For many college students, sex is a major part of life on campus. It’s a hot button topic at universities everywhere.
But selling sex in college was something that never really crossed Kyle Harper’s mind until recently. Now, he’s blogging about it.
“I grew up [in Columbia] and didn’t know you could just walk around the corner and find a prostitute,” Harper, a second-year business management and marketing student, said.
In August, Harper and his friends huddled into a booth at a Columbia Waffle House for a late-night meal following a church service. As they sipped their coffee, Harper noticed a young woman sitting at the bar.
“She was wearing a short dress and heels,” he said in a blog post. “She was beautiful, but she looked like hell.”
One of Harper’s friends went over to speak with the girl and learned that she was a prostitute who went by the name Lacy. Harper, in his blog post, describes her as being 22, maybe 23 and “looking for business.”
They invited her to sit with them to discuss religion, but she declined, saying, as she left the restaurant and disappeared into the night, “I can’t believe anyone would love me.”
Though the interaction between Lacy and the group was short, it affected Harper deeply. He has since vowed to find her again.
Initially, Harper wrote a lengthy blog post in an attempt to raise awareness. The post went viral with over 750,000 views in less than a week. The response, Harper said, “was so overwhelming.”
A halfway house in Atlanta saw the post and called Harper immediately to tell him they had a bed open and a “team that’s ready to go” when he found her.
“Their purpose is to acclimate her to a normal way of life,” he said.
It’s been months since the initial encounter, and Harper is still searching. Sometimes he wonders if Lacy hasn’t come forward because she doesn’t want help.
“If that’s what she wants to do, then that’s what she’s going to do,” Harper said. “If she wants help, we’ll help her. If not, nothing. Though I wouldn’t wish anyone in that situation.”
Harper has also been in contact with Niki Driver, the director of a Simpsonville-based women’s rehabilitation center which aids law enforcement in tracking down pimps, in order to fully understand the process.
“At this point, I don’t foresee us finding her,” Harper said. “My goal now is to raise awareness about the issue.”
Angie Whitehead, program director at The Women’s Shelter in West Columbia, said that seeing college-aged girls enter the facility is not uncommon.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “The majority of women in college who come to us decide to drop out in order to become more stable. They will put their education on hold.”
Whitehead admits that the entrance of prostitutes who are also college students is “rare" — but it has happened.
“Our facility is for women in crisis,” Whitehead said. “But we only take women who are ready to embrace change.”
At The Women’s Shelter, any enrolled woman must seek out employment within the first two weeks of their stay.
Harper’s goal to raise awareness and to get students involved may not be as easy as is seems.
According to Harper, there are currently no partnerships between the university and The Women’s Shelter. While anyone is encouraged to call the center to volunteer to help paint homes or carryout lawn care, there is no option for students to work directly with the women.
“That would be something we would have to have a round table about,” Whitehead said. “But it’s not off the table.”
In total, The Women’s Shelter has 11 beds in their main phase facility, and 17 fully furnished homes in the surrounding area for women who have progressed through the program.
Mona Henderson, director of Samaritan’s Well based in Lexington, said they “hadn’t had that many [students]” through their program.
“Maybe three in the past two and a half years,” Henderson said.
Samaritan’s Well is smaller than The Women’s Shelter, with only 16 beds. However, their primary focus is on long-term goal setting for “women who are economically in a bad place,” according to Henderson.
While both centers serve as transitional spaces for women and their families, they also have waiting lists for entry, something Harper hopes to remedy by partnering with shelters.
Harper may have lost the battle as far as Lacy goes, but he has a notion to win the war.
Harper hopes to continue cataloging the process on his blog.
“I would love people to get to see what it’s like to follow through with someone,” he said.
Between 2001 and 2010 in South Carolina alone, over 4,100 arrests were made for soliciting prostitution, with the number as a slow, steady rise. Harper and his friends are in for a long battle, the outcome of which will be determined only in time.
According to Eric Grabski, spokesman for USCPD, there have been “no cases [of prostitution] on campus in the past six months, or the past year.”