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and homes, and used the Internet to solicit dates. She noted the difference between working in a car and
in a motel room in terms of pricing and preferences:
In a motel, you could spend more time, and you didn’t have to worry about the police. In
a car, you have to be faster. I wanted to stay in the car because I didn’t want to leave the
stroll. If I left, I could lose money. (L5)
As discussed below, participants explained that over the years, undercover law enforcement officers
organized dates with sex workers at hotels and motels in order to make arrests; use of these venues for
dates became more risky as a result, although they continued to serve as locations for many dates.
Internet
Sex workers began to use the Internet to solicit sex work in the early 2000s. Fifteen individuals in this
study stated that they used the Internet to meet johns on websites such as: Craigslist.com, Backpage.com,
Adam4Adam.com, Eros.com, Adult Search.com, TheEroticReview.com, Cityvibe.com, Myspace.com; a
variety of chat lines like Livelinks.com and video chat communities like LiveJasmin.com; and escort and
other service websites. Participants noted that dates organized on these sites took place in locations
similar to those used for dates solicited on the street: cars, clients’ homes, and hotel and motel rooms.
Some dates took place entirely online, through web cameras and chat lines.
In subsequent sections, this chapter explores the myriad of ways in which the Internet changed the
operation of street-based sex work. However, even with the onset of Internet use, respondents indicated
that they used similar types of methods to solicit dates (meeting johns on the street, in clubs, by word of
mouth, and through social networks), and held dates in similar locations (hotels, motels, and cars) over
the years.
Street-Based Sex Work in the 1970s and 1980s
Thirteen individuals (35 percent) in our study traded sex in the 1970s and 1980s, and most continued to
trade sex into the 1990s and 2000s. Sex workers who conducted street-based sex work in the 1970s and
1980s described the conditions of the underground commercial sex market during that time period as
largely devoid of widespread competition, lucrative, and not as dangerous as in later years. This chapter
draws on these participants’ long careers in the trade to document how the street-based sex market
operated during this time.
Street-Based Sex Market Operations
A number of participants noted the camaraderie they felt with the many other sex workers on the streets
in the 1970s and 1980s. Sex workers looked out for one another, partied with one another, and in some
cases, considered each other family. A 46-year-old sex worker from Washington, DC, who began working
in 1982, described the work:
Back then [in the 1980s], there were a lot of people on the stroll. Compared to now, there
were way more back then. We all got along with each other. No animosity, competition,
no competing. We were all out there for one purpose only: to get a dollar. We would all
help each other out. We would go to restaurants in the morning. We would go to [an
amusement park] on the weekend, stay in a motel, treat ourselves, get more drugs. (L1)
When asked about the market in the 1970s and 1980s, a 50-year-old sex worker who started trading sex in
the mid-1970s described the work similarly:
When I first started tricking, there were more girls out there—blocks and blocks of girls.
Everyone was making their money. 200 girls out there and every girl was going to make
money. It was so plentiful. People were so into it. (L3)
One 49-year-old sex worker explained that in the early to mid-1980s, the work was “fabulous,” and that
“we [the sex workers] all had our own little clique. We all got along.” She also noted that “back then, there
were calls after calls,” and the calls were “safe” (L2). The calls were not only plentiful, but also profitable.
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