akenaton has a point. If you have a word with the Police in any town, large or small, they will know all the districts and the individuals involved in that sort of lifestyle. I have been privileged to have contact with our local Police when one or more of 'my' prisoners was re-arrested. They told me all sorts of hair-raising facts about their work with offenders and their womenfolk. It is not rare but commonplace, and certainly not 'folklore'.
Anyone who ventures 'below the line' and feels it is 'a tabloid hellish realm in its own right' need never venture thence again. Simples! (as a meerkat would say)