They Are Not Romeo Pimps,They Are Traffickers: Overcoming the Socially Dominant Discourse to Prevent the Sex Trafficking of Youth

Introduction

There is growing evidence on the influence of social relationships that favor sex trafficking (Di Tommaso et al., 2009; Simkhada, 2008). Traffickers rely on personal relationships of the victims to initiate contacts that potentially lead to recruitment, such as approaching families and acquaintances with false promises of a better life and offering jobs or educational opportunities to lure victims (Di Tommaso et al., 2009). However, there is little research on coercive and deceptive intimate relationship–based strategies, which seem to be imperative for the recruitment of many young women into sex trafficking. Research that explores the life experiences of sex trafficking victims finds that they often report being coerced and recruited into sex trafficking by traffickers with whom they used to have an intimate relationship (Kennedy et al., 2007; Nixon et al., 2002; Raphael et al., 2010; Raphael & Shapiro, 2004; Silbert & Pines, 1982), who in turn were abusive and violent partners (Harding & Hamilton, 2009).

As a result, empirical research has started to analyze the similarities between domestic violence and sex trafficking (Verhoeven et al., 2015). Advanced research is starting to map out the process and social interactions between traffickers and young women who were coerced into sex trafficking through deceptive intimate relationships (Puigvert, 2014–2016). Commonly, traffickers prey on the most vulnerable women, seducing and entrapping them into abusive intimate relationships that end in sex trafficking. Some of the studies that have started to address this strategy of recruitment follow the dominant social discourse and refer to these traffickers as Romeo Pimps and Loverboys. To determine the scope of this recruitment strategy, a study conducted by the nongovernmental organization (NGO) ECPAT Netherlands and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) Netherlands, focused on the so-called “Loverboy problem”; it included almost half of the cases of sex trafficking of underage girls and youth in the Netherlands (48.5%), involving 75.3% of the Dutch girls in the sample (Van den Borne & Kloosterboer, 2005).

Emerging information and data on this type of trafficker comes mainly from NGO and government reports. These reports provide realistic information that is very close to the experiences of people involved in sex trafficking; however, due to the dominant social discourse, as it is found in other studies, it is common to find extensive use of the aforementioned terms that refer to sex traffickers. We are referring to the generalized and socially imposed use of labels such as Romeo pimps, Finesse pimps, and Loverboys, among others, to characterize a type of sex trafficker and predator not only in society but also in research and in preventive programs.

Society is clamoring for more preventive actions and research with social impact that prevents sex trafficking and promotes successful life trajectories and migratory pathways away from sexual exploitation. Responding to this challenge should be our commitment as researchers if we aim to achieve social impact (Flecha et al., 2015; Soler-Gallart, 2017). To this end, in the qualitative research on sex trafficking with a communicative approach (Gómez et al., 2011) presented in this article, we acknowledge the dominant social discourse used to refer to traffickers and the consequences of this discourse. In interviews with social service providers and in the Communicative Daily Life Stories conducted with sex trafficking survivors, we note the standardized use and the risk of reproducing the dominant discourse through the use of these terms, especially regarding the prevention of sex trafficking; we also argue that it is important to unmask that they are indeed traffickers. Calling them what they are and explicitly encouraging social rejection of the traffickers are essential starting points for questioning the dominant socially imposed discourse and generating the possibility for potential victims to break free and move away from these traffickers.

This article draws from two Spanish research projects: TRATA: Life trajectories that move away from or move closer to the trafficking processes of sexual exploitation (Puigvert, 2012–2014; fieldwork was conducted in Spain and in Morocco) and END-TRAFFICKING: Changes and social innovations for the prevention and reduction of trafficking of women for sexual exploitation (Puigvert, 2014–2016; fieldwork was conducted in Spain and in the United States). ¹ Although both projects had different objectives, this article reviews the extensive fieldwork conducted in the projects to meet the article’s aim. The fieldwork involved the collection of 31 communicative, qualitative research techniques. For this article, we focused on the 21 interviews conducted with social service providers who worked directly with sex trafficking victims and 10 Communicative Daily Life Stories with sex trafficking survivors. In addition to building on the fieldwork from the projects, we reviewed scientific literature on the topic and information published by mass media to explore how the socially dominant discourse toward traffickers is embodied among public opinion through terms as Loverboys, Romeo pimps, pimps, and other labels.

