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March 10, 2019 By NBA Staff

5 Mysteries Surrounding the Anti-Brothel Crusade in Nevada

(Chuck Muth) – It’s been a busy week for Nevada’s legal brothel industry…

1.) The lawsuit to outlaw Nevada’s brothels

Ginger Allen of CBS News in Dallas, Texas reported on a federal lawsuit recently filed by a Texas woman named Rebekah Charleston who is seeking to wipe out Nevada’s law allowing brothels to operate legally in Nevada’s rural counties.

Charleston claims to have been forced into illegal prostitution, dating back to the late 1990’s, in a Dallas suburb and later set up shop in Nevada.  In her lawsuit, she claims her “pimp” forced her to work in a pair of Lyon County brothels – a dubious claim only recently raised that has yet to be confirmed or corroborated.

In addition, no record has been found indicating Charleston disclosed that she was being “trafficked” to either the local sheriff’s office – which would have issued her a work card after an FBI background check – or the brothels where she claims to have worked for a couple of weeks before re-locating to Las Vegas and returning to the illegal market.

There’s also no record of her reporting her claims of being trafficked in Nevada until many years after she was busted and jailed for tax evasion and bank fraud – neither of which has anything whatsoever to do with Nevada’s legal brothels.

How convenient…and suspicious.

One has to wonder why Charleston is focusing her time and attention on the legal brothel industry where women work voluntarily rather than on the illegal market which she claims victimized her against her will.

It’s a mystery.

2.)  The bill to outlaw Nevada’s brothels

Nevada State Sen. Joe Hardy (R-Clark County) is attempting to overturn Nevada’s decades-old brothel law and put all of the state’s legal courtesans and support employees on the street.  The BDR (bill draft request) is being co-sponsored by Democrat State Sen. Patricia Spearman (D-Clark County).

Sen. Hardy was interviewed this week by Sam Shad on the Nevada Newsmakers program and continued the opposition’s propaganda tactic of comparing illegal street prostitution to legal sex work in Nevada’s brothels.

When challenged by Mr. Shad – who pointed out that sex work in a legal brothel is far safer for workers, the clients and the public at large – Sen. Hardy then put forward a claim that the existence of legal brothels encourages illegal prostitution.

But that’s like saying the presence of legal pharmacies – and, for that matter, legal marijuana dispensaries – encourages the illegal drug market.  Yet we don’t see any proposals from Mr. Hardy to outlaw neighborhood drug stores or make marijuana illegal again.

It’s a mystery.

Two days later Mr. Shad interviewed Ruby Rae and Alice Little – two legal courtesans at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Lyon County and ambassadors for the Nevada Brothel Association.

Ruby and Alice did a masterful job at shooting down Sen. Hardy’s paper-thin claims and made the case for why it should be an adult woman’s right to choose whether or not to work in a legal brothel.

Click here to watch both interviews.

3.)  The Patriots’ Owner and the Florida Massage Parlor

Aurora Snow of the Daily Beast wrote about the arrest of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft being arrested “in a prostitution sting on a South Florida massage parlor.”  And our own Nevada Brothel Association ambassador Alice Little is quoted extensively in the piece…

Courtesan Alice Little stresses the positive impact of legalized brothels and suggests if they were more widely adopted, they could bring clarity and enforce distinctions between sex trafficking and prostitution.

“Making sex work illegal doesn’t stop the need for human intimacy, it just sends those who need it underground. Instead of gangsters, criminalization creates pimps. Instead of speakeasies, criminalization creates massage parlors,” says Little.

“With legalization comes taxation to address social ills and a legitimate process for screening workers that keeps them clean, safe, and out of the hands of human traffickers,” she adds.

Working at the Bunny Ranch, one of Nevada’s several legalized brothels, Little has seen numerous affluent, famous clients treated with discretion, indulging without becoming a salacious headline.

Pondering why Kraft, who has the means, didn’t opt for a more secretive approach, Little theorizes, “If there was a restaurant several states away and you were hungry, it would be far more tempting to go to that place on the corner that doesn’t have a health inspection than it would be to fly in somewhere to eat.”

Why don’t more people see and accept the logic of Alice’s arguments?

It’s a mystery.

