Life on the Street : New Wave of Prostitution With More Violence Is Overwhelming L.A. Authorities

In a small banquet room in the back of a Studio City restaurant, about 30 madams and call girls gathered to discuss a significant change in their business. Norma Ashby, a North Hollywood madam, told the women that a number of customers had asked her to procure 12- or 13-year-old girls. And more customers, she said, were beating, torturing and even killing out-call prostitutes.

Most madams refused to accommodate the more violent customers and would not supply the young girls, Ashby said. But because the customers were willing to pay so much more, a few madams complied. One found girls as young as 14 in Mexico and brought them to Los Angeles by claiming that they were live-in housekeepers.

The women at the meeting, which was sponsored several years ago by an organization that helps prostitutes leave the business, established a code of ethics. They agreed to anonymously report to police the violent customers and the madams who supplied the young girls.

“We might have been in an illegal business, but this was going too far,” said Ashby, who was later convicted of pandering and now heads Catharsis, the organization that aids prostitutes.

Street prostitutes also have been compelled to seek police help. Several recently were outraged because a man was offering hookers on Sunset Boulevard large sums of money if they would find him a girl between 5 and 10 years old.

“The women were so incensed that they decided to contact us,” said Detective R. W. Bennett of the Los Angeles Police Department’s sexually exploited child unit. “I’ve gotten four calls in the past few weeks about this guy.”

This new wave of prostitution is overwhelming Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, officials say. Prostitution-related arrests in the city have almost doubled and in the county have quintupled in the last 10 years.

The increase in violence is one of many ways prostitution has been transformed:

- Ten prostitutes have been killed in Los Angeles since 1984 by a man who is still at large. And five serial killers have preyed on prostitutes and street people in Los Angeles since the late 1970s. In addition to the serial killings, usually one prostitute a month is murdered in Los Angeles County--twice as many as 10 years ago--estimated Los Angeles police vice Detective Fred Clapp.

- An increasing number of customers are requesting violent or kinky sexual services and seeking younger girls, prostitutes and call girls say. In the past, these services could only be found through an underground network; now they are out in the open. Numerous weekly papers run a multitude of ads for these services, and many prostitutes have learned to accommodate the customers.

- The dramatic increase in cocaine use has altered both the customers and the prostitutes. In past years, most prostitutes who had drug problems were heroin addicts. Now in addition to the heroin addicts, an increasing number are addicted to free-basing (smoking) cocaine or injecting the drug.

Some prostitutes interviewed said they began working the streets in order to buy more cocaine from “rock houses,” and some who became addicted after they were already working said their drug habits made it more difficult for them to leave the business. And the customers who are “coked out,” prostitutes say, often are more violent.

- Some prostitutes who inject drugs are exposed to AIDS by using contaminated needles, and health professionals fear that prostitution will hasten the spread of the disease to the heterosexual population. Eight heterosexual men who recently were diagnosed in Los Angeles as having contracted AIDS all consorted with street prostitutes.

And a number of male prostitutes with AIDS continued to work along Santa Monica Boulevard after they were diagnosed, said Joel Schwartz, a director at the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood. Because many of the customers of male hustlers are married, he said, AIDS could be spreading to more heterosexuals.

Some law enforcement officers interviewed said that under current laws, trying to eradicate the problem is so hopeless that some form of legal prostitution might be in order. Experts have many theories why violence and fetishism are on the rise, but few know what to do about it.

“At one time is seemed like girls could handle the johns (customers),” Clapp said. “But then things got out of control. You saw more guys out there getting their kicks by beating on the women. . . . It’s a graduation type thing and you could have predicted more deaths. And that’s what we got.”

Laverne Jefferson was looking for customers at the corner of Rimpau and Adams boulevards when a man in a white Cadillac pulled over and asked her if she wanted to free-base. The man said he would supply the money if Jefferson could find the rock house. She jumped in the car.

After he drove around for several minutes and expressed no interest in locating a rock house, Jefferson became frightened and tried to leave the car. But the man pulled out a knife and stabbed her under her right breast.

For the next 12 hours, as she lapsed in and out of consciousness, the man drove around to different spots in Los Angeles, raped her and tortured her with the knife. At 6 a.m. the following morning, he dragged her into a Culver City alley. Jefferson was convinced he was going to kill her.

But she screamed loudly enough to attract a passer-by. The man then let her go and ran. But before he left the alley he whispered to her through clenched teeth over and over: “I should have killed you.”

Stabbed 10 Times

Jefferson had 10 stab wounds, a collapsed lung and several stitches over her eye from where the man bit her. She spent two weeks in the hospital and now is convalescing at her parents’ Los Angeles home. Jefferson, 27, is a slender, almost frail-looking, woman who speaks so softly she is barely audible.

