This study examines how drug use is situated within relationships between sex market facilitators and individuals who sell sex. Based on interviews with 61 facilitators in New York City and Chicago, we analyze how drugs function within interpersonal dynamics rather than as isolated tools of coercion or individual risk. Using coded interview data and multidimensional scaling, we identify three relational configurations: intimate, controlling, and depersonalizing. In intimate arrangements, drug use reinforces relational ties within shared networks. In controlling arrangements, facilitators create reliance and shape compliance. In depersonalizing arrangements, drugs regulate performance and maximize productivity. These findings suggest that drug use operates as a relational mechanism that varies across interpersonal contexts, organizing power and dependency within relationships.
BernsteinE. (2007). Temporarily yours: Intimacy, authenticity, and the commerce of sex. University of Chicago Press.
2.
BouchéV.BaileyM. (2020). Drug-based coercion and sex trafficking: Bridging the legal disconnect. Kentucky Law Journal, 109, 671–688.
3.
BourgoisP.SchonbergJ. (2009). Righteous dopefiend. University of California Press.
4.
BrightD. A.KoskinenJ.MalmA. (2019). Illicit network dynamics: The formation and evolution of a drug trafficking network. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35, 193–216.
5.
Busch-ArmendarizN.NaleN. L.Kammer-KerwickM.KellisonJ. B.TorresM. I.Cook-HeffronL.NehmeJ. (2016). Human trafficking by the numbers: The initial benchmark of prevalence and economic impact for Texas. Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (IDVSA), The University of Texas at Austin.
6.
CanterD.HeritageR. (1990). A multivariate model of sexual offence behaviour: Developments in ‘offender profiling’. I. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 1(2), 185–212.
7.
CanterD.YoungsD. (2012). Sexual and violent offenders’ victim role assignments: A general model of offending style. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 23(3), 297–326.
8.
CasassaK.KnightL.MengoC. (2022). Trauma bonding perspectives from service providers and survivors of sex trafficking: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 23(3), 969–984.
9.
CoomberR.MoyleL. (2018). The changing shape of street-level heroin and crack supply in England: Commuting, holidaying and cuckooing drug dealers across “county lines.”British Journal of Criminology, 58(6), 1323–1342. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azx068
10.
DeshpandeN. A.NourN. M. (2013). Sex trafficking of women and girls. Reviews in Obstetrics and Gynecology, 6(1), e22–e27.
11.
EmirbayerM. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103(2), 281–317.
12.
FleetwoodJ.LebanL. (2023). Women’s involvement in the drug trade: Revisiting the emancipation thesis in global perspective. Deviant Behavior, 44(2), 238–258.
13.
FujimotoK.ValenteT. W. (2012). Social network influences on adolescent substance use: Disentangling structural equivalence from cohesion. Social Science & Medicine, 74(12), 1952–1960.
14.
GrundetjernH. (2015). Women’s gender performances and cultural heterogeneity in the illegal drug economy. Criminology, 53(2), 253–279.
15.
GrundetjernH.SandbergS. (2012). Dealing with a gendered economy: Female drug dealers and street capital. European Journal of Criminology, 9(6), 621–635.
16.
GundurR. V. (2022). Trying to make it: The enterprises, gangs, and people of the American drug trade. Cornell University Press.
17.
HoangK. K. (2015). Dealing in desire: Asian ascendancy, Western decline, and the hidden currencies of global sex work. University of California Press.
18.
HopperE. K. (2017). Polyvictimization and developmental trauma adaptations in sex trafficked youth. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 10(2), 161–173.
19.
HorningA.BerminghamR.SrikenJ.ThomasC. (2024). Pimps” Self-presentations in the Interview Setting:‘Good Me,’‘Bad Me,’and ‘Badass Me. Journal of Human Trafficking, 10(4), 543–564.
20.
HorningA.PoirierM.BerminghamR.ThomasC. (2022). Rules, gender dynamics, and structure of sex market facilitators. Trends in Organized Crime, 1–26.
21.
HorningA. M.SalfatiC. G.LabuschagneG. N. (2015). South African serial homicide: A victim-focused behavioural typology. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 12(1), 44–68.
22.
HorningA.StalansL. (2022). Oblivious ‘Sex Traffickers’: Challenging stereotypes and the fairness of US trafficking laws. Anti-Trafficking Review, (18), 67–86.