The first section of this article analyzes how the dominant model of so-called Loverboys or Romeo Pimps is socially embedded and that it glamorizes sex trafficking, which hinders the social rejection of traffickers. In the second section, we explain how the qualitative research on sex trafficking with a communicative approach used in this research was an important resource for critically questioning the socially dominant discourse and for illustrating its consequences regarding the vulnerability of young girls to sex traffickers. Finally, we reflect on the importance of overcoming the socially dominant discourse by calling traffickers by what they are, traffickers.

The So-Called Loverboys and Romeo Pimps

It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp is a song that won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2006, as the theme for the film Hustle & Flow, written and performed by the hip-hop group “Three 6 Mafia.” The film and the song narrate the life of a trafficker, glamorizing and normalizing sexual exploitation and violence toward women (Ralph, 2009). Famous hip-hop singers as Bishop Don “Magic” and Snoop Dogg have proudly defended being pimps in the past, getting the attention of the mass media that have published their feats. ² Through violent and chauvinistic lyrics, they have boasted about turning girls out into sex trafficking. Since 1974, in different cities of the United States such as Chicago, Florida, Hollywood, and Las Vegas, an annual public gathering of musicians and artists called the “Players Ball” has been taking place. In this annual gathering, led by the former self-confessed trafficker and now musician Bishop Don “Magic,” artists and attendants from across the country meet to play music and to deliver the award for Pimp of the Year. The atmosphere of the gathering is ambiguous toward sex trafficking through the use of expressions such as pimps or Romeo pimps accompanied by sexist behaviors and male domination, generating double discourses that imply that prostitution and sex trafficking are a glamorous and normal part of the subculture. The annual award “the Pimp of the year” also depicts ambiguous connotations regarding sexual exploitation. On several occasions, the mass media have publicized the event, promoting it as an extravagant music show. ³ The police have suspected and investigated possible cases of minors who could have been sexually exploited in these gatherings. In San Diego, before the annual gathering that was organized in 2014, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office warned citizens of the risk of teenagers being recruited for sexual exploitation (FBI.org, 2014).

Research has extensively analyzed the damage of representations of prostitution in popular culture and entertainment that cover up violence and sexual exploitation (Boyle, 2010; Coy et al., 2011; Dalla, 2000). By promoting traffickers and silencing victims, some mass media not only distract attention and normalize sex trafficking and forced prostitution but also reproduce a socially dominant discourse that generates attraction toward the game ⁴ and sex traffickers, who are charmingly portrayed as powerful, violent, opulent, sexy, and dominant seducers. Early in the 1970s, some American mass media represented pimps showing off on the streets with fancy clothes, expensive cars, and false promises of having a powerful life. Proudly, traffickers started referring themselves as Romeo pimps or Finesse Pimps; they were predators trained to get young girls to fall in love with them through psychological manipulation, violence, and abuse to lure them into sexual exploitation. In the European context, although the origin of the term Loverboy is unclear, Bovenkerk and Van San (2011) suggest that late in the 1990s, in the Netherlands, a rescued sex trafficked woman referred to the arrested trafficker as “her Loverboy.” ⁵ Later, some mass media extensively promoted the use of this term, amplifying a sensationalist and racially biased profile that characterized traffickers as seductive (Bovenkerk & Van San, 2011). While these mass media tried to warn about the dangers of the Loverboy phenomenon, they represented the traffickers with sensationalist images and desirable attributes, reproducing the dominant discourse placed in violent traditional masculinities that perpetuates gender-based violence (Castro Sandúa & Mara, 2014; Connell, 2005), a type of dominant traditional masculinity that sex traffickers embody. The generalized use of the term Loverboy even penetrated the political arena in research projects, public reports, and preventive programs. However, a close study of the so-called Loverboy phenomenon found that they were just conventional traffickers and not a new type of offender (Van San & Bovenkerk, 2013); although it had been recently studied, it was an old strategy of recruitment and a conventional phenomenon.

