Glossary

Automatic:

When a pimp/trafficker is out of town and a prostituted person is working while he is gone.

Bottom:

In the context of human trafficking and the commercial sex industry, the term “bottom” is used to refer to an individual who holds the highest position within a hierarchical structure of a pimp’s organization. This person may be responsible for recruiting or managing others in the “stable”, but they operate under the authority of higher-ranking individuals within the pimping network.

Branding:

The practice of physically marking or tattooing victims with symbols or names to signify ownership.

Break Yourself:

What a pimp tells a prostituted person when he wants her to make money or wants her turn over all her earnings.

Brothel:

A place where individuals, usually sex workers, engage in commercial sexual activities.

Buster:

A person who tries to act like a pimp but is not really a pimp.

Catcher:

Usually younger “wannabe pimps” who watch those being prostituted on the track to make sure they are following the pimps orders.

Caught a Case:

When a prostituted person or pimp has been arrested and charged with a crime.

CEO Pimp:

Views sexual exploitation as a business, and views women as items which he owns, or wants to own.

Choose Up:

A prostituted person having to pick a new pimp. This can be done either voluntarily or by looking another pimp in the eyes. In the latter case, she has “chosen” that new pimp even if she didn’t want to.

Choosing Fee:

A term used when a prostituted person is charged a fee to join a pimp’s “stable”.

Choosing Up:

The process by which a trafficker selects and recruits an individual into the commercial sex industry.

Circuit:

A term used to describe a specific area or route where sex work or trafficking activities occur.

Coercion:

May involve threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process (22 U.S.C. § 7102)

Commercial Sex Act:

Any sex act where anything of value is given to or received by any person.

Cousin-in-Laws:

Victims of pimp partners who work together.

CSEC (Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children):

When people buy, sell or trade sexual acts with a child under the age of 18.

Daddy:

A term pimps require the people they prostitute to call them. Also, how many pimps may refer to themselves.

Date:

A term used in the context of commercial sex work to refer to a client or customer.

DMST (Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking):

The commercial sexual exploitation of American children within the U.S. border.

Escort Services:

Businesses or individuals that provide companionship, often with sexual services, for payment.

Exit Fee:

A demand for payment by a trafficker when a victim attempts to leave or exit the trafficking situation.

Exploitation:

The act of taking advantage of someone for personal gain or benefit, often through the use of force, coercion, deception, or manipulation.

Family/Folks:

The term used to describe the other individuals under the control of the same pimp. He plays the role of father (or “Daddy”) while the group fulfills the need for a “family.”

Finesse Pimp/Passion Pimp:

A pimp who prides himself on controlling others primarily through psychological manipulation.

Force:

May involve the use of physical restraint or serious physical harm; physical violence, including rape, beatings, and physical confinement, is often used as a means to control victims, especially during the early stages of victimization when the trafficker breaks down the victim’s resistance.

Fraud:

Involves false promises about employment, wages, working conditions, or other matters (for example, individuals might travel to another country under the promise of well-paying work at a farm or factory only to find themselves manipulated into forced labor); others might reply to advertisements promising modeling, nanny, or service industry jobs overseas but instead be forced into prostitution when they arrive at their destination.

Gorilla Pimp:

A term used to describe a trafficker or pimp who employs physical violence, intimidation, and aggression to control and exploit individuals in the commercial sex industry. The “gorilla” label underscores the use of brute force and aggression in their approach.

Green:

Inexperienced in the game or new to the life.

Grooming:

The process of building a relationship with a potential victim to gain trust for the purpose of exploitation.

Harboring:

Sheltering or hiding trafficked persons.

Head Cut:

A victim getting beaten down by their pimp.

House Mom:

A strip club employee who organizes, hires, and keeps track of the women who dance at the club. Often facilitates “donations for time and companionship.”

Human Smuggling:

The importation of people into a country via the deliberate evasion of immigration laws. This includes bringing illegal aliens into a country, as well as the unlawful transportation and harboring of aliens already in a country illegally. Some smuggling situations may involve murder, rape, and assault.

Human Trafficking:

Human Trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of a person for labor, services, or commercial sex. See Sex Trafficking and Labor Trafficking.

