Archives for March 2019

(Heidi Fleiss) – Why would a wealthy and powerful man like Robert Kraft allegedly pay for sex from women at a Florida strip-mall massage parlor? Don’t overthink it.

They do it because it’s sex. They do it because it’s convenient. They do it because it’s fast. They do it because it’s hassle-free. At least, until you’re caught.

Ever since New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft was charged last week with two counts of solicitation of prostitution after the police obtained video evidence of him allegedly engaging in sex acts at a strip-mall massage parlor in Florida, people have been scratching their heads and wondering: Why would a man with wealth, power and prestige, who likely has women throwing themselves at him on a daily basis, go to a massage parlor? If he wanted sex, shouldn’t he have a madam — like me — or a number of beautiful women at his disposal?

People are overthinking it. Kraft, 77, allegedly went to a massage parlor because it was uncomplicated. The only problems are:

► It happens to be illegal.

► The women there were reportedly victims of sex trafficking.

► The two points above are closely linked.

There’s a problem that has led to this problem. We are a society tied in knots around sexuality and sexual pleasure. We all love it, but we have such specific, archaic rules around where and when we are allowed to feel it. If we had the same rules around happiness, there would be a revolution.

Prostitution is illegal — but at what cost?

For much of human history, men went not to illicit massage parlors for sexual pleasure but to temples. Prostitution was condoned by many religions. But as soon as religion became anti-sexuality and pro-chastity, prostitution became a sin rather than a service.

The point is, there is a cultural disagreement on whether prostitution is sacred or sinful. The more we repress something as a culture, the more it comes out sideways in individuals.

However, when it comes to sexual trafficking, we are all in agreement: It is morally reprehensible and a violation of basic human rights to force an unwilling person into sex.

Given that there always has been and always will be a demand for sexual services, we need to decide: At what cost are we making transactional sex illegal?

When you make something that is in demand illegal, you create an opportunity for people who live outside the code of law to make money out of it. Some choose to do this by subjugating others.

The laws in place now to supposedly protect people are hurting us and creating a bigger black market for sex. We have to change the law so there’s a substantial reduction in human trafficking. Here in Nevada, legal brothels do the community a service and they are regulated, inspected and taxed.

There are people who have a passion for the job, who consider themselves healers, who make high salaries and who have healthy relationships with themselves and others.

Protect sex workers, trafficking victims

I was the Match.com, Tinder and Grinder of my day. I made the transaction easy by cutting directly to everyone’s goals, without any of them having to endure the long and often dishonest song and dance that people do when dating. Among the people who were in my personal world at that time, I saw a lot more men and women hurt from dysfunctional relationships than from transactional sex.

And there is evidence that legalizing prostitution can reduce sex trafficking. For instance, New Zealand legalized prostitution in 2003. In a 2008 study, the New Zealand Ministry of Justice found no incidence of trafficking over the previous five years. Sex worker advocates also say the law made it easier for them to report abuse, and for law enforcement to make arrests for crimes committed against sex workers.

Human rights organizations like Amnesty International, the United Nations and Human Rights Watch have all advocated decriminalizing prostitution.

For those who are against prostitution, just like those who are against pornography, it’s fine to hold that opinion. Just don’t participate in it or pay for it. But don’t impose your rules and values on the rest of us. There are 7 billion people on this planet. And a certain percentage of them are always going to be willing to pay for sex.

So the reason why Robert Kraft went to a Florida massage parlor allegedly for sex is because he wanted to. It was there. Sometimes you want to eat a nice steak, and sometimes you want fast food. It was the fast-food equivalent of sex.

None of this diminishes or discounts his character. A person is not a fraud or a liar because he wants sex. Many people do, and that’s never going to change. What can change is the way we, as a society, police, regulate and legislate sexual pleasure.

Heidi Fleiss is the former Hollywood Madam and currently runs a macaw rescue in Nevada. This column was originally published by USA Today on February 27, 2019.  The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Nevada Brothel Association.

(Chuck Muth) – Lots of news stories about the federal lawsuit filed this week by anti-brothel crusader Jason Guinasso on behalf of former illegal prostitute and ex-con for bank fraud and tax evasion, Rebekah Charleston.

The target of the lawsuit is the State of Nevada.  The suit asks the federal government to step in and strike down Nevada’s law that allows the operation of legal brothels in a number of the state’s rural counties.

And while Guinasso has claimed in newspaper interviews that he’s representing Charleston “pro bono,” he asks in the suit for “reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs, and litigation expenses plus interest accruing thereon, in their favor at the maximum rate allowed by law.”

The same “we don’t win, you don’t pay” scheme of personal injury attorneys.  It also means if he does win, the taxpayers of Nevada will actually be paying his fees.  But that’s not all…

Guinasso is also demanding that Nevada create a $20 million “Sex Trade Exit Fund” ostensibly for the purpose of providing former sex workers “mental health services, rent assistant, job training, scholarships, funding for childcare, medical treatments, tattoo removal, etc.”

