There are three types of pimps. Megan Lundstrom will tell you this. If you try to escape, the boyfriend pimp flips out. You go on autopilot, which numbs the pain. You might meet him at a bar and wake up later having been drugged, kidnapped, and raped. The year-old Coloradan gained most of her knowledge about the so-called life after her escape, having traveled an unlikely path from sex work to sociology.
Throughout her journey, she carried a secret—something that would send her career soaring. The study of active commercial sex exploitation is relatively recent, with scholars often relying on secondary sources like court documents and police reports, which hardly scratch the surface.
But such methods are of little use to Lundstrom, who lays claim to an underground gold mine of primary source material: a private Instagram account followed exclusively by active prostitutes and trafficking survivors.
Created a decade ago as her only means of socialization, the account at one point was co-opted by her pimp as a recruiting tool.
This past year has been the most revelatory yet. Lundstrom was born in Greeley, Colorado, a university town of about , that was founded in as an experimental utopian community but is now mostly known for its smelly meatpacking plants.