Hustler:

Term most often used for a male being prostituted.

In Call:

A date that occurs in the prostituted persons place of residence or in a hotel room that was booked by the prostituted person or their pimp/trafficker.

Involuntary Servitude:

Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint. Or, the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

John/Trick:

Slang for a customer or client of a prostituted person.

Kiddie Stroll:

An area known for sex work that features younger victims.

Labor Trafficking:

Forced labor is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Lived Experience Expert:

The personal experiences and perspectives of individuals who have been directly affected by human trafficking.

Lot Lizard:

A slang term for a prostituted person who operates at truck stops.

Mack (Man Acquiring Cash through Knowledge):

An “upper level” pimp. Will take money from any female, not just a prostituted person.

Madam:

A woman who manages or oversees a brothel, escort agency, or group of sex workers.

Mandated Reporter:

A person who, because of his or her profession, is legally required to report any suspicion of child abuse or neglect, intimate partner violence, and/or human trafficking to the relevant authorities per federal and state requirements.

Out Call:

A date that occurs at the buyers place of residence or in a hotel room that they buyer purchased.

Out of Pocket:

When a prostituted person breaks the rules, usually results in harm or punishment.

Pandering:

(Nevada NRS definition) A person who without physical force or the immediate threat of physical force, induces an adult to unlawfully become a prostituted person or to continue to engage in prostitution, or to enter any place within this State in which prostitution is practiced, encouraged or allowed for the purpose of sexual conduct or prostitution is guilty of pandering which is a category C felony.

Peel a Trick/Trick Roll:

Phrase used to describe the act when a prostituted person steals something from her client.

Pimp (Prostituting Innocent Minors for Profit):

A person who controls and exploits, and prostitute’s others, often through force, coercion, or manipulation.

Pimp Circle:

The process of multiple pimps swarming and surrounding one person for the purposes of intimidation, humiliation, or forcing them into the commercial sex industry. This tactic is used to exert control over individuals and discourage them from leaving or seeking help.

Pimp Partner:

Two pimps who are friends and allow their victims to work together.

Pimp Party:

When several pimps “unite” to abuse a prostituted person for either being disrespectful, trying to leave “the game,” or reporting a pimp to the police. It usually consists of several pimps gang-raping the prostituted person, beating her, urinating and/or defecating on her, and other forms of abuse.

Quota:

A quota refers to a specific amount of money or a predetermined number of clients that a sex worker is required to earn or service within a given period. Traffickers or pimps may impose quotas as a form of control, coercion, or to ensure financial gains.

Reckless Eyeballing:

A term which refers to the act of looking around instead of keeping your eyes on the ground. Eyeballing is against the rules and could lead an untrained victim to “choose up” by mistake.

Recruitment:

Enlisting persons under false pretenses into a situation in which they may be

Renegade/Outlaw:

A term used to describe an individual who operates independently in the commercial sex industry without aligning with or answering to a specific pimp or trafficker.

Romeo Pimp:

A type of trafficker or pimp who uses charm, manipulation, and false promises of love or a romantic relationship to exploit individuals into commercial sex work.

Roses:

Money often used in online ads.

Seasoning:

The process of breaking down an individual’s resistance through physical or psychological abuse to make them compliant. Can take the form of psychological manipulation, intimidation, gang rape, sodomy, beatings, food and sleep deprivation, isolation from friends and family, holding hostage a victim’s children, etc.

Sex Trafficking:

Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, obtaining, patronizing, or soliciting of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.

Sex Work:

The exchange of consensual sexual services, performances, or products for remuneration or other forms of compensation.

Sextortion:

The act of an individual befriending of people and convincing them to send sexual photos or videos of themselves and then using the images and videos to blackmail them into the sex trade.

Skip Parties:

Events organized by traffickers to relocate victims quickly, making it harder for law enforcement to track them.

Snatch and Grab:

A method of abduction used by traffickers to quickly capture and transport individuals into trafficking situations.

Square:

Someone who does not understand “the game” or “the life”.

Squaring Up:

Attempting to escape or exit prostitution.

Stable:

A stable refers not only to a group of individuals managed by a pimp or trafficker but can also denote a specific location such as a hotel room or a long-term stay hotel where a pimp’s “stable” engages in commercial sex activities, for financial gain. The term encapsulates both the group of individuals under the control of the pimp and the physical space where these exploitative activities may take place.