Just one click away, it is easy to find forums on the internet in which anonymous traffickers share advice related to sex trafficking, advice for recruiting and controlling girls, and tips for ruling the business. They affirm that the attitude of the Romeo pimp, who performs with confidence, power, domination, and inspires fear with the threat of violence is what allows them to seduce girls and compel them to sex trafficking. According to Besbris (2016), although there are numerous uses of the term pimp, what they all have in common is that pimps reinforce the gender hierarchy and produce a revanchist masculinity with the aim of controlling sex trafficking victims through power. The term pimp has also penetrated mainstream culture, as Coy et al. (2011) describe; its use has become normalized in music, cinema, videogames, and even in conventional marketing, and always comprises and reproduces symbolic violence toward women.

Above the influence of culture, research in the field of language and communicative acts (Flecha & Soler, 2010) has studied the incidence of certain language in the social construction of violent models of masculinity among the social interactions of teenagers, noting the impact of communicative acts of power that promote attraction toward nonegalitarian and violent sexual relationships. These communicative acts of power are characterized using the Language of Desire, in which desire and attraction are linked to violence, thus perpetuating gender-based violence (Ríos & Christou, 2010).

In sex trafficking, the confusion and ambiguity manifested in the language related to the social perception of sex trafficking have negative consequences mainly because there is not an implicit rejection toward these violent recruiters. A law enforcement officer, who for more than 15 years has directly attended victims of sex trafficking and has prosecuted traffickers, participated in the research and observed the evolution and incidence in popular culture of language related to trafficking. He noted the reproduction of the socially dominant discourse and the obstacles for preventing sex trafficking. The participant stated that language has been trivialized, removing the negative connotations and associated dangers that used to encompass expressions such as pimp; now, the attributes are not only positive but also socially desirable:

The word pimp has lost its power in America. It used to be like a really bad thing. It was a bad person that used to do bad things. But like now, it’s . . . Every rap singer wants to be a pimp. It is cool, it has become socially acceptable to be a pimp. When you follow the narrative of pimping, it is all in the positive, it is almost never in the negative. (EM15)

Traffickers are the first beneficiaries of this social confusion and language tergiversation toward sex trafficking; in this sense, the dominant social discourse implicitly serves their interests. The use of terms such as Loverboy or Romeo pimp is deliberate; through referring to themselves with this language, they attempt to evoke an alluring but deceptive reality to separate themselves from traffickers and predators, who are commonly rejected by society. Traffickers not only take advantage of this double standard that exists in the socially dominant discourse that criticizes sex trafficking while presenting pimps as victors and seducers, but they also attempt to directly influence the socialization and perception of potential victims. When traffickers are called Loverboys, pimps, or Romeo pimps, they play with the ambiguity of the dominant discourse that portrays them as captivating, thrilling, irresistible, and unpredictable bad boys. This discourse glamorizes sex trafficking and potentiates that traffickers may look sexually and romantically attractive for some vulnerable victims, who then might be recruited through fraudulent intimate relationships. The influence of expressions such as Romeo pimp or Loverboys in popular culture promotes an increased sense of excitement, evoking an image of an enthralling but violent relationship that does not explicitly socially condemn. This influence does not prevent potentials victims from being entrapped into sex trafficking through deceptive intimate relationships; on the contrary, it may be a cultural push factor.

Evidencing the Dominant Social Discourse Through Qualitative Research With a Communicative Approach

Exiting sex trafficking is extremely difficult and risky. Along with the structural difficulties and barriers to exit sex trafficking, research has started to analyze the influence of the socialization process of victims before entry and during sexual exploitation, and how these socialization experiences may impact their perception toward sexual exploitation and the traffickers, conditioning their will and opportunities for successfully exiting sex trafficking (Puigvert, 2014-2016). Holger-Ambrose et al. (2013) analyzed the perception of youth sex trafficking victims who were involved with what the literature refers to as boyfriend pimps; they found that victims perceived them to have amusing characteristics and have the illusion that they were being protected by them from potential risks; in truth, they were treated with violence and coercion. The authors speculate that this misperception that victims have toward their traffickers hinders their exit from sexual exploitation. However, in the study, the authors referred to the traffickers as boyfriend pimps, linking in a romantic relationship two contradictory concepts such as being boyfriend and pimp, not making a distinction between what is a “boyfriend” and a predator.