The man who attacked her was arrested near the scene wearing blood-spattered clothing and is now awaiting trial.

“I know it’s dangerous out there, but I was too busy looking for my next high to worry about it,” said Jefferson, who had been working as a prostitute for about a year. “There were a few times during the night I thought: ‘This is it.’ Everything went blank. But I guess I got a second chance. And that’s more than a lot of girls got.”

Most of the women who have worked the streets for any length of time have also been assaulted and tortured. Although there are no exact statistics on prostitute killings and abductions, most law enforcement officials agree that the problem has worsened.

“Guys have been killing the prostitutes for a long time, but the big numbers we’re seeing now is a first,” Clapp said. “L.A. has the reputation that almost any kind of sexual behavior is OK here. So we draw a lot of sexually violent men. And it’s almost impossible to protect a woman who gets into a car with a stranger in the middle of the night.”

Happening Elsewhere

Serial murderers are killing prostitutes elsewhere. In Seattle, 43 women suspected of being prostitutes have been killed in the last few years. But since the late 1970s, Los Angeles has had a number of serial killers who have preyed on prostitutes, said Lois Lee, executive director of Children of the Night, a Hollywood organization that aids young prostitutes.

The man who has killed 10 prostitutes in Los Angeles tortures his victims with superficial slash wounds, and then strangles or stabs them in a manner one officer called “overkill.” He has been killing hookers in South-Central Los Angeles since early in 1984. Police have interviewed “numerous suspects” but have no leads “of any consequence,” said a homicide detective.

Los Angeles is more dangerous for prostitutes than other cities because it is so spread out, Lee said. In most cities, she said, prostitutes make arrangements with “tricks” (customers) who walk by or who are in cars to meet at motels, because there are few secluded spots to park. But in Los Angeles, many of the street walkers “car-date”--they get into cars with men, then park in the hills or on secluded side streets. The prostitute is more vulnerable in a car than in a motel, and so is the customer.

Make Easy Targets

Tricks are easy targets, police say, and some prostitutes supplement their income by robbing tricks or setting them up, enabling their pimps to assault and rob them.

The climate of violence has forced some prostitutes off the streets. Many who are young and attractive enough now work with out-call agencies. Others won’t car-date anymore. And some women won’t work at night; they only walk the streets in the afternoon.

“There’s more violence now in society than in past eras and that’s reflected in what’s happening with prostitutes,” said Paul Abramson, a UCLA psychology professor who has written a biography of a prostitute and whose specialty is human sexuality. “A lot of psychological disturbances are related to the inhibition of sex and aggressive impulses. . . . A man with problems in those areas is likely to go after a prostitute; she can satisfy both those impulses. She is both a symbol and an easy target.”

As a result of the danger on the streets--and also because of police crackdowns in Hollywood--more prostitutes are now working for out-call services, the fastest growing form of prostitution in the city. Ten years ago there were fewer than five escort services in Los Angeles and Orange counties; now there are about 60, estimated Los Angeles police vice Detective Bob McGuire.

Running Scared

Prostitutes all over the city are frightened, but many do not have the option of working for escort services. Many services do not hire black women, said Semiko, who is part black and Chinese. Semiko, who said she works to support her 4-year-old daughter, no longer looks for customers along Sunset Boulevard because of the danger; she now hitchhikes around the San Fernando Valley.

Semiko, 19, does not have the slightly washed-out quality of many of the street hookers; she is a striking woman with high cheekbones and a distinctly exotic look. Before she ran away from home, she repeatedly was raped by her father, she said. A pimp found her wandering the streets, “turned her out,” and she just recently left him.

She has been abducted several times in Hollywood. Once, she said, a trick tied her up for three days, cut off all her hair and tortured her with a butcher knife. She lifted her ear and revealed a long, jagged scar.

Three of her friends have been killed, she said, pausing and covering her eyes with her palms. Then she began to cry and said softly that her sister, who was working as a hooker in Atlanta, was beaten to death by a trick.

“I hate it,” she said, suddenly angry. “Guys who want you to beat them while they scream: ‘Oh mommy, I’m sorry I was bad.’ Guys who want you to urinate on them. . . . It makes me sick. But what am I going to do? I don’t know how to read, I don’t know nothing. . . . I got to take care of my baby.”

The violence on the street is indicative of other changes occurring between customers and prostitutes. An interest in sex often is secondary.

