Exposing the "Pretty Woman" Myth: A Qualitative Examination of the Lives of Female Streetwalking Prostitutes

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 2000 by Rochelle L. Dalla

   I remember my dad beating the shit out of my mom one night and he ripped
   her shirt open and she had on a white shirt and a white slip. She sat in
   the kitchen and her lip was bleeding and she had a butcher knife to her
   chest and after that I made up my mind that a man would never, ever hit me,
   because I would kill him.

She knew little about her siblings, as it had been years since she had seen or spoken to any of them. One of her older sisters was a prostitute and heavily addicted to drugs. With reference to her older sister, Amy stated, "I never thought at the time I would become one of her--I did become one of her." At 18, she tried prostitution for the first time, was arrested, and spent 30 days in jail. She would frequently bring "dates" to her home and send her children to the store down the street; many of her clients were regulars so condom use was intermittent. For several years she was addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol, although she commented, "I never did it [prostitution] for drugs, it was always for the money." She was determined to "break the cycle" and introduce normalcy into her children's lives.

Sam, at 39, was living in a shelter and working as a waitress. She had four children, ranging in age from 12 to 18, none of whom lived with her. She came from a family that was "very well-off, but very disorganized." When she was 6 months old, her father left her mother and took Sam and her brothers to another state. Sam was told that her mother had run out; she and her mother were recently reunited for the first time. Sam's father was a workaholic and an alcoholic and she and her brothers were frequently left in the care of an uncle who, for years, sexually abused them all. She began running away at the age of 10 and spent several years living intermittently with various family members, foster families, and in group homes. By age 24 she had two children, was involved in her second marriage, and being "... beaten quite a bit, on a weekly basis." The marriage lasted two years. At age 31, Sam became involved with several prominent business men (Sugar Daddies) who took care of her and her children financially. She tried crack for the first time at age 37 and was immediately addicted; it was then that she started working the streets and truck stops because the Sugar Daddies "didn't want nothing to do with me anymore." Her daughter, her oldest child, had worked the truck stops with her for a period of several months. She had been drug and prostitution free for 8 months when she was interviewed.

Trina was 35 and came from a family of 10 children. She described her family as "real dysfunctional"; her father physically and verbally abused her mother, and both parents physically abused the children. Because Trina was "the pick" she escaped the physical assaults suffered by her siblings. She became pregnant the first time she had sex, at age 17; the child's father was shot and killed by his cousin when she was 4 months pregnant. She described their relationship as "like a puppy love thing, we were real close." At the time, her mother had told Trina, "You're pregnant, so what, that's not my fault. You knew better--go to school." She completed high school and a year of college; she had planned on becoming a nurse. Her second child was born when Trina was 20. When the infant was 3 months old, she left the child's father because he had cheated on her. Five months later she was involved in a car accident that left her in a coma for 3 weeks; she was not expected to walk again. The accident caused a miscarriage, although she had not known she was pregnant. At age 21 Trina was a single mother of two and economically strapped. She was propositioned by a bar owner who promised that "[I] wouldn't have to leave my kids, or work 11-7, and he would buy me this and do that for me." The relationship "worked out real well" for her and lasted 1 year, until she met Greg who introduced her to street prostitution and became her pimp and the father of her third child. She described still mourning the death of her first love. For her, prostitution was "... the perfect relationship. I didn't have to fall in love, I didn't have to be heard." Trina explained how she and Greg traveled "all over ... to Canada, Michigan, Minneapolis, South Dakota ... catching hoes." At one point Greg had seven other women working for him. They made a lot of money, drove Cadillacs, and lived in an upper-class neighborhood. Trina commented, however, "Fast money don't last long." One night, on a paranoid high, Greg held a gun to Trina's head and forced her to try crack to prove she was not a police informant. She became addicted. After 5 1/2 years Trina left Greg because "I got tired of him beating me up." On her own again, Trina became "real wild ... I didn't have a supervisor anymore." Her children were eventually placed with relatives while she "... went selling dope and selling [myself] ... I'd sell anything." She married a man within a year, after knowing him 1 month. The marriage lasted 1 year, although much of that time she had spent in jail "with 178 injuries to my record." It was while in jail that she met her current partner, a detention officer. Trina was interviewed in an apartment they shared; she had been drug- and prostitution-free for 3 months.