Amber Horning
Biographic Data
| ID | 3697955 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Amber Horning |
| GIVEN NAMES | Amber |
| FAMILY NAME | Horning |
| SIGNATURE | HORNING A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Lowell |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1963-4295 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 79 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
When sex and drug markets and gang involvement blend: How do sex market facilitators operate and socialize differently
An Interpersonal Typology of Drug Use in Pimping and Trafficking
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 …
Mapmaking as visual storytelling: The movement and emotion of managing sex work in the urban landscape
‘Pimps” Self-presentations in the Interview Setting: ‘Good Me,’ ‘Bad Me,’ and ‘Badass Me’
Using a mixed-method approach, we explored how 85 sex market facilitators used neutralization and subcultural discourse to present themselves in the interview setting. We used non-metric, Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) to test discursive themes that resulted in a three-fold model with the themes ‘good,’’bad,’ and ‘badass me’ with externalizing and internalizing approaches. The ‘good me’ subtype focused on fundamentally being a ”nice guy” but blam…
A Visual Psychogeography Approach: Mapping Sex Market Facilitation in New York City
Swedish civil society mobilises in response to refugees’ ‘bare life’
In 2015, Sweden welcomed asylum-seekers from the mass exodus in what became known as the ‘European refugee crisis.’ However, as Swedish public perceptions of refugees shifted from sympathy to fear, the government enacted policy changes that eroded unaccompanied minor refugees’ (UMRs) rights. After witnessing refugees’ ‘bare life’ by seeing them denied politicised citizens’ rights, Sweden's civil society mobilised to assist these vulnerable young …
Rules, gender dynamics, and structure of sex market facilitators
Oblivious ‘Sex Traffickers’: Challenging stereotypes and the fairness of US trafficking laws
In this paper, we explore third parties who unexpectedly fell within the legal definition of a sex trafficker. The anti-trafficking lobby and media stories frequently portray traffickers as organised, psychopathic, violent, and child kidnappers. We dismantle these depictions by showing the unexpected people who qualify as traffickers. This paper incorporates findings from two studies involving eighty-five third parties in New York City and forty-…
Double-edged risk: Unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) in Sweden and their search for safety
Many unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) arrived in Sweden with the mass exodus of refugees who fled to the EU in 2015. UMRs are individuals who are under 18 years of age, outside their country of origin and separated from legal care-givers (Separated Children in Europe Programme 2004). In 2016, Swedish public opinion of asylum seekers began to shift from sympathy to fear (Kärrman 2015; Herz 2018) and Sweden implemented policies restricting UMRs’…
Risky Business: Harlem Pimps' Work Decisions and Economic Returns
In this mixed methods study of 56 entry-level pimps in Harlem, NY, weexplore how pimps’ choices to use violence or control differ by where they are selling sex, who their clientele are, and whether these violent and controlling behaviors yield higher returns. First, we qualitatively explore how pimps account for each of these choices, and how each group of choices are related to the other choices. Second, we use bivariate statistical techniques t…
Third Party Sex Work and Pimps in the Age of Anti-trafficking
Pimping and Profitability: Testing the Economics of Trafficking in Street Sex Markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Human trafficking has been identified as the second or third most profitable illicit business on the planet. Underlying these claims and billions of dollars in policy funding since the 1990s is an economics of human trafficking built heavily on two assumptions. The first is that nonconsensual labor is more profitable than consensual labor with minors being particularly profitable due to their ubiquity and inability to effectively consent. The sec…
The Trafficking in Persons Report: A Game of Risk
The State Department ranks countries on adherence to minimum standards set forth by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. The Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) is updated annually and failure to enact changes to combat trafficking results in higher tier rankings. This paper evaluates the TIP by situating this tool in light of special features of the modern era, such as globalization and risk. Through a survey of the theoretical literatur…
Conflict and Agency among Sex Workers and Pimps: A Closer Look at Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
