413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

million dollars between your legs” and I was like “ok” and I just kind of fell into it, I guess
you could say. (M3)
Sex workers who began selling sex in the late 2000s were more likely than those who started in earlier
decades to cite the lack of a job as one of the main driving forces for starting this work. Six of the ten
respondents who began trading sex between the mid-2000s to present day stated that they did so because
they needed a job or were not interested in traditional employment opportunities.
Sex work served as a source of supplemental income for some sex workers who had other jobs; four (11
percent) noted that they had other forms of legitimate employment while they were trading sex. One
respondent, a 35-year-old Dallas-based sex worker, began selling sex at age 27. At the time, she was a
heavy heroin user and dealer. In addition to selling sex and drugs, she explained, she had two jobs—one at
GM and one at Wendy’s—to support her children and her home. The jobs provided her with “good money,
a good $90,000 a year,” but it was the “other stuff”—the sex work and the drug sales—that provided extra
income for other wants and needs: “I was doing the other stuff to pay for the habit,” she explained (J8).
Often, family members encouraged—or served as examples for—individuals to begin selling sex on the
street. A Washington, DC-based trans-individual began trading sex in the 1980s at age 16, just as she was
about to graduate from art school, after being pressured by her mother to make money off of sex:
I first started in 1982 at 16 years old … I needed a way to make money for myself; summer
jobs weren’t giving me enough money. My mother was a single mother on welfare. I
needed a way to support myself. My mom … gave me advice: “You stay out all weekend,
out sleeping with men, I know you are, I know you are gay, you don’t come home with
fifty cents. You don’t even have money for a cold soda. If you’re going to sleep with guys,
get something out of them.” … I [couldn’t] do this for free anymore because my mom
[had] brainwashed me. I had to bring something home, even if it was seven or eight
dollars. (L1)
As the work proved lucrative, one date led to many dates for this individual. She explained, “I just got
caught up all the time—I was constantly out there. Because I was so used to the fast money. At that time,
my mom lost her job, she was in car accident, and on welfare, and they had cut [the welfare payments]
down and taken me off welfare because at this point I was over 18 years old” (L1).
Family members also frequently exposed the respondents to commercial sex at very young ages. A 41-
year-old individual from Denver who started trading sex at age 26 first saw her mother working as a call
girl when she was eight years old. When asked who first introduced her to sex work, she responded:
My mother. I was introduced to it when I was eight years old. [My mother] has … been a
call girl, [but she] just recently quit. I knew it was a good quick way to make money …
That was my mom’s main source of income. I got involved when I was 26. Actually, when
I was 18 I worked for the same agency she worked for, answering calls … And then I
[started selling sex] at 26 [years old]. (J3)
A number of transgender individuals noted that their sex work grew out of relationships with others in the
transgender community—a community that provided acceptance and comfort. Many were first exposed to
sex work while in areas of cities where transgender individuals congregated. One 43-year-old transwoman
started trading sex at age 14 in 1985:
I first … started going to [a particular area in one of the cities] which is where transgender
women hung out. I could be comfortable there. I realized that it was also a place of
business. I had two things in one: I was accepted and I could also make money. (L5)
Another trans-woman began selling sex in the 1970s at age 11. She described how her foray into the work
grew out of her time with transgender individuals:
I was out walking, meeting friends. Boy hunting … We saw a group of people leaving the
club—transgender people at the time … We followed them to … the strip … It was like a
whole new world that opened up to me. I saw transgender men and women … Something
I had never experienced. I got hooked. Eventually I would sit on the outskirts and observe
221