Not only would Nevada taxpayers be on the hook for this $20 million, but a Guinasso ally, Awaken Reno – which partnered with him on his failed effort to ban brothels in Lyon County last fall – would likely be a beneficiary of the largess.

Feather-bedding?

Meanwhile, Bree Zender of KUNR noted that the Mann Act, the basis for Guinasso’s claim relating to interstate commerce, was actually steeped in anti-black racism…

“The Mann Act – also known as the White Slave Traffic Act – became federal law in 1910 … In fact, in 1913, famed boxer Jack Johnson was the first person to be found guilty of violating the act after he allegedly transported a prostitute from Pittsburgh to Chicago. Many believe that Johnson’s case was racially motivated. [Johnson] was black and the woman, who some say was actually his girlfriend, was white.”

So where does the lawsuit go from here?

According to the process summons issued on February 25, 2019, the State of Nevada – including the Legislature, the Governor’s Office and the Attorney General – now have 60 days to respond.

In addition, Lance Gilman, owner of the Mustang Ranch brothel in northern Nevada, told the Associated Press that he “intends to file a motion to become a party in the lawsuit,” while the Washington Post reported that Mustang “has announced that it plans to file a motion to intervene in the lawsuit (and) become a full party to it as an intervenor and get the claim dismissed.”

“Guinasso’s actions will put thousands of women back into the hands of pimps working illegally,” Mr. Gilman said.  “His entire complaint is about illegal prostitution and trafficking, which has no relationship to licensed brothels in Nevada.”

Indeed, as Amy Westervelt wrote, “Several women, who spoke with The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to protect their safety, said they feel safer at the brothels than they would as independent sex workers.”

“Gilman,” the AP reported, “said Guinasso would be better off trying to help illegal prostitutes escape from their pimps, working to outlaw the distribution of handbills on the Las Vegas Strip for illegal prostitution services and cracking down on illegal sexual services at massage parlors.”

Meanwhile, Miranda Wilson of the Las Vegas Sun reported that Republican Nevada State Sen. Joe Hardy has introduced a bill to outlaw legal brothels statewide.

Wilson’s article notes that while Charleston claims to have been “trafficked” through a pair of Nevada’s legal brothels, Gilman argues that “it isn’t the legal brothels’ responsibilities to determine whether a prostitute is being coerced into working.”

“The brothels cannot be the clearinghouse,” he said in an interview. “They cannot be the law enforcement group.”

Indeed.  If, as Charleston alleges, her “pimp” sent her to work in a legal Nevada brothel, and she failed to disclose that to the sheriff who issued her a work card or the brothel where she allegedly worked, how was anyone supposed know?

It should also be noted that Charleston claims she wasn’t making enough money in the legal brothels, so her pimp allegedly pulled her out and sent her to Las Vegas where the illegal and unregulated market was more lucrative, even though far more dangerous.

But the real heart of the matter is this: Even if Charleston was “trafficked” into legal brothels without the knowledge of law enforcement or the brothels themselves, that doesn’t mean the vast majority of other women who choose to work there are doing so against their will.

As Cherry of the Mustang Ranch explained to the Washington Post…

“I pay for my mother’s chemotherapy. And I grew up in a bad area with a bad school system, and the first step to getting out of poverty is to go to a better school. So I pay for my younger sister’s schooling, too.

“If something happened and this place shut down, most all of us would still be doing this work, but we’d be pushed to the streets, to hotels, to strip clubs selling ‘extras,’ and things would happen to us. Statistically, things would happen to us and it would be awful.”

Exactly.

At the very least, folks such as Guinasso and Sen. Hardy should visit the legal brothels and speak with the adult, consenting women who work there, such as Cherry, and get their first-person perspective on the work they’ve chosen to do.

Listen to THEM.  And then live and let live.

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a limited-government grassroots advocacy organization, and government affairs counsel to the Nevada Brothel Association

(Zachary Foster | Libertarian Party of Nevada) – The Libertarian Party made national headlines a few days ago relating to the Robert Kraft prostitution scandal. Once the news broke about how the Patriots owner was arrested and charged with soliciting a prostitute, the Libertarian Party of Massachusetts publicly responded by condemning the arrest on the grounds that sex work and being a client of sex work should not be a crime.

According to the Metro West Daily News, LP Massachusetts state chair Jeff Lyons said, “The Libertarian Party has always asserted that consenting adults should be able to exchange whatever goods and services they wish, so long as both parties willingly agree to the terms. It should be pointed out that had Robert Kraft been in Nevada, this would have been a legal activity.”

That’s almost true.

Whether it would have been legal or not depends entirely on its geography. State law dictates brothels can only exist in counties with fewer than 700,000 residents.

Currently, there are brothels in only 7 of Nevada’s 16 counties. It’s plain outlawed in 4 of the rural counties.

In 3 of the rural counties it’s legal, but no brothels are active there, likely due to restrictive state and county licensing laws.

Finally, prostitution is completely illegal in Clark and Washoe counties, where Las Vegas and Reno are located. Because of the heavy restrictions on legal prostitution in Nevada, there are only 21 brothels in the whole state.

