A couple of weeks ago, I was laying on my couch watching one of my all-time favorite documentaries, “Hookers on the Point”. Sadly, I must admit that I have seen every installment of this series and found myself very interested in the updates about the various “working girls” who had planned to get out of the business during the last episode but are still walking the streets years later. In between the very shallow, voyeuristic enjoyment I got from hearing their stories and marveling at how bluntly they negotiated the fees for their services, I had an occasional substantive thought about what this show, its participants, and the ideas expressed therein say about our society. But then I’d quickly get sucked right back into the superficial, guilty pleasure provided by the show, secure in knowing that since I’m not a prostitute, these issues hardly affect me…
The next day I was doing a little online shopping for some humorous graphic tee-shirts. On one particular website, you could search for products by different groupings that correspond to races/ethnicities, countries, sports, music genres, etc. I searched under “hip hop” and “black” just to see what I came up with. I was delighted and entertained by the first couple of funny sayings that I could get beautifully screen-printed on a baby-tee. But then I realized that there were pages and pages of sayings and images that referenced prostitution and the entrepreneurial spirit behind the world’s oldest profession – The Pimp.
Perhaps even before the era of “Blacksploitation” films, we have been developing an ever-increasing fascination for pimp culture. It’s interesting how young black people will rarely go so far as to suggest that it’s acceptable or admirable for a young woman to be a bona fide hooker, and being called a hoe is almost always a bad thing. Yet what better accolade can a young black man receive from his contemporaries than to be labeled as a pimp? Think of what the title implies…money, clout, sex, and the power of persuasion over women. What more can a young man want?
Then I started thinking about how “P-I-M-P-ology” has permeated hip hop culture in the last 10 – 20 years. Ice T, 8 Ball and MJG, Snoop, Bishop Don Magic Juan, Outkast, UGK, and other highly popular artists and public personalities have images carefully fashioned after the ways of The Pimp. Their clothes, their language, their swagger…but it makes sense when you consider the skill that it would take to make a woman want to stand on street corners, give blow jobs to random men night in and night out, then turn over the proceeds to their “Daddy”. It’s remarkable actually. Most pimps would probably make good sales executives because they can clearly make a bitch buy anything!
So I then had to re-evaluate my initial belief that what happens on some far away street corner doesn’t affect me…
The truth is that it does affect me. Every time I’m spoken to disrespectfully or expected to sleep with a man if he buys me two good dinners. Or every time I think about how I barely even notice when words like “hoe”, “bitch-slap”, or “trick” get uttered in casual conversation. Or every time I see a young woman act as if the most valuable thing she has to contribute to the world is under her skirt.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to sound preachy. Because the fact remains that I’m probably not going to do much about it. I’ll still twerk somethin’ in the club to most explicit songs. I’ll still bump misogynistic rap in my car as long as the track is hot. And I’ll still watch “Pimps Up, Hoes Down” the next time it comes on…may even invite some friends over and make a party of it! I know better, but I won’t do better. I know that it’s probably not “right”, but I’ll do it anyway.
When you think about it, maybe that’s the truest essence of The Pimp – the power to make a woman do anything, even when she knows she shouldn’t.
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