Pimpin' Ain't Easy? The Lives of Pimps

240 Pages·2015·1.76 MB·English

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Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy? The Lives of Pimps
Involved in Street Prostitution in The United
States of America

Holly Davis

PhD, Sociolog y

The University of Edinb urgh

School of Social and Polit ical Sc iences

Supervisors: Dr. Angus Bancroft and Dr. Lynn Jamieson

Septembe r2014
Acknowledgments Pg. 4

Abstract 5-6

Introduction 7-11

Chapter 1: Methods 12-40
My Interest in this Topic 12-13
Approach: Feminist Research or Feminist Researcher? 13-15
Perspectives: 15-19
Prostitution and Sex Work: A Reluctant Note
“How do you feel about pimps?”
Research Design Basics 19-26
Research Questions 19
When and Where 19-20
Sampling and Recruitment 20-23
Ethics and Data Collection 23-23
My Safety and Well Being 25-27
Methods 26-41
Ontology and Epistemology 27-28
The Face-to-Face Interviews 28-31
Telephone Interviews 31-33
Analysis 34-41
Coding 34-35
Analyzing the Data 35-37
Race and the Politics of Identity and Representation 37-40
Conclusion 40-41

Chapter 2: Defining Pimp: What does ‘pimp’ mean? 42-60
The Word 43
Dictionary Definitions 43-45
The Social Location of ‘Pimp’ 45-46
Contested and Contesting Definitions 46-52
Respondent Definitions 52-57
Conclusion 57-60

Chapter 3: The Jungle: Background Histories 61-77

Development of the Inner city ghetto 61-64
Culture of Poverty and the Ghetto 64-65
Class and Race 65-67
Life in The Jungle 68-76
Childhood Households 68-72
Parental Employment 72-75
Formal Education 75-77
Conclusion 77

Chapter 4: Becoming A Pimp- Entries and Gateways 78-90
Exposure 78-80
Locations and Other Hustling 81-83
Choices 83-87
Training 87-89
Conclusion 89-90

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Chapter 5: Pimpology Part 1 91-116
“Purse First” 92-94
Why Have a Pimp? 94-96
Recruitment 96-106
Cross Country Pimping and Sex Work Locations 106-111
Networks 111-114
Conclusion 114-116

Chapter 6: Pimpology Part 2- Performance, Rules, and Management 117-160
Performance and Pimping 117-119
Appearances, Props and Pimp Goods 119-121
Walking, Talking and Acting like a Pimp 121-124
Intersectionality and Pimps 124-125
Pimps and Masculinities 125-127
Performing Pimp Masculinity 127-129
The Nature of Woman and Original Sin 129-130
Pimps and Sexuality 131-133
The Gender of Pimping 133-135
The Rules of The Game 135-136
Origin of The Rules 136-137
The Rules 137-141
Management 142-160
An Introductory Note on Violence, Control and 144-146
Management in the Pimp-Prostitute Relationship
Narratives of ‘Tactical’ Physical Violence and 146-153
Violent Enforcement
Managing Prostitutes and Relationships 154-158
Concluding Notes on The Mindgame 158-160

Chapter 7: Exit From The Game: Becoming an Ex-Pimp 161-186
Emotional ‘A(E)ffect’ 163-172
Family 172-173
Drug Use and Addiction 174-177
Run-Ins with the Law and Prison 177-185
Conclusion 185-186

Chapter 8: Life After Pimping 187-204
‘Squaring Up’ 188-191
Leaving the Profession, Not the Community 192-195
Pimpology After The Game 195-199
Stigma 199-202
Conclusion 202-204

Conclusion 205-212

Bibliography 213-223

Appendix 1: Glossary 224
Appendix 2: SSPS: Level 3 Ethics Clearance Paperwork 225-239

