How has pimping culture affected black sexual politics, society, and how we perceive sex trafficking? What is the story of pimping in history? Here's 10 Facts you may not have known about Pimp Culture.

1. Many early pimps in history were women, or "madams".

In the pre-modern Europe, many procurers prior to reforms were female madams in brothels, like Elizabeth Creswell, one of the most renowned of the 17th century. She was a shrewd self promoter, and her clients included the elite of London— all the way up to King Charles II himself. In numerous societies where sex workers have plied their trade, the fear of violence, law enforcement, or other factors, pimps, offered protection in exchange for all, most, or a portion of the worker’s money. Many pimps, like the pornoboskos, engaged in sex trafficking. The Catholic Church, reported Nickie Roberts in Whores In History, dabbled in pimping and trafficking in the Medieval era.  In the case of “Fancy Girls” and “Fancy Women”, or enslaved women who were bought expressly for the purpose of sex, particularly in Louisiana, the procurers and pimps were enslavers, embodying the repulsive sex trafficking of antiquity and today— where there is no consent or autonomy. Aside from streetwalking and following encampments during the civil war, the female procurer was the most prominent kind of sex working relationship in America prior to the 1920s, when progressive era legislation, moral panics, and the white slavery panic sent consensual sex work further underground.

2. Pornoboskos were the OG Pimps.

If sex work is one of the world’s oldest professions, pimping is also old. In Ancient Greece, the owners of “pornai,” or sex workers who usually had sex with many men in brothels or in the street, were called pornoboskos. It was not uncommon for pornai who bought their freedom— or highly educated and refined hetaira sex workers— to become pimps or ‘madams' in their older years. The modern word “Pimp” first appeared in a 1607 English play by Thomas Middleton called Your Five Gallants, but it took a few centuries before it came to be the common word for “procurer.”

3. The first notable black pimp was a man named Stagger Lee or Lee Shelton.

   
   
   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   
   
   

The very first black pimp of note was a real man and folk hero named Stagger Lee, or, Lee Shelton, a late 19th century resident of St. Louis. He was known to associate with a group of pimps called The Macks On Christmas 1895, Lee got into an argument with a man named William Lyons at a bar who snatched the hat from Lee’s head. According to the St Louis Globe Democrat, “The latter indignantly demanded its return. Lyons refused, and Shelton withdrew his revolver and shot Lyons in the abdomen. When his victim fell to the floor, Shelton took his hat from the hand of the wounded man and coolly walked away. He was subsequently arrested and locked up at the Chestnut Street Station.” Lee went to jail, was eventually released, likely thanks to political influence he swayed, and would die in 1912. Over 60 recordings detailed and mythicized Stagger Lee and his cold and calm demeanor, as well as plays and stories.

4. The title 'Mack' is derived from a french word.

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“Mack” or “Mackeral” had been a term for pimp as early as the late 19th century, abbreviated from the French word Maquerau, meaning procurer.

5. People of all backgrounds were involved in 'pimping'.

Its important to note that by this time, various ethnic groups had dabbled in sex commerce, including Italians and Poles, but also the Chinese, who trafficked women in California and the Pacific Northwest and managed to turn the trade into profitable and legal dry cleaners, restaurants, and more. The black Chicago sex trade up until this point was documented in Cynthia M Blair’s Ive Got To Make My Living and a crucial part of the industry was the red light district known as The Levee, which operated from 1880-1912 and was similar to New Orleans’ Storyville. Blair wrote, “Men’s control of women’s work pace, earnings, and bodies did not emerge as an endemic feature of urban prostitution until after 1920.” As nightclubs and saloons grew in the city’s black belt after 1900, more pimps popped up. She also noted that when black men were brought into court in the 1910s for pimping or pandering, it usually had something to do with white women. For instance, famous boxer and Chicago resident Jack Johnson was arrested twice for so called “pimping and trafficking” under the Mann Act for traveling with his white girlfriend— an ex sex worker named Lucille Cameron.

