The study of ten adolescent and young adult female prostitutes revealed that three of them had schizophrenic psychoses, while the remainder had borderline character structures. The psychotic adolescents participated in prostitution in an attempt to preserve some vestige of object relationships. The borderline adolescents, all of whom had chaotic family histories, had severe splits in the world of self and object, with the result that all-good and all-bad images were kept apart. The all-good image was that of the pimp, while the all-bad image was that of the customer. Other aspects of prostitution such as the high incidence of suicide attempts, homosexuality, and the use of money are also discussed.