Declaration of own work 240

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Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to express my sincerest gratitude to my supervisors, Dr. Angus
Bancroft (University of Edinburgh) and Dr. Lynn Jamieson (University of Edinburgh) for all
of their support and encouragement. I am indebted to Dr. Angus Bancroft, who has been my
supervisor since my MSc at The University of Edinburgh, for sticking with me for nearly six
years, and over that time providing immeasurable amounts of guidance, feedback, insights
and direction. I am also deeply grateful for the assistance, advice and support provided to me
throughout this thesis by Dr. Lynn Jamieson. So to both of them, the very sincerest and most
heartfelt thank you!
I would also like to thank my family: My parents, Dwight and Elizabeth Davis, and
my sisters Dr. Liz Salerno, Maggie Davis and Laura Davis, and my grandfather, the late Paul
Davis, for all their years of unwavering encouragement and care.
I owe a special thanks to Jody Raphael (DePaul University) and Dr. Celia Williamson
(American University of Toledo) for their guidance on this research project during its
development, and for their assistance in helping me achieve invaluable research connections
and opportunities. I also owe a special thanks to my colleagues and friends, Liapeng Matsau,
Tzu- Yuan Lin, Eric Chen, Amina Niang, Daniel Kenealy, Jan Eichhorn, Gotz Frommholz,
Gregor Schnuer, and Gethin Reees; all of whom provided crucial support and guidance
throughout this project both on and off campus. A very heartfelt thank you to Sameena Mulla
(Marquette University) for all of the ‘mentoring’, gentle guidance, and friendship she
provided during the final phase of this research. And finally, I owe incredible gratitude to
Maria Balistreri, Emily Forst, Alex Neiderman, Emily Lalicata and Kev Munro for their
consistent friendship and support throughout the years both home and abroad.

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Abstract

The pimp serves as an iconic ghetto hero who stands in street cultures as a figure that
represents defiance, anti-establishment angst, and victorious criminality (Funches & Marriott
2002; Horton-Stallings, 2003). The American pimp has been brought into mainstream
American culture through 1960’s literature, 1970’s Blaxploitation films, 1980’s hip hop and
more recently, documentaries, films, books, music and television. The word ‘pimp’ has found
its way into mainstream usage and popular caricatures of the pimp can be found in everything
from Halloween costumes to ‘pimp and ho’ themed college parties. Despite being highly
visible within mainstream culture, this character is still enigmatic as pimps are an under-
researched population. Thus this thesis aims to uncover and unveil the lives and experiences
of pimps involved in illegal prostitution to produce a more panoramic understanding of
prostitution and an unexplored segment of major players within it.
This thesis investigates the experiences and narratives of pimps involved in illegal,
predominately street, prostitution in the USA. This research project stands to offer in-depth
insight into the experiences of pimps in the United States within this unique subcultural
context. In order to fill that literature gap, this research interviewed pimps and gathered data
that explored how and why individuals become pimps, their personal histories, how they
maintain their position as pimps, how pimps pimp, and the motivations for exit and/or
retirement from The Game (the world of prostitution and pimping). More than just a
managerial position, the role of the pimp also embraces a lifestyle with special rules, fashions
and activities that create a unique and complex underground, criminal community. Rather
than just presenting pimps as violent exploiters or ghetto heroes, this thesis examined the
language of pimping, their orientation to their roles, the relationship between pimping and the
surrounding communities and mainstream society, and explored this criminal career as a
social role as well as career.
With their childhood experiences of life in American ghettos leading to regular
exposure to pimps and favorable impressions of illicit, underground careers, respondents
came to ‘choose’ pimping as their career trajectory in their teens. Once dedicated to becoming
pimps, many pimps underwent training with older pimps and later gained acceptance within
the street community to earn their positions and status as pimps. When established within The
Game, they started to practice ‘pimpology’ (pimp ideology) and to firmly establish their skills
and methods of pimping. Two substantive chapters within this thesis are dedicated to
addressing pimpology: pimpology covers the core processes, social connections and methods
of management that are vital for a pimps success and survival in The Game. The aim of these
chapters is to explore how pimps function as individuals, with the women who work for them,
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within their peer networks, and within their communities while they are actively pimping.
And finally, exit from pimping will be explored. Issues such as age, exhaustion, family,
health, drug addiction, trauma, imprisonment, law enforcement crackdowns and social
betrayal all also act as further incentives for pimps to ‘hang up their pimp hat.’
This research has uncovered new themes and trends within the narratives of this
hidden, underground subcultural population and offers great insights into the ‘career cycles’
of pimps. This project stands to fill a major gap within prostitution research as current
literature lacks the perspectives and voices of pimps themselves. Within this research, a
nuanced approach offers a unique view of the pimp and their complex roles and relationships
within The Game. As an understudied population, pimps have rarely been the focus of
academic inquiry; thus this research stands to contribute new perspectives, insights and data
on a population that has remained enigmatic and well hidden from academic exploration for
decades.

