Pimp My Pumpkin

As I waited in line to make a purchase at Barnes & Noble today, I started scanning over the items in the “Gift Ideas” display. Right next to a Harry Potter wizard kit and a Hello Kitty jewelry kit, I saw “Pimp My Pumpkin” emblazoned on a small shiny box.

It made me realize that for people unfamiliar with sex trafficking, the understanding of what it’s like “to be pimped” may be far from reality.

On the back of the “Pimp My Pumpkin” box it reads:

“A fun gift idea for adults and kids of all ages.  Whether decorating a pumpkin for home or for the office, the Pimp My Pumpkin kit takes pumpkin carving to a whole new pimpkin level.  Transform your jack-o-lantern into the most blinged out on the block.  Pimp accessories include fedora, feather, gold paint and paint brush, feather boa, and two pieces of bling along with a pimp style book.”

Whether it’s “Pimp My Pumpkin” or “Pimp My Ride” or “Pimp My Dorm Room,” the average reader may believe that “to pimp” something is a positive thing; a way of making something better, decorating it, and customizing it.  There’s even “Pimp My Nonprofit,” describing efforts to “take tech strategies and online communications to the next level.”

According to Merriam Webster, to pimp actually means, “to make use of, often dishonorably for one’s own gain or benefit.”  I’ve seen and heard of the reality of pimping from many of the women we work with at Polaris Project. Women who have been beaten with coat hangers and thrown out of moving cars; children who have been raped and controlled through drug addictions.

Iceberg Slim, a well-known American pimp who victimized hundreds over the course of 13 years wrote the following in his autobiography:

“Fast, I got to find out the secrets of pimping… I really want to control the whole whore.  I want to be the boss of her life, even her thoughts.  I got to con them that Lincoln never freed the slaves.”

At what point did American pop culture begin to neutralize the violence of pimping?  Why do we celebrate pimping by glamorizing it under the guise of trendy style? When will we strip away the ability for sex traffickers to hide under a sense of legitimacy?

Today, consumers have the choice to purchase the ability “to pimp” objects like pumpkins and cars.  Language matters.  Let’s choose not to buy into a world that clouds the reality of what it is like to be pimped.  There’s little cost for us to change our language and many benefits to shedding light on the human suffering in our own communities.