4.)  Throwing some sunshine on Clark County’s illegal sex trade

On Sunday the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that it’s been 745 days since it first began “asking for arrest reports, investigative files and other documents” from the Metropolitan Police Department related to the illegal prostitution market in Las Vegas and surrounding areas.

Metro, the paper reported, has “responded with endless rounds of arguments, obfuscation and outright refusal” to provide those records.

“Metro takes the position,” notes RJ editor Glenn Cook, “that the public doesn’t need to know how it enforces laws intended to combat a growing national problem with devastating consequences for young victims.”

What is Metro trying to hide by not releasing illegal prostitution arrest records?

It’s a mystery.

The RJ has had to sue Metro in its efforts to obtain these public records.  And last August the district court judge hearing the case said it “boggles my mind” that the police department has been blocking the records’ release, noting that Metro “has not complied or even come close to compliance” with the state’s public records law.

Perhaps Sens. Hardy and Spearman would be better advised to pass a law forcing Metro to disclose what it’s doing to combat the illegal sex trade rather than focusing on the comparatively non-existent problems in Nevada’s legal brothels.

By the way, the name of the district court judge is Joe Hardy Jr.

Sen. Hardy’s son.

5.)  On a far more cheerful and positive note

Reporter Amy Alonzo of the Fernley Leader-Courier did a story on Phil Wooley, a graphic artist employed by the Moonlite Bunny Ranch brothel in Lyon County.

It’s a wonderful story about how Phil is preparing to donate one of his kidneys to a man who was a complete stranger to him just a few short weeks ago.

“(W)hen he heard fellow Dayton resident David Mickelsen needed a kidney transplant,” Ms. Alonzo reports, “Wooley underwent tests to see if he was a match – and he was.

“In the seven years Mickelsen has been battling kidney failure, Wooley was the first possible match,” Ms. Alonzo continued.  “Mickelsen has been on dialysis for five years for kidney failure, and he also suffers from a benign brain tumor that, despite an operation and radiation, still affects him.”

And his time is running out.

Testing continues and is in the final stages…but so far, so good.  The surgery could happen very soon.  Fingers crossed.  This story deserves a happy ending!

That said, it’s simply unconscionable that while Phil is risking his own life to potentially save David’s life, by the time they both recover in about six months Phil could be out of a job thanks to Sen. Hardy’s bill.

Think about that.

Mr. Muth is Government Affairs Counsel to the Nevada Brothel Association

Filed Under: Blog

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Suzette Cole, CEO, Moonlite Bunny Ranch

“Prostitution is the oldest profession and will not go away.  Nevada has been doing it right since 1971 when we took it out of the criminal’s hands and put it into a highly-regulated industry.  As an added benefit, there has never been a case of HIV/AIDS in the history of legal brothels here…and you can’t say that about any other profession in the United States.”

John Stossel, Syndicated Columnist

“We don’t have to cheer for prostitution, or think it’s nice, to keep government out of it and let participants make up their own minds.  It’s wrong to ban sex workers’ options just to make ourselves feel better.”

Steve Chapman, Syndicated Columnist

“Prohibition doesn’t eliminate the harms generally associated with prostitution, such as violence, human trafficking and disease. On the contrary, it fosters them by driving the business underground.”

Christina Parreira, UNLV Researcher/Sex Worker

“Sex work is my CHOICE.  I’d like to continue to have the opportunity to make that choice legally.  We don’t need protection. We’re consenting, adult women.”

Washington, DC Councilman David Grosso

“We need to stop arresting people for things that are not really criminal acts. We should arrest someone for assault…but when it’s two adults engaging in a consensual sex act, I don’t see why that should be an arrestable offense”

New York Assemblyman Richard Gottfried

“Trying to stop sex work between consenting adults should not be the business of the criminal justice system.”

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker

“Yes, sex work should be decriminalized.  As a general matter, I don’t believe that we should be criminalizing activity between consenting adults, and especially when doing so causes even more harm for those involved.”

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders

“I think the idea of legalizing prostitution is something that should be considered…(and) certainly needs to be discussed.”