There is little empirical research on the coercive and deceptive intimate relationship–based strategies that traffickers use to recruit young women and on the influence of the dominant social discourse in the perception and feelings that victims have toward these traffickers. Studies on violence against women in heterosexual relationships note that social interactions influence attractiveness, dating, and romantic relationship models. Preventive socialization on gender violence has drawn attention to the prevalence of socialization patterns among diverse girls and women in which attractiveness and desire are associated with violence (Bukowski et al., 2000; Rebellon & Manasse, 2004; Valls et al., 2008).

In previous qualitative studies about gender-based violence, the use of the Language of Desire in the communicative research methodology has not only provided evidence on the influence of social interactions of the attraction and increased desire toward violent men and relationships but also has contributed to gender violence prevention, transforming the socialization patterns and desires placed toward violent relationships and promoting affective and sexual relationships free of violence (Aubert et al., 2011; Puigvert, 2016). This has been essential in developing further policies and effective preventive programs aimed at overcoming gender violence (Padrós, 2014). Qualitative research with a communicative approach also had shed light on the transformative contributions of Free Women, a Spanish anarchist women’s organization that pursued overcoming prostitution and sexual exploitation as well as the achievement of relationships free of violence in the early twentieth century (Giner et al., 2016).

Building on these previous contributions for researching sex trafficking, qualitative research with a communicative approach was selected to identify the standardized use of terms such as Loverboys or Romeo pimps to refer to these traffickers and their consequences, particularly regarding the vulnerability of potential victims toward traffickers who recruit victims through fraudulent intimate relationships. The qualitative research with a communicative approach was essential to analyze the emergence of deep aspects linked to emotions and socialization processes that were difficult to approach using other research methods. This was especially true for opening a critical dialogue on the interpretations and understandings raised in this research and established in the social dominant discourse that influences scholars and service providers, as well as society in general. Qualitative research was considered as a key contributor to identifying, giving meaning, and rethinking the problem of sex trafficking in our commitment to change the world (Denzin, 2017); this research also includes the lives and voices of sex trafficking survivors. All this is fundamental for critically questioning the dominant social discourse delivered toward traffickers, which is a starting point for encouraging the complete social rejection of them.

To this aim, in the design of the communicative qualitative techniques of research, we started introducing specific questions regarding the fraudulent and deceptive intimate relationship strategies of recruitment and control of victims that were used by traffickers to gather the expressions and feelings involved, as exampled in the following questions:

Did the trafficker initiate an intimate relationship in order to “seduce” the victim into sex trafficking? What strategies did he use to turn her out (grooming)?

Did the trafficker arouse a sense of love or admiration in the victim towards him?

Did the trafficker use the intimate relationship as a coercive pretext for sexually exploiting the victim? Was the love or sexual attraction that the victim might felt toward the trafficker a barrier for exiting sex trafficking? (Puigvert, 2014–2016).

We used scientific language without reproducing terms as Romeo pimps or Loverboys in the design of the instruments. We also included questions to link the influence of social and cultural elements to the life trajectories of victims, especially regarding the socially dominant discourse, as push factors that influence the socialization process of potential victims:

How do you think the “trafficking culture” present in some social media, movies, songs, TV Shows, that glamorizes sex trafficking and “pimp’s life,” can promote a socialization towards sex trafficking, generating attraction? How can it affect potential victims? (Puigvert, 2014–2016)

Second, in the implementation of the interviews and Communicative Daily Life Stories, following the communicative approach, we engaged in an egalitarian dialogue with participants in which researchers shared evidence on sex trafficking related to the deceptive strategies of recruitment based on the intimate relationship that some traffickers use. In this dialogue, we referred to the traffickers as what they are: unambiguously, traffickers. This term highlighted the deliberate action of traffickers to deceive, manipulate, and coerce victims. When participants in the study used expressions such as Romeo pimps or Loverboys, the researchers clarified that these expressions are socially linked in the dominant discourse to give attraction to sex traffickers and mask the brutality of traffickers and predators. Together with the communicative approach that fostered an egalitarian dialogue with participants in the research, these clarifications and reflections regarding the standardized use of terms such as the aforementioned, fostered a critical reflection that made it possible to identify the consequences of the socially dominant discourse, especially for potential victims:

