted gift to the little lady. So, I suppose that is a good argument for legal houses, as opposed to the free lancers.
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which certain groups do you mean?
do they really have anything to do inherently with the outbreak?
and why do you suppose it happened that way?
does it fit with the zionist conspiracy theories you have mentioned?
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Comments are now closed.
If you are not the pimp, you are the ho.
If you are not the pirate, you are the wench.
If you are not a hammer, you are the nail.
If you are not the brains, you are the muscle.
If you are not an entrepreneur, you are the employee.
If you are not management, you are the worker.
If Prostitution is the Oldest Profession, Pimping is the Primordial Management Position.
What is the Street Pimp Doing that the Entire US Congress fails to do? Ans: Create one measly job.