‘Pimps and Ho Chic’
Dame Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop and more significantly feminist and liberal activist, has come out against what she calls ‘Pimp and Ho Chic’; the widely growing trend to glamorize through entertainment the tragic industry of prostitution. Roddick writes:
“Did you notice the shift in the style and content of music videos a few years ago? That was because
pornographers began to direct and produce them. As a result not only do ‘porn stars’ have to simulate sex, but so do Beyonce and Britney, two of the most popular icons for young women and girls today. Some hip hop artists have even made their own porn movies to reflect the sexual material in their songs - the less raunchy ones just present themselves as pimps, blinged out and surrounded by scantily clad women – just like in the recent Selfridges Christmas advertising campaign. The gains in this collaboration have primarily been for the porn industry, which has gained new young audiences and markets.
“What we have now is what I call ‘Pimp and Ho chic’, with all aspects of the sex industry presented as hip and cool. Pole dancing as exercise, lap dancing clubs as places to see celebrities, Pimp of the Year Award, Pimp and Ho fancy dress Balls, websites promoting ‘pimp’ culture, and the every day use of the words ‘bitch’ and ‘ho’ to refer to women, including girlfriends, are just some of the examples I have come across.
“….What do women and girls gain (or more accurately lose) when liberation and empowerment are reduced to sexual display, consumerism and commodification? How did porn get to be hip, pimps to be cool and feminism become a dirty word?”
And:
“A lot of people seem to think it’s cool to be a pimp or a whore. It’s not cool. The reality is dark and evil and appalling and unregulated. The reality is sexual trafficking, which is about young women being forced into rooms to have sex however many times a day so the pimp can take all the money. I don’t get it.
“There are thousands of ads mostly focused on women and young girls that say you are not attractive, you are not sexy, you are not intelligent unless you look like this… [in] kids’ magazines there is a passivity and a stupidity that is seen as the great way forward.
“And then you hear the statistics that we have the most violent young women in Europe because of binge drinking. I haven’t got much hope. Something’s gone very wrong.”
Amen.
Then there’s MTV’s “Pimp My Ride” . Beverly Hills Pimps and Ho’s (*graphic). Britney Spears wedding reception. Snoop Doggy Dog even offers cute little pimpin’ Instant Messenger icons. This is now the norm; fun; kids stuff.
The Vatican came out in July of 2005 with the First International Meeting of Pastoral Care for the Liberation of Women of the Street condemning prostitution and sex trafficking as “acts of violence against women that constitute an offence to the dignity of women and are a grave violation of basic human rights.” The document goes on to call prostitution “a form of modern day slavery.” This seems confirmed by the presentation of women in the “pimp and whore” culture usually at the side of, beneath or behind the man (pimp). Not exactly a picture of freedom.
Not often do ideological opposites like a Roddick and the Vatican align, but perhaps the necessity for a call to arms defying the dementia of a “pimp and ho” culture makes for strange bed-fellows.
Cross-posted at Amy’s Blog
February 23rd, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Hmm.. my only real comment is, “What took them so long to notice?” Sex sells, and it has for years. They’re just becoming more and more blatent about it.
It’s up to families to get kids to turn away from those things and hence change the buying habits of consumers. Until that happens we’re just going to get more “slutty.”
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:52 am
Prostitution is the eldest hustle, its never going to leave. Yes, alot of women envolved in the game have psycological issues but they are voluntary to hit the streets. A women who chooses to walk the night is not considered a women. i once heard a grat pimp say men belong with wome and pimps belong with hoes. Therefore meaning a pimp is never going to marry a women he is in serach for his bottom. I believe pimps and hoes is a secular culture