Third-Party Sex Work and Pimps in the Age of Anti-Trafficking

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Despite public, legal and political interest in commercial sex markets and human trafficking, there are few recent scholarly works that investigate the sex trade from the perspective of “third parties,” or those social actors who facilitate selling sex. “Third parties” have been called sex market facilitators sometimes known as “pimps,” and they have been conflated with sex traffickers. This unique anthology, Third-party Sex Work and Pimps in the Age of Anti-Trafficking, is a compilation of the newest research about third parties from different parts of the world, ranging from African-American pimps in Harlem to third parties in Brazil. In scholarly and popular discourses, they are usually assumed to be either glamorized hustlers or predatory bogeymen, due to stubborn stereotypes on the one hand and the recent legal conflation of “pimps” and sex traffickers on the other. However, little is empirically known about how third parties actually labor or how they interface with sex workers, clients, police, courts, small businesses, or governments. This unprecedented compilation will be the first published book of authentic, empirically researched stories of third parties working in the sex trade across the globe, challenging highly charged public and political notions about “pimping” and sex trafficking.

Sub Unit

• Area V: Types of Offending / 27: Sex Work and Human Trafficking

Individual Presentations

• Pimps’ Views of Their Work and Measures of Their Success - Mary A. Finn, Michigan State University; Loretta J. Stalans, Loyola University Chicago

• Third Parties’ Perspectives of the Nexus of Intimacy and Economy in a Harlem Sex Market - Julie Sriken, John Jay College of Criminal Justice; Amber Horning Ruf, William Paterson University

• Managing Conflict: An Examination of Three-Way Alliances in Canadian Escort and Massage Businesses - Lauren Casey, University of Victoria

• Black is the Color of American Sex Trafficker: Racially Selective Identification and Prosecution of Sex-Trafficking in the United States - Kathleen Williamson, Williamson and Young / University of Arizona; Anthony Marcus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Discussant

• Anthony Marcus, John Jay College of Criminal Justice