The dominant understanding in the United States of the relationship between pimps and minors involved in commercial sex is that it is one of "child sex trafficking," in which pimps lure girls into prostitution, then control, exploit, and brutalize them. Such narratives of oppression typically depend on postarrest testimonials by former prostitutes and pimps in punishment and rescue institutions. In contrast, this article presents data collected f…
Peeling the onion: Domestically Trafficked Minors and Other Sex Work Involved Youth
Is Child to Adult as Victim is to Criminal: Social Policy and Street-Based Sex Work in the USA
Conflict and Agency among Sex Workers and Pimps: A Closer Look at Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
The dominant understanding in the United States of the relationship between pimps and minors involved in commercial sex is that it is one of "child sex trafficking," in which pimps lure girls into prostitution, then control, exploit, and brutalize them. Such narratives of oppression typically depend on postarrest testimonials by former prostitutes and pimps in punishment and rescue institutions. In contrast, this article presents data collected f…
Risky Business: Harlem Pimps' Work Decisions and Economic Returns
In this mixed methods study of 56 entry-level pimps in Harlem, NY, weexplore how pimps’ choices to use violence or control differ by where they are selling sex, who their clientele are, and whether these violent and controlling behaviors yield higher returns. First, we qualitatively explore how pimps account for each of these choices, and how each group of choices are related to the other choices. Second, we use bivariate statistical techniques t…
Is Child to Adult as Victim is to Criminal: Social Policy and Street-Based Sex Work in the USA
Double-edged risk: Unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) in Sweden and their search for safety
Many unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) arrived in Sweden with the mass exodus of refugees who fled to the EU in 2015. UMRs are individuals who are under 18 years of age, outside their country of origin and separated from legal care-givers (Separated Children in Europe Programme 2004). In 2016, Swedish public opinion of asylum seekers began to shift from sympathy to fear (Kärrman 2015; Herz 2018) and Sweden implemented policies restricting UMRs’…
Peeling the onion: Domestically Trafficked Minors and Other Sex Work Involved Youth
Oblivious ‘Sex Traffickers’: Challenging stereotypes and the fairness of US trafficking laws
In this paper, we explore third parties who unexpectedly fell within the legal definition of a sex trafficker. The anti-trafficking lobby and media stories frequently portray traffickers as organised, psychopathic, violent, and child kidnappers. We dismantle these depictions by showing the unexpected people who qualify as traffickers. This paper incorporates findings from two studies involving eighty-five third parties in New York City and forty-…
Pimping and Profitability: Testing the Economics of Trafficking in Street Sex Markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Human trafficking has been identified as the second or third most profitable illicit business on the planet. Underlying these claims and billions of dollars in policy funding since the 1990s is an economics of human trafficking built heavily on two assumptions. The first is that nonconsensual labor is more profitable than consensual labor with minors being particularly profitable due to their ubiquity and inability to effectively consent. The sec…
The Trafficking in Persons Report: A Game of Risk
The State Department ranks countries on adherence to minimum standards set forth by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. The Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) is updated annually and failure to enact changes to combat trafficking results in higher tier rankings. This paper evaluates the TIP by situating this tool in light of special features of the modern era, such as globalization and risk. Through a survey of the theoretical literatur…
Swedish civil society mobilises in response to refugees’ ‘bare life’
In 2015, Sweden welcomed asylum-seekers from the mass exodus in what became known as the ‘European refugee crisis.’ However, as Swedish public perceptions of refugees shifted from sympathy to fear, the government enacted policy changes that eroded unaccompanied minor refugees’ (UMRs) rights. After witnessing refugees’ ‘bare life’ by seeing them denied politicised citizens’ rights, Sweden's civil society mobilised to assist these vulnerable young …
A Visual Psychogeography Approach: Mapping Sex Market Facilitation in New York City
Is Child to Adult as Victim is to Criminal: Social Policy and Street-Based Sex Work in the USA
Peeling the onion: Domestically Trafficked Minors and Other Sex Work Involved Youth
The Trafficking in Persons Report: A Game of Risk
