In my opinion, there are criminals strictly in the legal sense—people who are victimized by an unjust, unforgiving system and thrown into the perennially unemployed life of the registered felon, the pariah; like those who inhabited the permanent underclass of unfortunates described 150 years ago by Victor Hugo. And then there are sociopaths who couldn’t play a straight game if their life depended on it and have absolutely no social responsibility or feeling for others and will fuck anybody over to feed their own selfish ends. When I use the word criminal, I am describing the latter bunch of shitheads. I don’t consider prostitutes in the former group.
When I drove cab in this tourist town, I would get prostitutes. There were “pro’s” of all kinds. There was the high-end call girl who needed a driver for the day and who paid extremely well above the going rate to get to her appointments in the finest hotels, and some of the best addresses. These were generally polite people. Well dressed, clean, well spoken; interested only in making her business appointments. No sign of a habit. Some worked for a service—often managed by women—and others did very well free-lancing. Free-lancers fly by wire, without the protection offered by an organization. I liked the free-lancers best. They were not victims or criminals in my book. They were businesswomen who had decided for one reason or another to make money selling their bodies—at great risk—and were able to do so at incredibly high prices. The ones working for an escort service may or may not have been working under duress and they never gave any indication that this was the case. But discretion is key to their business, so they may or may not have been victims.
On the other end, there was the crack whore who would offer to suck a cabbie’s cock for under ten bucks or for a ride to her next trick a few blocks away. These girls were generally nutcases. Whether they were nuts to begin with or if drugs made them that way I have no idea. It doesn’t really mater. These girls aren’t even worth pimping as they are too crazy, dirty, diseased and unpredictable. And they didn’t last long on the street before they’d be carted off to jail or end up in a dumpster somewhere. Later, as a nurse working the ER, we’d get one of these every month or so. They come to us beaten, raped—raped with objects in every orifice—and thrown away bleeding like so much bad meat. Next time you are tempted to laugh at a crack whore joke, keep that in mind. They are definite victims.
I ran into a few pimps. These are invariably bad motherfuckers, real criminals, who usually have a drug sideline and who can’t go running to a lawyer when things go bad. So they protect their income stream with guns instead. These guys are often very charming and attract insecure women who like dominant males who always appear in control and offer a warm, protective intimacy as well as material comforts. They most often recruit their prospective employees from strip clubs by dating a dancer and giving them free drugs during the seduction period—until the girl eventually goes to work for her main supplier. And that’s when he starts getting his pound of flesh both literally and figuratively. There are no labor organizations to protect those in nefarious professions, so pimps are free to abuse their employees in the worst ways imaginable and under incredible duress 24 hours a day. And the girls take it. And they will do things that I would consider criminal at the behest of the pimp, but I doubt they would if he were removed from the equation. These girls often end up as crack whores as described above. They can get used up surprisingly quick. I consider them victims as well.