Men want to humiliate women or be humiliated, hurt or be hurt. In a recent issue of one Hollywood weekly, there were 77 ads offering bondage and discipline and countless other ads for a variety of fetishistic services. There even is a newspaper published in Van Nuys called Fetish Times. The paper carries ads by women offering to service men interested in cross-dressing (wearing women’s clothing), foot fetishism, infantilism (dressing and being treated like an infant), scatology, enemas and other acts.

The sexual revolution has contributed to the change prostitutes have seen, said Dr. Michael Grinberg, a psychiatrist, sex therapist and chairman for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, based in Philadelphia. Recreational sex is available for many men, he said, and they don’t have to resort to prostitutes.

“Prostitutes have always been around to provide any sexual behavior that is not generally available,” he said. “At one time, for many men, that could have been just intercourse or oral sex. But with a lot of sexual freedom, there was no need for those men to go to prostitutes. So many of the men who began seeing prostitutes wanted things that aren’t considered permissible with other partners.”

No Definitive Studies

There are no definitive studies available, but, Grinberg said, he is convinced that kinky sexual behavior is generally on the rise in society. Sex therapists, he said, also work with more men now who are obsessed with violent or deviant sexual acts.

There are several possible reasons for the change, Grinberg said. Our society is more violent now than in the past. Pornography is more graphic and readily available and some of the behavior displayed “can become incorporated in one’s sexual fantasies.” And there is more child abuse today, he said, and abused children tend to evolve into adults who repeat the pattern.

Los Angeles and New York are considered the “fetish capitals of the world” by many sex experts. The vast number of sex-related underground newspapers, out-call services and street prostitutes and Los Angeles’ reputation for progressive life styles have drawn people from all over the country.

“It’s like some kind of fad out there,” said Tanya Canales, who usually works the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Formosa Avenue. “I got so many weird tricks, I thought I’d heard of everything. Then this guy brings a jar of mustard, mayonnaise and a big spoon. He paid me $40 to fling gobs of the stuff on his face and yell: ‘You’re worthless. You’re a scumbag.’ ”

Tied Up With Business

Establishments like the House of O, a bondage and discipline parlor in West Hollywood, are flourishing. Police bust very few whipping parlors and fetish out-call services because sometimes there are no sexual acts, just punishment, humiliation and masturbation. And many undercover officers are reluctant to subject themselves to being whipped for 30 minutes with a riding crop to find out if prostitution is involved.

On a recent weekday evening, “Mistress” Holly Murdock, a “dominatrix” (a woman who dominates customers), offered a tour of the House of O. The house is located on a quiet residential street near Fairfax Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard. The front door is manned by a “switch”--a woman who can be either dominant or submissive--who checks the peep hole and doesn’t open the door until the guest states with whom he has an appointment and at what time.

The waiting room is covered with pictures of scantily clad women whipping cowering men, and magazines such as Ouch and Foot Bondage are scattered on the end tables. There are two small bondage rooms and a third, the pride of the House of O, a deluxe torture chamber called Hell.

Variety of Pains

Located at the rear of the house, Hell is a dim, cavernous room with a multitude of devices designed to inflict pain, including a rack to stretch customers, a whipping post, a “spider web”--a tangle of ropes from the ceiling capable of suspending customers at any angle--nd drawers filled with whips, chains, diapers and hoods.

Murdock, who was dressed in black leather thigh-high boots, black leather skirt and black leather vest and wearing a skull pin and handcuff earrings, said that many of the customers have become so violent that the club had to institute an intercom system in each of the rooms. One of the reasons for the increase in violence is cocaine use, she said.

“Coke makes guys crazier and crazier,” she said. “They lose their inhibitions and get desensitized to such a point that they lose control.”

A loud rhythmic counterpoint--a hiss and then a pop--emanated from a nearby room as Murdock spoke. The customer in the room, Murdock explained, preferred being beaten with a buggy whip. About ten minutes later, an exhausted, well-dressed man in his mid-30s who looked like he had just played six hours of racquetball left the room, his shoulders slumped and his head down. He slowly walked down the corridor and out the front door.

The number of teen-age prostitutes in Los Angeles began to proliferate in the late 1970s, Lee said. As juvenile laws changed, police could no longer pick up suspected runaways, put them in Juvenile Hall and call their parents. So a new population of teen-age streets children evolved.

About half the male prostitutes who work on Santa Monica Boulevard are minors, according to the Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood. Many were kicked out of the house when their parents found out they were homosexual, and they ran away to Hollywood.

Although the problems of young female prostitutes in Hollywood have been widely publicized, fewer than 5% of the female hookers arrested are minors, according to Hollywood vice detectives. But they are in great demand and customers are willing to pay much more.

