What Pimps Do by J.A. Patton Jr.
First there’s The Game, the pimp’s universe: himself and his fellow pimps, the women and girls, the buying and selling, the cars, clothes, bling, dope, police. Then there’s game. Talent. Dude got serious game—four bitches doin’ everything he say, pilin’ up serious cash.
The talent? One pimp described it as “manipulating the little hamsters.” The little hamsters are damaged adolescent and post-adolescent girls.
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Pimp literature—from Iceberg Slim’s groundbreaking Pimp: The Story of My Life in 1969 to the vanity-press memoirs and how-to-pimp primers of today, plus infinite material online—indicates game hasn’t evolved much. It never needed to. Pimprecounts what “Iceberg,” a career criminal and retired pimp named Robert Beck, absorbed as a young man from pimps he met in prison and then on the Chicago streets in the 1930s and ’40s. His mentors had learned it from their own predecessors. And so on. Game is formulaic, unchanging through generations of pimps, because it’s all about human nature, and human nature doesn’t change. Specifically, game is about perverting human nature. Sociopathic men manipulating little hamsters. Sociopathy (aka Antisocial Personality Disorder, ASPD) is known as a condition without a cure, and law-enforcement and mental-health people consider pimps sociopathic by definition. The definition includes disregard for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others; use of lying and deceit to exploit others for personal gain or pleasure; arrogance, a sense of superiority; a history of crime, legal problems, and impulsive, aggressive behavior; trouble sustaining relationships, despite superficial charm that allows them to establish relationships easily.
In short, they’re manipulators with no feelings for others. But within The Game their perversity serves them well. Manipulation is known in this narrow universe as finesse. A “finesse pimp” is one who capitalizes on susceptible females through cunning and manipulation, no violence necessary. Except sometimes. A finesse pimp’s opposite is the gorilla pimp, who also believes he’s smart but dishes out violence because it’s quick and expedient, and because he enjoys it and there’s nothing stopping him.
Gorillas are scorned within the game and rarely prosper or even last very long. Some can make brutality work for a while, with certain girls, but it’s never a cooperative situation, and for the gorilla there’s always a risk of the victim, pushed past her limits, finally “disclosing” to an advocate or directly to police, whereupon “Daddy” might find himself busted not only for pimping but for kidnapping, menacing, battery. One self-righteous finesse pimp said, “I have no respect for gorillas because of the absence of subtlety in their methods. Myself, I’m a psychological scientist using my mind to control individuals. My job is to give a ho the inspiration and motivation she needs.” Finesse-Daddy reasons that if he makes a girl fall in love, or at least makes her feel valued, he won’t need to use violence, at least not much. She’ll do what he says because he’s her daddy, boyfriend, lover, confidante, everything, and she wants to make him happy. The pimp’s job is recognizing vulnerable young females, pinpointing those psychological wounds, and exploiting them.
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Pimps like runaways, throwaways: juveniles out on their own, scared, short of funds. Victims-in-waiting, ripe for prostitution. Supposedly one-third of runaways, including boys, are approached by a pimp within 48 hours of leaving home. Pimps troll for prospects at bus stops, train stations, malls, coffee shops, wherever disaffected kids can be found, looking for the telltale now-what? expression, a backpack stuffed with a kid’s worldly possessions. They stake out domestic-violence shelters looking to befriend young females coming or going, ready-made victims. They stake out high schools, even middle schools. One pimp called schools “buffets, all the goodies in one place.” Nowadays, beyond the old hunting grounds, unhappy girls are everywhere on chatrooms, Facebook, Instagram, the mushrooming social media. A pimp sniffs them out. He knows they’re needy for something, usually a father figure, a protector. They’re desperate to escape horrible parents or depraved foster-fathers or homelessness. After identifying a potential victim, a pimp spends time with her, listens to her, pretends to have feelings for her. She’s ecstatic. She craves attention and here’s a man, a grownup (usually at least 20, a grownup to her) who wants to know everything about her. She doesn’t understand he’s probing for her fears and vulnerabilities, gauging her desperation, doping out how to play her. If she’s got daddy issues (“They’ve all got daddy issues”) he’ll be Good Daddy. If she’s insecure (“They’re all insecure”) he’ll tell her she’s beautiful, sweet, smart, mature-for-her-age and altogether too precious to be treated the way Square World treats her. If she’s never been in the game and isn’t sure she wants to be¾be a prostitute?¾he’ll show her a woman working a “track,” street prostitution, and tell her that’s what he respects, a strong woman who’ll do whatever’s necessary to be a partner in a relationship. He’ll give her a place to stay and some food. If he has other girls he pitches the family angle, understanding she’s probably never had a happy family. If he jams her into a cheesy two-bedroom apartment or a no-tell motel with three other girls—her “sister-wives,” “wives-in-law,” “wifeys”—it might be the closest thing to family she’s ever experienced.