Sugaring:

This term typically refers to a practice where an older, wealthier individual (sugar daddy or sugar mama) provides financial support or gifts to a younger person (sugar baby) in exchange for companionship or a romantic relationship. However, in the context of sex trafficking, “sugaring” mayinvolve the manipulation or exploitation of individuals, often through false promises of financial support or a luxurious lifestyle.

Survival Sex:

Engaging in prostitution as a means of survival, often due to economic hardship or homelessness.

Survivor:

An individual who has experienced trafficking but has since escaped or been recovered.

T Visa:

The T visa is a temporary residency status created by the TVPA to give victims of severe forms of trafficking a residency status to remain in the U.S. The Applicant must show that he or she: is, or has been, a victim of severe forms of trafficking in persons, is physically present in the united states and either: (i) Has complied with any reasonable request for assistance in the investigation or prosecution or ats of trafficking in persons, or (ii) Is less than 15 years of age; and would suffer extreme hardship involving unusual and sever harm upon removal.

Tennis Shoe Pimp:

A tennis shoe pimp is typically new to the “game”. He walks around on foot with the young, prostituted person. She often considers him a boyfriend. He may be as young as 16, 17 or 18 and may be a relative or a high school mate.

The Life / The Game:

These terms are colloquially used to refer to the lifestyle and activities associated with involvement in the commercial sex industry. The phrase may be used by human trafficking victims, pimps, sex workers or individuals within the industry to describe the unique challenges, risks, and experiences associated with their work. It acknowledges the complexities, dangers, and often exploitative nature of the commercial sex industry.

The Wire:

(1) A pimp hotline, like a phone tree pimps use to get the word around, to find out which city is on/off. (2) Wiring money from victim to pimp in different cities/states (“put it on the wire”).

Track/Blade:

A specific street where prostitution or commercial sex activities are prevalent.

Trade Up/Trade Down:

The act of buying or selling a person from a pimp’s stable.

Trafficker:

A person involved in human trafficking, responsible for recruiting, transporting, or harboring individuals through force, fraud, or coercion.

Trauma Bonding:

A strong emotional connection that develops between a victim and their trafficker due to sustained abuse and manipulation.

Trauma-informed Care/Approach:

is an approach, based on knowledge of the impact of trauma, aimed at ensuring environments and services are welcoming and engaging for service recipients and staff. The goal of trauma-informed care is to avoid re-traumatizing someone. Trauma-informed care aims to help people find meaning and purpose in their lives, fulfill valued roles and engage in a life in a community of their choosing, see themselves as more than their trauma(s), help people identify and pursue avenues to reducing distress and problems in their lives and exercise personal autonomy and self-determination in making choices. Trauma-informed care means shifting from the medical question of “What’s wrong with you?” to the trauma-informed question of “What’s happened to you?”

Turn-out:

A brand new prostituted person.

Vanilla:

A term used by some sex workers to describe non-sex work or a job that is mundane or unexciting; i.e., “vanilla jobs”.

Victim:

An individual who has been subjected to human trafficking, exploitation, or abuse.

Victim–Centered Approach:

The victim-centered approach puts the rights and dignity of victims, including their well-being and safety, at the forefront of all efforts to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment. It refers to a systematic way of engaging with victim(s), from the moment that allegations are known and in every subsequent interaction. It requires the empathetic, individualized, holistic delivery of continuous and reliable services in a non-judgmental and non-discriminatory manner.

The priority is creating an enabling environment in which victims can speak to someone they can trust, safely and confidentially, that they will be listened to and heard, feel supported and empowered, and that they can express their needs and wishes.

Victims must be fully informed at every stage of the process, including about what they can expect and what is and is not possible, and to have the opportunity to provide consent before any action is taken on their behalf, giving them back as much control and sense of personal agency as is feasible. They must be protected from stigmatization, discrimination, retaliation and re-traumatization.

Webcamming:

Engaging in live, online video streaming of sexual activities for an audience, often for payment.

Wife in Law/Wifey:

What a prostituted person under the control of the same pimp calls each other.