23.
HorningA.StalansL. (2024). Grooming traffickers: Investigating the techniques and mechanisms for seducing and coercing new traffickers.
24.
HorningA.StalansL.ImmatongZ.YueY. (2026). When sex and drug markets and gang involvement blend: how do sex market facilitators operate and socialize differently?. Trends in Organized Crime, 1–35.
25.
IversenJ.LongP.LutnickA.MaherL. (2021). Patterns and epidemiology of illicit drug use among sex workers globally: A systematic review. In GoldenbergS. M.Morgan ThomasR.ForbesA.BaralS. (Eds.), Sex work, health, and human rights (pp. 95–118). Springer.
26.
JacquesS.WrightR. (2015). Code of the suburb: Inside the world of young middle-class drug dealers. University of Chicago Press.
27.
KatonaN. (2017). Loved or seduced? Intimate relationships between Hungarian sex workers and pimps in Berlin’s Kurfürstenstraße. In HorningA.MarcusA. (Eds.), Third party sex work and pimps in the age of anti-trafficking (pp. 49–69). Springer.
28.
KoeglerE.WoodC. A.JohnsonS. D.BahlingerL. (2022). Service providers’ perspectives on substance use and treatment needs among human trafficking survivors. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 143, Article 108897.
29.
KruskalJ. B. (1964). Multidimensional scaling by optimizing goodness of fit to a nonmetric hypothesis. Psychometrika, 29(1), 1–27.
30.
MaherL. (1997). Sexed work: Gender, race, and resistance in a Brooklyn drug market. Oxford University Press.
31.
MarcusA.HorningA.CurtisR.SansonJ.ThompsonE. (2014). Conflict and agency among sex workers and pimps: A closer look at domestic minor sex trafficking. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 653(1), 225–246.
32.
MayT.EdmundsM.HoughJ. M.HarveyC. (1999). Street business: The links between sex and drug markets (No. 118). Home Office, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit, Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.
33.
MerodioG.DuqueE.Axt PeñaJ. C. (2020). They are not Romeo pimps, they are traffickers: Overcoming the socially dominant discourse to prevent the sex trafficking of youth. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(8–9), 1010–1018.
RaviA.PfeifferM. R.RosnerZ.SheaJ. A. (2017). Identifying health experiences of domestically sex-trafficked women in the USA: A qualitative study in Rikers Island jail. Journal of Urban Health, 94(3), 408–416.
36.
RichertT. (2022). Taking care of business in a male-dominated drug economy: Income strategies, risks, and opportunities of women who use drugs. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13, Article 882128.
37.
Roe-SepowitzD. (2019). A six-year analysis of sex traffickers of minors: Exploring characteristics and sex trafficking patterns. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 29(5), 608–629.
38.
SalfatiC. G. (2003). Offender interaction with victims in homicide: A multidimensional analysis of frequencies in crime scene behaviors. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 18(5), 490–512.
39.
SandbergS. (2012). Is cannabis use normalized, celebrated, or neutralized? Analyzing talk as action. Addiction Research & Theory, 20(5), 372–381.
40.
SanttilaP.HäkkänenH.CanterD.ElfgrenT. (2003). Classifying homicide offenders and predicting their characteristics from crime scene behavior. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 44(2), 107–118.
41.
ShannonK.StrathdeeS. A.GoldenbergS. M.DuffP.MwangiP.RusakovaM.Reza-PaulS.LauJ.DeeringK.PicklesM. R.BoilyM. C. (2015). Global epidemiology of HIV among female sex workers: Influence of structural determinants. The Lancet, 385(9962), 55–71.
42.
ShelleyL. (2012). Human security and human trafficking. In JonssonA. (Ed.), Human trafficking and human security (pp. 10–25). Routledge.
43.
SimmonsJ.SingerM. (2006). I love you . . . and heroin: Care and collusion among drug-using couples. Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy, 1(1), Article 7.
44.
ValenteT. W.GallaherP.MouttapaM. (2004). Using social networks to understand and prevent substance use: A transdisciplinary perspective. Substance Use & Misuse, 39(10–12), 1685–1712.
45.
WeitzerR. (2009). Sociology of sex work. Annual Review of Sociology, 35(1), 213–234.
