Sunday, March 20, 2022

Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex: "The Pimp" (1972)

If hooking is the world's oldest profession, is pimping the second oldest? (Illustration from Fetish Annual)

NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).

The article: "The Pimp." Originally published in Fetish Annual (Gallery Press/Pendulum), 1972. Credited to "Dick Trent."

Excerpt: "We find that many of these relationships begin when the whore is jailed. There she meets other girls . . . and generally some form of sexual relationship comes about. And when they get out of prison the relationship continues in the pimp/whore—husband/wife lesbian relationship. But it is also a fact that it is seldom a lesbian pimp will have more than one girl working for her."

One of the many books Ed Wood used.
Reflections: As we have seen throughout When the Topic is Sex, Ed Wood sometimes did his homework when he wrote nonfiction articles and sometimes didn't. When he wrote "The Pimp" for 1972's Fetish Annual, Eddie definitely did his homework. He might have even been stone cold sober when he wrote it. Virtually the entire article consists of quotes from books on the subject of prostitution. Among these are: 
  • An unnamed book by sociologist Sara Harris; Harris wrote numerous books about sex and prostitution, including Cast the First Stone (1957) and The Puritan Jungle: America's Sexual Underground (1969).
"The Pimp" might be the most research-heavy article in this entire collection, citing works by doctors and by those who have worked in the prostitution profession. Some of these authors are colorful characters in their own right, including anarchist doctor Ben Reitman and real-life madam Polly Adler. Polly even got her own posthumous biopic in 1964 with Shelley Winters in the lead!

While this is good news for the reader who earnestly wants to know about pimping, it's bad news for Ed Wood fans, since this type of article leaves very little room for Eddie to be Eddie. When the Topic is Sex is most fun when Ed is blatantly making things up or is supplementing the facts with his own curious brand of philosophizing. There's very little of that here. In "The Pimp," he sticks to the facts... or at least what he thinks are the facts.

And what are those facts? According to Ed Wood, the pimp has largely been obscure up to this point in history, operating in the shadows of American society. "Much is written about the prostitute and the madams, and the whorehouses and, the call girls, etc.," Ed complains, "but little is expounded upon the pimp." This is tough to imagine today, since the gaudily-dressed pimp—generally seen driving a Cadillac and carrying a jewel-encrusted walking stick— has become a vaunted figure in popular culture through songs, movies, TV shows, video games, and even Halloween costumes. My own thoughts about the profession are inextricably tied to Pimpbot 5000 from Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the '90s and Eddie Murphy's Velvet Jones from Saturday Night Live in the '80s.

When Ed wrote this article, real-life pimp Iceberg Slim (1918-1992) had been writing about his life for a few years already, but the blaxploitation film Willie Dynamite (1973), which centers around a pimp, had not been released. Neither had Taxi Driver (1974), in which Harvey Keitel plays a white pimp named Sport. In that film, Sport memorably sweet talks Iris (Jodie Foster), a teenage prostitute in his employ. "The Pimp" includes a similar monologue, clipped from The Second Oldest Profession. It reads, in part:
Now I'll admit I got another woman. But you know me, she don't mean a damned thing to me; she is just helping me pay my debts; you are my heart. I love you. None of these broads can give me anything, only you. I am just crazy about you. My one ambition is to see you get out of the racket. I am just fussing around with Pearl, so as to get a little more money to pay our debts. The more money Pearl earns the sooner you will stop hustling. I wouldn't live with that woman if she was the last woman on earth. Look at your lovely hair. Hers is like a horse's tail. You have a beautiful body. I bet if the artists in town knew about you, you would be the most popular model in town.
The entire monologue is much longer, but you get the idea. I can easily imagine Harvey Keitel's character saying very similar things to his women. Actress Jodie Foster has said that Keitel imitated R&B singer Barry White for this scene.

The madams quoted in this article are divided on the merits of pimps. Beverly Davis "detests pimps and won't allow them on her premises," but Carol Erwin says that she only hires girls with pimps because the free agents are too wild and hard to control. They're lazy and they drink, and some of them even "romance" the customers, which is strictly a no-no. Better to hire a girl who's under the thumb of a pimp.

Ed Wood, for his part, seems to look approvingly upon these men. Sure, he allows, there are those who beat the girls violently, but these bad eggs are "far from being a majority." In fact, the average pimp is "a mighty good guy to have around in case of trouble." Ed even gives pimps credit for "adding to the decline of venereal infections in the United States." In a sense, then, "The Pimp" can be seen as Ed Wood's tribute to an important yet widely misunderstood profession. We salute you, Mr. Pimp! Keep up the good work. You're doing your part to keep America clean!

Next: "The Girls of the Golden State" (1971)
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