Third, following the communicative approach that seeks social transformation (Gómez et al., 2013), qualitative data were transcribed and then analyzed identifying the exclusionary and transformative dimensions of the categories proposed for the study. One of the categories was the Language of Desire, considered as the communicative acts, expressions, and manifestations, as well as the language and terminology used in society as well as by the participants in the study, referring to traffickers and to sex trafficking. We then analyzed qualitative information for the category of Language of Desire distinguishing between both dimensions that are characteristic of this communicative approach, exclusionary and transformative. For the exclusionary dimension, we included the communicative acts referring to sex trafficking that reproduced the socially dominant discourse through terms such as Romeo pimps or Loverboys, among others, which are implicitly and ambiguously linked to violence and social attraction toward traffickers. For the transformative dimension, we considered those communicative acts that referred to the traffickers without reproducing a double standard, but rejecting them in a contemptuous way, with the clear and noncondescending perception that they are traffickers who objectify victims, defraud them, and force them into sexual exploitation. The analysis first was conducted separately and peer-reviewed by two members of the research team of the projects TRATA (Puigvert, 2012–2014) and END-TRAFFICKING (Puigvert, 2014–2016); the researchers then compared the codified information. The research team then met to discuss the interpretation of the analysis.

Tell It Like It Is: Traffickers—Overcoming the Socially Dominant Discourse

Language matters. To have a crucial impact on the lives of girls and women, who are potential victims of sex trafficking, and to clarify the current confusion that exists in society, it is fundamental to critically question the dominant socially discourse imposed with respect to traffickers. This questioning starts by calling them what they are: traffickers.

In the research, we strove to identify how the socially dominant discourse is embodied and reproduced through language, generating the vulnerability of young girls for sex traffickers. Researchers, social service providers, law enforcement, practitioners, advocates of the anti-sex trafficking movement, among others, both in the United States and in Europe, are working hard to overcome sex trafficking. Among the future challenges, it is crucial to overcome the socially dominant discourse and stop using standardized terms as Romeo pimps, pimps, or Loverboys. In the research, we found that even with the aim to contribute to the understanding of the strategies of recruitment, some practitioners, due to the influence of the socially imposed dominant discourse, still use these aforementioned terms to refer to the traffickers who recruit young girls through intimate deceptive relationship–based strategies. In the dialogue with social service providers and practitioners, some participants used terms such as Loverboy and expressions as boyfriend pimps that are associated with love, romance, falling in love, and romantic relationships:

There, what they do is a romantic recruitment, with this Loverboy . . . It is very common for them (the Loverboys) to go to the clubs, to become their boyfriends and once they have them as their girlfriends, they bring them to Spain. (EM07)

Following the analysis of the qualitative information with a communicative approach, the use of this language is exclusionary because it does not question the ambiguity of the social dominant discourse with respect to traffickers. Corroborating what has been found in previous studies on gender-based violence, the use of Language of Desire has been linked to violence (Puigvert, 2016). However, many professionals who, at first, did not realize this reproduction of the social dominant discourse then questioned it when engaged in a critical dialogue with the researchers. In this vein, overcoming the socially dominant discourse is key to preventing sex trafficking as well as favoring a successful long-term exit for survivors. A close look at the stories of the victims who participated in the research, as the story of Nadia presented below, shows the relevance of clearly identifying the traffickers who use fraudulent strategies of recruitment based on intimate relationships and the importance of breaking with the social ambiguity and confusion of which traffickers take advantage.

Nadia ⁶ was a teenager when she was recruited into sex trafficking. She was performing well in high school and apparently did not have any family troubles, financial, or social needs. However, a trafficker chose her, gradually approached and pretended to be her boyfriend to lure her into sexual exploitation:

I met a boy, he was very friendly, very gentleman . . . He proposed me to move with him and although I did not know anybody from there, I decided to go. (RC04)

Nadia ended up isolated from her family and friends, far away from her family home town and compelled into sex trafficking. For Nadia, it would have been vital that herself and the people around her, such as teachers, family members, friends and peers, would have been able to detect and identify that this, so-called, gentleman was not a Loverboy or a Romeo pimp and that he was never friendly or a gentleman. He was a sex trafficker, trained for recruiting young girls like Nadia through deceptive intimate relationships. Furthermore, Nadia did not consider herself as a victim of sex trafficking; she did not realize that at that time she was being deceived. Sex trafficking victims frequently do not self-identify as victims; they may have the illusion that the relationship is consensual and that the sexual exploitation may be part of the commitment with the relationship (Anderson et al., 2014). Nadia’s trafficker was never in love with her. He was not her boyfriend; he was not a special type of trafficker, but a conventional one. He took advantage of Nadia’s vulnerabilities and of the glamorous cultural representations that promote attraction toward traffickers, which fuel sex trafficking.