The State Department ranks countries on adherence to minimum standards set forth by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act 2000. The Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) is updated annually and failure to enact changes to combat trafficking results in higher tier rankings. This paper evaluates the TIP by situating this tool in light of special features of the modern era, such as globalization and risk. Through a survey of the theoretical literatur…
Conflict and Agency among Sex Workers and Pimps: A Closer Look at Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
The dominant understanding in the United States of the relationship between pimps and minors involved in commercial sex is that it is one of "child sex trafficking," in which pimps lure girls into prostitution, then control, exploit, and brutalize them. Such narratives of oppression typically depend on postarrest testimonials by former prostitutes and pimps in punishment and rescue institutions. In contrast, this article presents data collected f…
Pimping and Profitability: Testing the Economics of Trafficking in Street Sex Markets in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Human trafficking has been identified as the second or third most profitable illicit business on the planet. Underlying these claims and billions of dollars in policy funding since the 1990s is an economics of human trafficking built heavily on two assumptions. The first is that nonconsensual labor is more profitable than consensual labor with minors being particularly profitable due to their ubiquity and inability to effectively consent. The sec…
Third Party Sex Work and Pimps in the Age of Anti-trafficking
Double-edged risk: Unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) in Sweden and their search for safety
Many unaccompanied minor refugees (UMRs) arrived in Sweden with the mass exodus of refugees who fled to the EU in 2015. UMRs are individuals who are under 18 years of age, outside their country of origin and separated from legal care-givers (Separated Children in Europe Programme 2004). In 2016, Swedish public opinion of asylum seekers began to shift from sympathy to fear (Kärrman 2015; Herz 2018) and Sweden implemented policies restricting UMRs’…
Risky Business: Harlem Pimps' Work Decisions and Economic Returns
In this mixed methods study of 56 entry-level pimps in Harlem, NY, weexplore how pimps’ choices to use violence or control differ by where they are selling sex, who their clientele are, and whether these violent and controlling behaviors yield higher returns. First, we qualitatively explore how pimps account for each of these choices, and how each group of choices are related to the other choices. Second, we use bivariate statistical techniques t…
Rules, gender dynamics, and structure of sex market facilitators
Oblivious ‘Sex Traffickers’: Challenging stereotypes and the fairness of US trafficking laws
In this paper, we explore third parties who unexpectedly fell within the legal definition of a sex trafficker. The anti-trafficking lobby and media stories frequently portray traffickers as organised, psychopathic, violent, and child kidnappers. We dismantle these depictions by showing the unexpected people who qualify as traffickers. This paper incorporates findings from two studies involving eighty-five third parties in New York City and forty-…
Swedish civil society mobilises in response to refugees’ ‘bare life’
In 2015, Sweden welcomed asylum-seekers from the mass exodus in what became known as the ‘European refugee crisis.’ However, as Swedish public perceptions of refugees shifted from sympathy to fear, the government enacted policy changes that eroded unaccompanied minor refugees’ (UMRs) rights. After witnessing refugees’ ‘bare life’ by seeing them denied politicised citizens’ rights, Sweden's civil society mobilised to assist these vulnerable young …
Mapmaking as visual storytelling: The movement and emotion of managing sex work in the urban landscape
‘Pimps” Self-presentations in the Interview Setting: ‘Good Me,’ ‘Bad Me,’ and ‘Badass Me’
Using a mixed-method approach, we explored how 85 sex market facilitators used neutralization and subcultural discourse to present themselves in the interview setting. We used non-metric, Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) to test discursive themes that resulted in a three-fold model with the themes ‘good,’’bad,’ and ‘badass me’ with externalizing and internalizing approaches. The ‘good me’ subtype focused on fundamentally being a ”nice guy” but blam…
A Visual Psychogeography Approach: Mapping Sex Market Facilitation in New York City
When sex and drug markets and gang involvement blend: How do sex market facilitators operate and socialize differently
An Interpersonal Typology of Drug Use in Pimping and Trafficking
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 …
Sex work and related issues (14 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology (10 works) · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Psychology (8 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (5 works)