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Introduction

The image of the pimp has been present in the American mainstream since the 1960’s
and 1970’s when this iconic character rose as a ghetto hero and became a symbol of counter
culture and social desistance. Beyond the swaggering Black male in brightly colored, fitted
suits and feathered hats that emerged in Blaxploitation films and novels (See Pimp: The Story
of My Life, Slim, 1969; Whoreson, Giones, 1972) was a criminal hustler that existed for
decades prior unbeknownst to mainstream American culture (Reitman, 1932) and persists
today. Pimps today remain enigmatic, elusive and secretive despite their fame, notoriety and
acceptance in popular culture. The public’s main source of information on pimps and their
lives have solely come from pimps themselves through film, novels, documentaries (or
pimpumentaries) and music (for example recording artists such as Ice-T or Snoop Dogg who
were pimps). Not since the 1970’s (Milner & Milner, 1972) has an academic project sought to
study or examine this population despite the recent increases in research on prostitution and
the fervent drive for more data and attention to human trafficking (Weizter, 2000a). Recent
research has sought to unveil the inter-workings of human sex trafficking domestically within
the USA (see: Raphael, Hughes), and pimps are often now being prosecuted under human
trafficking laws, but this new research on trafficking has largely neglected focus on the pimp
and their role in prostitution thus leaving a major gap in the literature and in understandings
of prostitution. It was this gap and a lack of information that motivated this research. This
project, with its sole focus on pimps and their stories, currently stands alone in the American
literature on this topic and stands to offer new, nuanced and unexposed themes about the lives
of pimps.
In an attempt to understand pimpology (pimp ideology), The Game (the world of
prostitution and pimping), and the lives of pimps, this research focused solely on pimps to
answer research questions aimed at providing new perceptions into this criminal subculture.
This project focused specifically on pimps involved in illegal prostitution, primarily street
prostitution, as the niche of pimps to be researched. This subpopulation was selected due to
pre-existing connection to it through a gatekeeper, the high visibility and public view of this
group, and the unique, fascinating cultural and social reoccurring themes within this
subcultural community. Language and slang contribute greatly to the uniqueness of this
culture but it is often inaccessible to those outside of the community, therefore, a glossary has
been provided on Appendix 1, or page 224 so that the audience can find definitions of the
very colloquial words used throughout this thesis.
The data in this research was collected during interviews conducted between January
2010 and July of 2010. In all, ten interviews were conducted with nine individuals: four of the
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interviews were conducted on the telephone, whilst the remaining six were conducted face to
face. The respondents mostly identified as former pimps, though two still occasionally
dabbled in pimping when the interviews were conducted, and the range of time since
retirement from The Game ranged from two years to ten years. The age ranges of the
respondents at the time of the interviews spanned early thirties to early sixties. As is
highlighted in the table proved in the sample section on page 23, the majority of the
respondents were male and all respondents were Black Americans.
The first core data chapter, chapter 3, examines the personal and familial histories of
pimps within the inner cities of America or American ghettos. Because pimps are a product of
their histories, background, context and communities, it is crucial to embark on a detailed
investigation of their narratives to form coherent understandings of their involvement in
pimping (Harocopos, et. al, 2000). It is within this formative context that various experiences
of structural violence, cultures of violence, social and political oppressions, limited
opportunity, racism, classism, sexism and childhood abuses combine and contribute to the
decisions and choices of individuals who later become pimps. Chapter 4 then explores the
various entries and gateways into pimping concluding with the apprenticeships and training
into pimping. These two chapters are closely linked to one another as the American ghetto
served socially and geographically as location for exposure to, and initiation into, The Game.
It is within these chapters that the motivations and incentives for involvement in pimping
become clear as the experiences, ideologies and life histories of pimps are contextualized.
