413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Neighborhood Context
You’re a part of your environment. You can’t live in Alaska without getting resistance to
the cold. (C1)
Extant literature has found that individuals are ultimately motivated to go into the commercial sex
economy for financial reasons, particularly if they view commercial sex as financially lucrative (May et al.
2000; Williamson and Cluse-Tolar 2002) or if they feel they need to enter pimping for economic survival
(Raphael and Myers-Powell 2010). Neighborhoods sometimes introduced pimps to the sex economy as a
possible means to support themselves financially. In this context, entry into the UCSE is relatively easy, as
there are few barriers to entry (Wheaton, Schauer, and Galli 2010). Nineteen respondents (26 percent)
noted the prevalence of prostitution and pimping in their childhood communities, speaking to its
influence on their own choice to participate in the underground commercial sex market.
Respondent interviews corroborated the ease with which individuals enter the underground commercial
sex economy through their neighborhood environments and community ties: “It’s just something you
hear about and you just take it upon yourself to try and talk to somebody. It’s basically like a common
thing in the community. It’s like some people go play sports or something. It’s something certain groups
you hang around talk about so it gets put in your mind” (E16). Other respondents expressed similar views.
One individual who started pimping at 14 years old, explained how his home environment made it
difficult to avoid peripheral involvement in the underground sex market:
This guy has a house and the woman needed a place to turn tricks. And they would pay $5
for any individual trick who came in to rent the room. One day Pops left and left me in
charge of the house. One of the females there … even back then other pimps viewed me as
[a pimp], but I wasn’t a pimp. She was 23. She told me she wanted to choose up and gave
me some money. It was close to $300. At the time I was 14, so I was excited … I was a kid.
(D10)
Neighborhood context and community influence assimilated some pimps into the sex market at a young
age. An interviewee who dealt drugs prior to his involvement in pimping shared, “Being honest, [I started
at] 15 years old—by 16, I probably received my first taste of money from the proceeds. It was more or less
the environment I was hanging in; bumping your head and figuring out there is another way” (D8).
Another interviewee, who started pimping when he was 13 years old, explained that childhood experience
informed his work as well: “What I knew from being around as a project kid, I seen this shit coming up”
(B3). A 28-year-old male who started pimping as a 15 year old also shared, “I grew up on the stroll.
Prostitute’s stroll. Growing up in that environment had me experiment” (G3). As expressed by
interviewees, sex work was prevalent in some respondents’ childhood communities, and neighborhood
environment could encourage or normalize participation in the underground sex market.
Pimping also promised economic survival or mobility to some interviewees who were raised in lowincome
communities. A 24-year-old African American male explained that he grew up in a neighborhood
where “everyone is looking to support themselves. We didn’t have two parent homes. Mom can’t get any
support, and kids get kicked out at an earlier age” (E5). He emphasized the need to consider economic
opportunity in conjunction with any analysis of illegal markets:
I figure when you look at underground businesses, you should pinpoint the cause and
effect that gets into underground business. Not just the business itself, but the trials and
tribulations so that the hand is forced into it. To grow up in underprivileged
neighborhoods, especially in black communities, you already have stereotypes around
you. You don’t have too much of an option. If you don’t succeed in school, you have the
streets or jail. (E5)
Neighborhood context and socioeconomic status could restrict respondent perspectives of alternative
routes. One respondent reflected: “We were piss poor. I remember when I was little I was on welfare, I
lived in the projects. Dope fiends, pimps, and prostitutes. Gang bangers, helicopter over your roof. That’s
no way to live. Seeing glitz and glamor, I always wanted that. Coming up like that, having square jobs was
never appealing” (E11).
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