Gentleman of Leisure: A Year in the Life of a Pimp

From Publishers Weekly

"The term is pimp, but I don't use it...I'm a professional gentleman of leisure." So begins the introduction to Silky, a self-made buyer, owner and seller of women who, when these interviews took place in 1972, claimed to "make more money than the President of the United States." He, along with fellow pimp Dandy and "prosses" Sandy, Kitty, Linda, Tracey and Lois, are the subjects of this offbeat guide to a "Family's" life on the "Stroll." Award-winning photographer Adelman and film producer/writer Hall relay the down and dirty of the crew's day-to-day, dealing hepped-out philosophical musings ("The game is deep. In being a mack, you're supposedly the supreme being of man. Man rules woman. In being a mack, you acknowledge this fact."), spats between the girls and their pimps and candid photographs ranging from hokey Christmas portraits to the suggestively lewd to the overtly sexual. Much of the dialogue revolves around the politics of orgasms, emotional rants concerning the ever-possessive and disarmingly virile Silky, or the 69 different ways of getting off-all of which is titillating at first, but can be tiresome when consumed in too large a dose. Photos.
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About the Author

Bob Adelman has photographed cover stories for countless magazines, including Esquire, Time, People, Life, New York, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, and Paris Match. He has photographed or written more than a dozen books and produced countless others. His most recent book is King: The Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Abrams, 2004). An award-winning photographer, Adelman has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA grant, and several Art Directors Club Awards. His photographs have been exhibited at the Smithsonian, the American Federation of Arts, and several other institutions. They are included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Adelman has taught at The Center of Photography at Woodstock, The New School, and School of Visual Arts. He currently lives in Miami Beach. Susan Hall is a film producer and writer whose work has won awards from the American, San Francisco, Vancouver, and Venice Film Festivals. Adelman and Hall have collaborated on Down Home (McGraw-Hill, 1972), and three children’s books, On and Off the Street (Viking Press, 1970), Street Smart (McGraw-Hill, 1972) and Out of Left Field (Prairie House, 1976). They have used their candid photograph and edited tape recording technique to develop a series of primers to teach reading. Hall lives in New York City.