The guy is supposedly her boyfriend, but she calls him Daddy because he likes it and she does too. It feels like they’re in it together; she’s provided-for and protected. Never mind if Daddy’s often not much more than a kid himself, very likely a dropout with a criminal record and substance-abuse issues and no vision beyond partying with his pimp buddies this weekend while their victims are out submitting to one vile, dangerous, degrading encounter after another. All that matters is that he’s a man offering attention and affection, things she’s sorely lacked. She soon realizes she isn’t the guy’s only girlfriend, but for a while she lets herself believe she’s the one. He tells her so, he buys her things, he describes a future together with a gingerbread house and kids, far from the game, the life, happy ever after. Most of all, he doesn’t have her out there doing what the others are doing. Not yet. He’s not in a rush to “turn her out,” make her an earner. He simply keeps charming her—and attuning her to his desires and demands, what she needs to do to hold on to him. They both know that without him she’d be homeless, or back to whatever she ran from before, or to another pimp. C’mere, baby girl, he says, pulling her to him. You know who loves ya. If he reads her right and his game is tight, it’s not long before she’s gazing at him dreamily, telling him Daddy, you make me feel things I never felt before.
And he knows when it’s time to tell her Okay, baby, we love each other, we gonna have our dream house and kids someday, but right here and now we got some financial issues. So, what you gonna do for us? I give you a place to live, put food in your mouth, put you in some clothes, get your hair done, your nails. Now it’s time you bring something to the table, you know what I’m saying?
She might have known all along, on some level. In her scrambled mind his suggestion might not even seem extreme. The pimp, knowing most girls have at least considered prostitution, helps her understand it’s not a bad thing. Heck, it’s a smart thing. And before long his suggestion that she bring in some money becomes an ask, with some urgency in it. He tells her the rent’s due and he wants her to try dancing at his homeboy’s club, easy money. Well, all right, stripping. If she balks now, he decides whether to cut his losses—cut her loose—or press a little. If he does get her stripping, he next asks her to have sex with his best friend for money: she knows the guy, he’s a good guy, it’ll be quick and easy and a lot more money than stripping. Then other friends. Probing to see if he can turn her out, make her a willing full-time earner. Often implying that if she can’t pull her weight in the relationship, he can’t afford to keep her around; he loves her, sure, but he’s got bills to pay. Pimp wisdom assumes most of the girls are too young, stupid, mental and/or addicted to hold normal jobs and manage basic existence without help, and that selling one’s body can seem like a fair price for being looked after—the least awful of their options—and they’ll cooperate when Daddy says it’s time to get out and start selling that sweet stuff. Also, she’s in love.
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The transformation, the brainwashing, is called grooming. It can take weeks or months. It can also happen fast. Some pimps won’t bother with much grooming, psychologizing. Meet a girl, put her out there and see how much want-it she’s got. Some can’t take it. Some just aren’t worth the trouble. Find out quick and move on. One Oregon girl said, “I lived down in Eugene and started talking with a Portland guy on a chatline. I came up to visit him and an hour later I was working the track. It happened so fast I didn’t know how it happened.” Whatever the approach, thousands of girls who see no better options take up with pimps every year. A wayward girl suddenly has someone paying attention, protecting her, answering every question, handling every problem. Taking control of her life, the pimp applauds her for leaving whatever situation she left to be with him. If she starts feeling bad about what she’s doing he reminds her she’s investing in their future, Primrose Lane, and it makes him love her more. He reminds her sex is a natural desire in men and there’s no reason any woman, especially a jewel like her, shouldn’t profit. Only squares give it away, and squares—everyone outside the game—are dumb.
Working her mind, always. A retired Portland pimp once known as “Wicked” said, “Whatever morals a girl’s parents or church might have taught her, I had to tear all that down, destroy it, then build her back up the way I wanted her to be, the way I wanted her to think.” All the girl sees, if the pimp’s got game, is someone who supports her and loves her. All she’s got to do is have sex with countless strangers, day after day, and turn over all proceeds to him, no questions asked. With no end in sight. “Ain’t hard,” Wicked said. “You play it right, she ain’t going nowhere. Nowhere but to work. For real: they brought me money every day and kissed my knuckles when they handed it over, or I made em wish they did. Didn’t take most of em long to understand.”