A child prostitution ring in Los Angeles that attracted customers from all over the country was broken up by police, said Bennett of the Los Angeles police. A man who was supposed to baby-sit 16 children of single parents instead was using the children--who were between the ages of 5 and 12--for prostitution.

Hard to Prosecute

Prosecuting child prostitution cases is extremely difficult, Bennett said. Officers need extensive contacts and must spend a lot of time under cover. It is much easier to spot teen-age prostitutes, he said, because most work the streets.

On a side street near Hollywood Boulevard, a few blocks east of Western, a 16-year-old girl in a rabbit coat scrutinized the passing cars. When she saw a potential customer, she smiled and ambled toward the corner; when a patrol car drove by she turned away from Hollywood Boulevard and purposefully walked down the side street.

She left Ohio a year ago when her mother, who she said was an alcoholic, threw her out of the house for “staying out all night and messing with drugs.” She drove to Hollywood with an 18-year-old girlfriend. They slept in their car in the Hollywood Hills and often went all day without eating. Her friend had met some street people who occasionally turned tricks, and they told her the best corners and how to operate.

Although her friend earned enough money so they could get a motel room and eat in fast food restaurants, she still was reluctant to work the streets. But she couldn’t continue to live off her friend and had to bring in some money. And since she was only 15, she couldn’t get a job or go on welfare.

Nightly Profits

Money no longer is a problem. She makes up to $200 a night, but spends most of it on cocaine that she smokes with her friends. She talks about going back to school, studying to be a medical technician or a nurse, but her tone is vague and abstract. Then she blurts out, slightly embarrassed, “I really want to meet someone and fall in love.”

Her hair is dyed a garish red, but with her large hazel eyes and uncertain manner, she still looks waif-like. She and her friend decided to move to Hollywood because they heard it was “a glamorous place.”

“Hollywood’s just a name . . . I learned that pretty quick,” she said, sipping coffee at a nearby doughnut shop. “I really don’t know when I’ll get out of here. To tell you the truth I’m not thinking too far down the line. I’m just trying to get $50 right now so I can have some place to crash tonight.”

Most of the girls who are regular free-basers, she said, do not have pimps. Their money goes for cocaine “rocks.”

“The pipe is the pimp,” said one 18-year-old prostitute.

More customers now--particularly the tricks of call girls and out-call services--are “coked-out,” said one Los Angeles call girl. About 90% of her customers always bring large quantities of coke, “regardless of their age, background or business,” she said. She found the work more palatable when she was high, and as a result developed a cocaine habit, which she recently has given up with the help of Cocaine Anonymous.

Different Types

The customers have changed so much in the last few years, she said, that she often is too frightened to work. She has pared down her trick list to just a few longtime clients.

“Some of the fantasies I see are getting too weird and scary for me,” said the woman, who lives in a fashionable high-rise apartment in Westwood. “I don’t mind a spanking, but one guy liked to make small cuts on my leg with a razor because the blood would turn him on. That was too much for me.”

For the last few months, she has been going to real estate school. She hopes to join a Westside firm and be out of prostitution entirely by the end of the year.

But most prostitutes do not have the luxury of job training. The majority have been hookers since they were teen-agers; they have no education and never have held a legitimate job. Some had pimps who controlled their lives, kept their income and doled out an allowance. They “don’t have a clue” about surviving on their own, Ashby said.

And there is virtually no place to go for a prostitute who wants to leave the streets and learn how to re-enter straight society. The only live-in rehabilitation program in Southern California specifically designed for prostitutes is the Mary Magdalene Project in Reseda, sponsored by the Hollywood Presbyterian Church.

Many Need Help

The program reaches only a fraction of the women who need help. Although 40 referrals a month come in from social workers and churches, the house only has room for six women, who stay up to a year while they are in school or job-training programs.

“A woman who was beaten up by her pimp and had a broken jaw called us from county hospital,” Ashby said. “She was about to be released, but she was frightened. She wanted to get out of the business, but she didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll never forget her saying through clenched teeth because her jaw was wired: ‘How can I get a job? I don’t know how to do anything.’ ”

After the woman was released from the hospital, she stayed briefly with a relative, and then returned to the streets.

PROSTITUTION ARRESTS

Los Angeles police prostitution arrests increased from 3,582 in 1974 to 6,807 last year. During the same time, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department prostitution arrests increased from about 2,000 to more than 10,000. Here is how the LAPD figures changed by year:

LAPD’s geographical breakdown for 1984 prostitution arrests:

1984 Total Central South West Valley 6,808 1,069 1,537 3,360 842

The Sheriff’s Department reported that 70% of its prostitution arrests were in West Hollywood and the majority of the rest were in Lennox, Temple City and East Los Angeles.