PIMPtendo: Gaming for Pimps

categories: Sex Trafficking and Prostitution, Technology and the Media, Trafficking in Children

Published July 02, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT

Do you love video games? Do you also love glamorizing men who sell and exploit women and girls? Well then you need to purchase the PIMPtendo! The PIMPtendo is basically an old school NES system that has been covered with zebra print fabric and purple feathers. It's actually pretty cool and funky looking. So why did it's creator choose to call it a PIMPtendo instead of a RETROtendo or a FUNKtendo? Because in our society, to pimp something has come to mean "to improve it", and pimps are considered cool.

Dictonary.com defines "pimp" as:

-noun

1. a person, esp. a man, who solicits customers for a prostitute or a brothel, usually in return for a share of the earnings; pander; procurer.

2. a despicable person

3. Australia and New Zealand. an informer; stool pigeon. (Ed note: Wow.. note to self if I ever travel to that part of the world)

-verb (used without object)

4. to act as a pimp.

-verb (used with object)

5. to act as a pimp for.

6. to exploit.

Pimps are, by the definition above, exploiters of women and children in prostitution. They are criminals, not cool guys to name modified NES systems after. This cultural glamorization of pimping helps justify the actual crime of pimping, for both the perpetrators and the victims. A young girl today who has grown up playing the PIMPtendo and watching Pimp My Ride and hearing about Pimp N' Ho parties has a very different experience with the idea of a pimp than the reality of street life under pimp control. And if she meets a real pimp, will she be wary of what having a manager/controller will mean for her? Perhaps not. Our cultural obsession with the "coolness" of pimps is a dangerous reality for many teens.

The verdict? Video games are cool. Exploitation of women is not. Take that PIMPtendo.

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Author

Amanda has been a full-time abolitionist for six years. During that time, she has created reports, documentaries and training materials on human trafficking in the United States and around the world.