All of these legal brothels are in rural counties, and the artificially imposed scarcity makes it so that actually getting sexual services at one of these brothels costs thousands of dollars. Slots for workers are limited and so most men and women who would voluntarily want to begin working quickly as sex workers can’t do so, because there’s no brothel that has room for them. Plus, each sex worker has to be individually licensed by the state, so there’s another delay and a barrier to entry.

Maybe the high rollers can afford to pay thousands for sex, but extremely few tourists actually go to where these places are. Las Vegas is a party town whose selling point specifically is misbehavior and promiscuity. Who would drive two hours or more away from the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas and into the part of Nevada that looks like Death Valley???

And again, it’s nice that the high rollers can afford it, but the cost of a wild night at a legal brothel is equal to or greater than the average tourist’s entire budget for a 3-day weekend in Las Vegas. There’s really no point in legalization if those barriers exist in the market.

Next, the current laws don’t work except to create a greater demand for these services in Las Vegas. There are thousands of independent sex workers and enslaved sex workers operating inside Reno and Las Vegas at any given time. They go where the money is. This wisdom was gleaned when I was once having a conversation with a former drug dealer, right as cannabis was legalizing. This individual had also previously worked as a sex worker and made the point: would you drive two hours one way to the only legal dispensary around, when there’s an illegal drug dealer right down the street who’s ready for you and will give you a good competitive price?

And tourists and locals alike certainly do go for the ‘local option’. According to criminologist Ronald B. Flowers in his 2011 book Prostitution in the Digital Age, approximately 66 times the amount of money spent on legal prostitution is spent on illegal prostitution in Nevada.

The horrible problem with illegal prostitution is that, similar to marijuana and alcohol, legal prohibition pushes these very real goods and services underground into criminal markets. Because hotel-based operations and erotic massage parlors often get raided at random, it’s common for sex workers to do a geographical circuit betwen various cities acros the US. That way no law enforcement agencies get used to seeing certin faces in certain places.

The other bad thing about that industry being pushed underground is that we have no way of knowing which illegal sex workers are slaves and victims, and which ones are empowered individuals who simply have different morals and boundaries than other people, and are using their bodies as property to generate financial capital for themselves.

One one hand, Rebekah Charleston recounts the gut-wrenching details of her being trafficked into Nevada’s legal brothels. Reading it broke my heart, and I can’t deny the validity of Rebekah’s experiences. At the same time, libertarian sex worker Kiteh Kawasaki, who capitalizes on her body, her health, and her ethnicity, is quite adamant that sex work is a career she chose and that she controls her own destiny. I can’t deny the validity of her experiences either.

Miss Kawasaki also says, “Condemning entire groups or individuals removes the opportunity for them to choose to do good. Removing freedoms can’t prevent random evils.” We believe that logic applies to gun ownership, medical and recreational drug use, religion, local AND interstate commerce, and sex work.

Yes, it’s true that sex slavery exists. Yes, it’s true that this cancer exists in our great state. IT MUST END, and it must end on our watch. Free markets cannot coexist with slavery or violence.

We Libertarians don’t believe that sending the police in with guns blazing against voluntary sex workers and clients is the best way to help the actual victims of human trafficking. This is because, as long as all parties are consenting adults, it’s none of the police’s business. If LVMPD really wanted to “just do their job” of enforcing the law, they would immediately ticket all their coworkers using their emergency sirens to blow through red lights.

In order to fight the evil side of this industry, we need sex workers to trust the authorities again so that they’re willing to cooperate and tell the authorities who in their professional community was kidnapped and which pimps or “agents” are rapists and slavers. That’s not going to happen as long as the government keeps going after voluntary sex workers because it’s a way easier bust than infiltrating a Sinaloa Cartel human trafficking operation that’s enslaving immigrant women in the USA.

Sex work must be decriminalized in all parts of Nevada. Sex work needs to be treated as a legitimate consumer service, just like the casinos and the night clubs. This is because sex workers must have the freedom to file a police report without fear; to sue in court and only be judged based on their contractual obligations and not their life choices. And finally, the public stigma must disappear so that sex workers don’t have the shame that would keep them from telling a stranger, “Help, I’m being forced to do this.”

These kinds of reforms tend to free up law enforcement so they can catch the real sex slave traffickers.

Slavery is wrong and incompatible with freedom and every concept of individual rights. But the same can be said about locking people in a cage for a victimless crime because their life choices aren’t biblical. But for those inclined to believe in a Supreme Being, as I do, let’s remember how Rahab the prostitute was the one who saved the angels from being gang raped and murdered. It was the woman at the well with her questionable lifestyle whom Jesus treated as one of His own students. It’s a shame most believers don’t wish to treat sex workers with the compassion and understanding worthy of the Son of God.

Those in Nevada who are legislating based on their own religious morality would do well to remember that. They would also do well to remember who made it legal for gangsters to create Las Vegas in the first place, and who owns much of the alcohol and casinos today.

Note: The opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Nevada Brothel Association