Differentiating this and overcoming the socially dominant discourse that implies using accurate and appropriate terms to refer to sex trafficking can make the difference for effectively preventing trafficking. If social service providers and society in general critically question the socially dominant discourse and perceive traffickers as predators, then society might be able to detect these fraudulent strategies of recruitment more easily and provide appropriate assistance to victims, enabling the recognition and persecution of this serious violation of human rights.

On the contrary, in a more transformative perspective, the qualitative approach of the research contributes to the evidence of the contradiction of reproducing the standardized use of these terms and their consequences and also is useful in noting positive changes for overcoming the socially dominant discourse. In this sense, a sex trafficking survivor and advocate who participated in the research provided a critical reflection regarding the difficulties for preventing sex trafficking among teenagers:

The confusion reported by this participant in the research is common in society. Social trivialization makes it difficult to clearly identify the problem of sex trafficking, the predators involved in it, and, most importantly, its rejection. After identifying this problem with the sex trafficking survivor who participated in the research, the participant explained that when she gives talks to youth, she avoids using standardized terms such as Romeo pimps or pimps. In addition, she tries to clarify the confusion, favoring a change in the perception of traffickers and fostering a rejection toward them.

To develop successful actions for preventing sex trafficking with a social impact and to contribute to reducing number of victims and in turn fostering successful life trajectories, an important element to be considered that resulted from this research is to overcome the socially dominant discourse that has been used to refer to the traffickers and to sex trafficking. When referring to traffickers by that name, without ambiguity and in explicitly rejecting them, we can break with the attraction and fascination traditionally placed in the socially dominant discourse toward them, achieving to unmask what they are: sex traffickers, without adornments and illusions. This differentiation has a crucial impact on the lives of youth, women, and society. To clarify the current confusion that exists in society and to overcome the existing double standards that reproduce attraction toward the so-called Romeo pimps and Loverboys, a crucial step is reducing the social and cultural factors that generate vulnerability of potential victims toward sex trafficking.

Conclusion

In this research, the use of qualitative research with a communicative approach, building on the previous contributions regarding the socialization of preventive violence and Language of Desire, was crucial to elucidate the extended use of notions and expressions from the dominant social discourse that promotes ambiguity and glamorizes sex traffickers, which is a dimension of analysis that remained unexplored until now. Furthermore, the analyzed information showed the consequences of the socially dominant discourse that promotes violence and does not contribute to preventing sex trafficking, reproducing the vulnerability of young girls in sex trafficking. This was a preceding necessary step to expose and to question critically the dominant social discourse imposed on them. This research therefore enhances overcoming, preventing, and exiting sex trafficking.

While social concerns continue to emerge regarding sex trafficking, governments have started to develop policies and campaigns for addressing deceptive intimate strategies of recruitment for sex trafficking, such as the Dutch government Action Plan (Government of the Netherlands, 2011). However, successful initiatives that can effectively prevent sex trafficking and have social impact must be evidence based. In the fight against sex trafficking, we must critically overcome the socially dominant discourse and promote an active rejection and social condemnation against traffickers and sex trafficking, scientifically contributing to the development of second-order concepts (Schutz, 1970) to tackle sex trafficking.

To this purpose, more qualitative research should be conducted with a communicative approach drawing on the findings proposed in this study to therefore shed light on the deceptive intimate strategies of recruitment that traffickers use and that remain unknown. Research should also include the expertise and initiatives of professionals who question the socially dominant discourse and are contributing decisively to eradicating sex trafficking as well as include the voices of survivors of sex trafficking, who are asking society to change the language to refer to traffickers by the name, traffickers and not as pimps ⁷ to generate a greater social rejection and commitment against sex trafficking.