The following two chapters revolve around exploration of narratives on how pimps
pimp. Referred to as Pimpology, or methods of pimping, this substantive topic covers the role
of money, the need for pimps, the recruitment of prostitutes, locations and movement,
professional underground networks, the rules of The Game, management, personal
presentation, and performativity. Pimpology covers the core processes, social connections and
methods of management that are vital for a pimp’s success and survival in The Game and as
such, requires two chapters to adequately cover. The aim of these chapters is to explore how
pimps function as individuals, with the women who work for them, within their peer
networks, and within their communities while they are actively pimping. The term pimpology
is borrowed from the former pimp and author Pimpin’ Ken, or Ken Ivy and he explains “I use
psychological warfare, or pimpology, to get what I want, which is often more treacherous
than physical abuse. I use words and gestures to get others to act right and do right.” (Ken &
Hunter, 2008: 2) He further describes pimpology as the mentality and/or mindframe required
of a pimp to succeed in The Life. The term is utilized within this project to represent the
various complex and multi-faceted methods of participating within this underground criminal
career.
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‘Pimpology: Part 1’ will explore the role of money within this career with emphasis
on its material and symbolic values. It highlights the fragility of the rhetoric surrounding the
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insistence that pimping is ‘all about the Benjamins ’ when respondents’ narratives suggest far
more complex motivations and incentives. Literature and previous research suggests that
there is a widely held public belief that pimps are, and have been, in business because they
provide protection to the prostitutes who work for them but as has been shown through this
and other research (Hodgson, 1997), in the world of illegal street prostitution, pimps provide
little to no protection. Therefore it is necessary to explore how and why pimps exist within
prostitution if not for a ‘rational’ and/or functional purpose. Cross-country pimping and multi-
residential trends will be explored in relation to the nomadic movement of pimps in this
subculture to maximize their income and avoid law enforcement. The various methods of
recruitment of prostitutes by pimps are explored in the following section along with the more
commonly relied upon recruitment tactic of prostitutes recruiting new prostitutes. And
finally, ‘Pimpology: Part 1’ will cover the well-connected and maintained social, and
professional networks that pimps rely on heavily throughout their careers for various
purposes. All of the above stated themes help to shed light on the modality, tactics, behaviors,
motivations and geographic trends of pimps within The Game and thus lay the foundation for
understanding pimpology.
‘Pimpology: Part 2’ continues to explore elements of The Game and pimpology by
tackling topics such as The Rules of The Game, management and issues of gender in pimping.
Starting with the supposed origins of The Rules, the first section of this chapter explores the
(until recently, see: Gholson, 2004; Ken & Hunter, 2008) unwritten laws of pimping and
assesses the multiple ways in which these rules are transferred and acquired. This section then
turns its attention to examples of the rules themselves that appear to be in a constant state of
change, re-interpretation and renegotiations as generations pass. Though these laws do not
remain stagnant there are a few core rules that have supposedly stood the test of time. These
rules become extremely relevant when examining the roles pimps play in management within
pimping. Far from a role which the public would assume entails soliciting of clients and
managing money (Hodgson, 1997), ‘management’ to pimps means something very different
and requires a wide ranging repertoire of social and criminal skills. It is within management
that themes of violence and manipulation begin to emerge and dominate, and a very ominous
depiction of what pimps mean by ‘management’ begins to materialize. This exploration of
management offers critical insights into the pimp-prostitute relationship and grants
understandings of how these relationships are negotiated, controlled and fiercely manipulated

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American slang phrase used to mean ‘all about the money’. ‘Benjamins’ refers to the image of
Benjamin Franklin’s face on USD $100.00 dollar bills, so in short, means money in the context that he
is using it.
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