"I don't steal nothing but a b****'s mind"

My sister got Netflix recently, and I've been watching a lot of the online documentaries, and today I watched American Pimp. I had my ideas of what a pimp was, most of which I thought was a stereotype, but, I soon found out that those stereotypes were true. After a while I was laughing. Laughing, because these men have made this lifestyle a reality. They are not fictional characters from 1970s movies, but they are fulfilled stereotypes. They are men who control women and use them for money.

Some quotes...

• [In reference to how much money their prostitutes make]"0% percentage...life ain't fair...you know what I'm sayin'"

"It's exciting for her [to make a lot of money]....because it's us against the world"

"B asked me if she could take Mother's Day off...I said for what...yeah, she got a baby...so what...she got a pimp to pay too"


According to a prostitute: "It doesn't matter how special you think you are to them, because you're not."

"Anybody who exploits women for profit could be called a pimp"

"A pimp is somebody who lives off the earnings of what a woman does"

The documentary seemed almost like a glorification of the lifestyle. There was not a lot of questioning of the pimp's beliefs, more of a you tell us how it is. The biggest stereotype that I think most of these pimps met, were the clothing. The alligator suits, shoes, jewelry, gold teeth, hats, etc., and each each had catchy phrases and lines they used.

The pimps spoke highly of the mentor/mentee relationships they had built over time with older pimps. Since women are they product, they don't believe in unnecessary abuse, but just enough to keep the prostitutes in line. There were a wide array of pimps from all areas of the US. Since there was a variety of pimps, as a viewer, I became informed on how prostitutes have to learn to be most productive in different areas. For example, in Hawaii, a prostitute must be proactive because she cannot stand on a corner, she must walk constantly and not be a [and I quote] lazy bitch. Whereas in Las Vegas it would be simpler for her to get a trick by standing on the street corning.

It's almost surreal to me that I spent about an hour and a half of my life watching this documentary, and almost surreal to me that this is their truth.