6. Thanks to Robert 'Iceberg Slim' Beck pimping would have a ripple effect on music and media.

As a teen, Robert would see pimps bring their women into his mother’s hair shop. He was enchanted by the control they exerted and their lifestyles. Later, in his bestselling memoir, Robert “Iceberg Slim” Beck would write how an older pimp named Sweet Jones told him when he was 18 and entering the Milwaukee game, “Slim, a pimp is really a whore who has reversed the game on whores.” Pimp: The Story of My Life, written with the help of his white wife Betty Shue in the wake of the civil rights and black power movements, detailed Beck’s rise in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, and his fall. With over two million copies sold between 1967 and 1973 alone in liquor stores, barbershops, and on street tables. Pimp: The Story of My Life had ripple effects on a number of hip hop figures and pimps— specifically with its influence in the blaxploitation craze just a few years later. Take Robert Poole, a Bay Area mack who began writing a screenplay about his life while in jail after reading Pimp. It was allegedly written on toilet paper. The screenplay would be The Mack, starring Max Julien and Richard Pryor.

7. Popular 2000's era pimp Bishop Don Juan became a minister after finding God while watching a televangelist broadcast high on PCP.

   
   
   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   
   
   

Bishop Don Magic Juan had been a vicious pimp who found God in 1985 while high on PCP and watching a televangelist broadcast. Real name Donald Campbell, his life echoed so many who eventually got into pimping. Not only was he born to a pimp in Chicago, but he was raped multiple times by older women from ages 5 to 13. He also grew up poor and desired to emulate the life of Iceberg Slim after reading this memoir. Like so many others who failed to see Slim’s warning, the flashy lifestyle attracted him. He would later say, “I considered the pimp game a great trade because I didn’t like going to jail. I’d rather send someone else in my place.” Bishop Magic Juan published a memoir, From The Pimp Stick To Pulpit, in 1994 with his sister Ann Bromfield.

8. The resurgence of pimping was a response to third wave feminism and a self esteem crisis in disenfranchised men.

In 2000, the same year Pimp: The Story of My Life reached a total 5 million in sales, Tariq Nasheed published The Art of Mackin, describing it as “the first book that teaches men how to become players and macks and how to use the pimp game to get what they want from women.” Teaching how to pimp or have the ”mack mindset” would make plenty of pick up artist instructors like Nasheed a pretty penny. So while back in the 1970s Ebony was trying to get men to break away from pimping in romantic relationships, in the new millennium pick up artist instructors like Nasheed were responding to  third wave feminism, gold digging, and a self-esteem crisis in disenfranchised men by encouraging them to “mack” and “game” their conquests.

9. Pimps were often formerly abused only to mature and perpetuate that abuse on others.

In 2019, an infamous 23-year-old  LA-based social media user named Melanie Williams, aka Pretty Hoe, was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for sex trafficking. In the years prior to her arrest, she went viral for her abuse, antics, and drama, cultivating a small following who kept up with her on snapchat and instagram. In addition to beating the women and underage girls she recruited in her stable, described one news report: “The defendant also forced the victim to get "Melanie" tattooed on her face, confiscated her belongings and identity documents, and continually threatened to kill the victim if she tried to leave.” Where had Melanie learned such behavior? According to her attorney, through her own past as a victim of human trafficking, and what she was exposed to as a child. In an 2014 study of interviews of 73 traffickers and pimps by the Urban Institute, nearly 1/3 reported being influenced by people they grew up with, or the neighborhood they grew up in.  

10. The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act were both passed in 2018.

An analysis by The Washington Post found that the volume of sex trafficking ads had rebounded to 75% of the original amount within four months of FOSTA-SESTA’s passage.Fast forward to after FOSTA/SESTA passed. Documented Amelia Gallay, “In San Francisco, crimes related to pimping and street-based transactions have more than tripled. According to Pike Long, the deputy director of St. James Infirmary, a health and safety clinic for sex workers in San Francisco, sex workers “have reported that former pimps came out of the woodwork offering to ‘manage’ their business again since they were now rendered unable to find and screen clients online.”

Bonus: Snoop Dogg based much of his popular persona around pimping.

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