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris

“When you’re talking about consenting adults, I think that, yes, we should really consider that we can’t criminalize consensual behavior, as long as no one is being harmed. … We should not be criminalizing women who are engaged in consensual opportunities for employment.”

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren

“I believe humans should have autonomy over their own bodies and they get to make their own decisions. … I am open to decriminalizing sex work. Sex workers, like all workers, deserve autonomy and are particularly vulnerable to physical and financial abuse.”

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

“If a consenting adult wants to engage in sex work, that is their right, and it should not be a crime. All people should have autonomy over their bodies and their labor.”

Gov. John Hickenlooper

“Legalizing prostitution and regulating it, so there are norms and protections and we understand more clearly how people are being treated and make sure we prevent abuse, I think it should be really looked at.”

Mike Gravel, former Alaska Senator

“Sex workers are workers, and they deserve the dignity and respect that every worker deserves. For too long, we’ve denied them that. Sex workers, not politicians, should lead the way in crafting sex work policy.”

Prof. Ronald Weitzer, George Washington University:

“Unlike illegal street prostitution in many other places, Nevada’s legal brothels do not disturb public order, create nuisances, or negatively impact local communities in other ways. Instead, they provide needed tax revenue for cash-strapped rural towns.”

Prof. Barbara Brents, UNLV author, “State of Sex”:

“Teams of scholars…have concluded that Nevada’s legal brothels provide a far safer environment for sex workers than the criminalized system in the rest of the United States.”

Prof. Sarah Blithe, UNR author, “Sex and Stigma”:

“Discussions of legal prostitution are rife with misinformation.  Academic work and popular press publications alike often conflate legal prostitution in the United States with illegal prostitution.”

Lee Herz Dixon:

“Do I think eradicating legal prostitution from all Nevada counties will erase the practice of the oldest profession in the state, or break the nexus of drugs, crime, and exploitation of the vulnerable? I do not.”

Journalist Michael Cernovich:

“It’s empirically proven that criminalizing sex work allows children to be sex trafficked more readily as they are afraid to turn to authorities and wonder if they will be arrested.”

Enrique Carmona:

“We need to put aside moralistic prejudices, whether based on religion or an idealistic form of feminism, and figure out what is in the best interests of the sex workers and public interest as well.”

Ruby Rae, professional courtesan

“In the brothels, we have the choice, always, to say which clients we will say yes and no to. We have staff that would never let a man hurt us, and we have a clientele that do not come here to hurt us.”

Kiki Lover, professional courtesan:

“We are human beings who chose to do sex work on our own free will. We get treated with respect and like family at the brothels. It’s a job just like any other job. We sell a service that all humans need.”

Paris Envy, professional courtesan:

“I’m not ‘exploited.’ I’m not ‘trafficked.’ I’m not ‘brainwashed.’ I don’t need to be ‘saved.’ I’ve freely chosen this line of work, which is a legal, private transaction between consenting adults.”

Alice Little, professional courtesan:

“It’s ILLEGAL sex work that exploits children. It’s ILLEGAL sex work that traffics. It’s ILLEGAL sex work that sees women exploited and abused by pimps.”

Jim Shedd, Nevadan

“Prostitution should be licensed, regulated, taxed like any other service industry.  There are many single or widowed men and women who should be able to take advantage of such services provided by consenting adults for consenting adults. Let’s act to at least reduce illegal sex trafficking and other sex crimes by creating safe and legal outlets for paying adults who wish to use them.”

Paul Bourassa, brothel customer:

“Some people are just never given a chance in the dating scene, so brothels offer those of us with no experience a chance to learn what it’s like to be on a date.”

Lewis Dawkins, brothel customer:

“It’s not always about sex. Little compliments and encouragements offered by the ladies help build my self-confidence. It’s a business, yes. But the ladies care personally about their clients. That means a lot.”

Brett Caton, brothel customer:

“I think brothels provide an important function in society. Legal ones give a safe outlet to their customers and for some men it is the only way they get so much as a hug.”

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The Nevada Brothel Association PAC is a coalition of legal brothel owners, brothel workers, brothel clients and brothel supporters dedicated to defending a woman’s right to choose professional sex work as a career, protecting the public’s health and safety, and preserving Nevada’s rich live-and-let-live heritage.

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