The Happy Hooker

In 1982, Silbert and Pines, two Bay Area researchers, interviewed 200 prostitutes in San Francisco, ranging in age from 10 to 46.

Childhood memories

• 78% started prostituting before age 18;  68% before age 16

• 96% of the juvenile prostitutes were runaways

• 75% reported a religious upbringing

• 50% reported parents who drank excessively

• 62% reported being beaten by their parents

• 19% reported a close relationship with their mothers

Sexual abuse

• 89% had been molested or raped as children (2/3 of the molesters were fathers, stepfathers, or foster fathers)

• 38% reported that they had been used in porn as children

• 97% of them had been raped as adults

• 70% reported that sexual abuse affected their decision to prostitute.

“I was only 11 when it happened.  I felt sick and disgusted…I wanted to die; I thought everyone could tell what he did to me by looking at me…I thought my mother would think I was crazy if I told her or maybe she wouldn’t even have cared…He didn’t even love me: he just wanted to try something new.  I wasn’t nothing but a new hole to my own father…After I ran away, I tried to get a straight job, but who would hire a 12-year old dropout who was nuts?  At first when they tried to talk me into prostituting I said no.  Finally I was scared and hungry and lonely.  I figured I was already ruined.  I couldn’t ever go back home after what happened, so what did I have to lose? 

- Juvenile prostitute

Self-esteem

44% percent had attempted suicide

“It is degrading…you develop a total hatred for yourself for being so low, filthy, and dirty.  You’re like a slave, but like most slaves you don’t know how to get out.  The horror of opening your eyes and finding someone on top of you…it’s hard to forget the faces and the smells.  The only thing to do is not feel anything and pretend you don’t care.”

 –A 13-year old prostitute.

Porn Involvement

• 24% of those who’d been raped said that their rapist had specifically mentioned his use of pornography during the crime

• 22% of those who’d been molested as children said that their molester used pornography during the crime or mentioned its use during the crime

“I know all about you bitches, you’re no different; you’re like all of them.  I seen it in all the movies.  You love being beaten.  I just seen it again in that flick.  He beat the shit out of her while he raped her and she told him she loved it; you know you love it; tell me you love it.” 

-Prostitute recounting her attacker’s words as he beat and raped her.

Source: Zillmann and Bryant’s Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations

Canadian Prostitution Facts

In 2003, Melissa Farley and Jacqueline Lynne interviewed 100 prostituted women in Vancouver , Canada .

Their findings included the following:

•  82% reported a history of childhood sexual abuse, by an average of four different perpetrators

•  72% reported a history of physical abuse by a parent or guardian

•  Since they began prostituting:

•  90% had been physically assaulted

•  78% had been raped

•  75% had suffered injuries ranging from black eyes to concussions and broken bones

•  67% had pornography made of them

•  64% were forced to perform an act that customers had seen in porn

•  86% reported past or current homelessness

•  82% wanted treatment for drug or alcohol addiction

(Source: Not For Sale , editors Rebecca Whisnant and Christine Stark)