There are interviews with other prostitutes, including
Rain, who says she started when she was eleven years old. You can’t help but be
affected when you hear her say: “My pimp took my virginity and I fell in
love with him. He was my first love, he was my first everything.” And Cindy
displays a tattoo of her pimp’s name. What’s interesting is that the film also
interviews several johns and pimps, including Slim, a pimp who thinks of
himself as a good person because he helps his girls out with various things. He
also says it’s safer for him to sell women than to sell drugs. It’s the women
who are taking the risks; the pimps, as they admit, often stay at home.
The filmmakers also interview people in law enforcement,
focusing on two men: Daniel Steele, of the Denver police department, and Chris
Baughman, of the Las Vegas police department. Chris Baughman has some
interesting things to say. He points out, “We also have a slogan of ‘What
happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,’ which I don’t particularly care for because
it gives people the idea that you can come here, do whatever you want, and go
home, and then there’s no mess left to clean up.” He also mentions how
people coming into his city believe prostitution is legal, and get into trouble
because of that. He’s one of the most well-spoken interview subjects. Daniel
Steele comes across as at times a bit of a braggart and a self-appointed
savior. Mitch Morrissey, a district attorney in Denver, talks about how these
are difficult cases to prosecute.
The oddest interview subject is Debbie, “The Pimp Cup
Lady,” a religious weirdo who wears a goofy wig and makes drinking cups to sell
to pimps. She demonstrates how she anoints and prays over each cup. “After
the cup is made, then I leave it on this altar for seven days, saying, ‘My
father, God, holy father, I ask you in the name of Jesus to touch this
individual…’” Also interesting is the footage of the Players’ Ball, where
the women are forced to look down at the floor as they file in. Danielle talks
about her experience there, and it’s something I’d never heard of before.
The filmmakers clearly have an agenda, and though it is
an admirable one, as a result the film can be a bit heavy-handed in some
respects. An example is the way people are labeled on screen. Danielle is
called a “former sex slave,” and at one point there is footage of a
suspected pimp being arrested. And though he is claiming innocence, the film
labels him “pimp,” which feels a bit like judge and jury rather than
documentary.
Special Features
The DVD includes four bonus scenes, totaling
approximately seventeen minutes. One of these scenes is an interview with a
professional dominatrix, who provides a perspective on consensual sex work,
something that is missing from the film. Another scene features Daniel Steele
traveling to Sweden to learn how the approach to prostitution works in that
country. In Sweden, it’s legal to sell sex, but illegal to purchase it. So the
women don’t go to jail, and are even allowed to keep the money they make, but
the johns are arrested. That seems a bit unfair to me, but it’s based on the
idea that the women are victims and should be helped, not punished. However, it
also seems like an easy way for women to make some money without having to do
anything at all.
Another of the bonus scenes is about prostitution at the
Super Bowl, and it includes a title card which reads: “10,000 prostitutes
were brought to the Miami Super Bowl in 2010, many of them minors. 133 underage
prostitutes were arrested during the Dallas Super Bowl in 2011.” The fourth
bonus scene is actually a collection of several short scenes of operations to
arrest prostitutes and johns.
The bonus features also include biographies of filmmakers
Jane Wells (who is referred to as a “documentary filmmaker and activist”)
and John-Keith Wasson, plus – surprisingly – subjects Danielle Douglas, Daniel
Steele and Christopher Baughman.
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