Nevada Brothel Association

NBA Staff

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When You Grow Up Around A Legal Brothel, Sometimes You Just Start Working There

(Paris Envy) – Legal prostitution was always in my life.

I grew up in northern Nevada, just down the road from several of the state’s best known bordellos. My aunt worked at The Sagebrush Ranch, and some of my earliest memories are of riding with my grandmother to go pick her up from work.

She would call ahead from the car when we were about 10 minutes away, and the back gate would be opened up so we could pull up to the rear of the building. We would go in through the kitchen, and all of the “working girls” would be covered up in their robes, always excited to see me.

While we were waiting for my aunt to gather her things, I would sit on a stool at the kitchen counter and drink a Shirley Temple while I dangled my legs that had not yet grown long enough to touch the ground from a chair.
The ladies would put cartoons on the television for me, and just like that, I would be a happy kid having a normal childhood experience in the back room of a brothel (paging Richard Pryor).

The girls would give me dollar bills and I felt rich. That is the first time that I remember having a sense of the value of money, and that sense would serve me well once I returned to the brothels as an adult.

As I grew into my teens, I was seduced by HBO’s slate of late night adult programming. Too young to watch by most parents’ standards (including my own), I had to wait until my parents had gone to sleep and sneak back in to the living room to tune in to the forbidden land of late night cable television.

Back in those days, HBO aired entire blocks of adult oriented shows, including “Real Sex”, “Taxi Cab Confessions”, and “Cathouse” (the reality show based around the business at Dennis Hof’s Bunny Ranch legal brothel).

While the other two shows were set in different parts of the country and seemed to a girl from Yerington, Nevada as though they might as well have taken place in other countries or on other planets, “Cathouse” was filmed just down the road from me, and I was fascinated with the idea that television magic was being created right in my own back yard.

I liked the girls on the show, and I especially liked Dennis, who was the central figure that the whole business seemed to revolve around.

Lots of people follow relatives into family businesses, and I guess you could say that I’m no different. Where the difference lies, however, is that my family’s history of prostitution has been a legal one. It’s always been safe, clean, and profitable. Most importantly, it’s been fun.

I actually enjoy my job, and one thing that interacting with a variety of clients has taught me is that that is rarely the case for most other professionals. The overwhelming majority of people work at their jobs so that they can enjoy life once they get off work. I go to work so that I can enjoy getting off while I’m earning that living at the same time.

Do the math, and you’ll see that I’m living twice the life I would be otherwise, were I in a job that I hated, or at best tolerated. Life is too short to spend time doing things you don’t like.

Paris is a legal sex worker at the Love Ranch-Vegas brothel in southern Nevada

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Don’t outlaw brothels, empower sex workers

(Isabel Youngs) – Over the last week, several opinion pieces have been published regarding Nevada’s laws around legal (and illegal) sex work. Every single one was reductive and borderline cruel, invalidating the autonomy of sex workers by stating they either all love or all hate their jobs; that brothels are safe or brothels are inhumane.

Like any profession, there are hundreds of factors that go into why one either enjoys or despises what they do. Each piece did nothing to address the many nuances of why some sex workers are happy and others are not. There are problems in our legal brothel system; however, much of that stems from society’s cultural lack of respect for women and sex workers.

There is absolutely no peer-reviewed study corroborating that legalized prostitution expands illegal prostitution or that brothels are rife with trafficking, rape, abuse, drugs, suicide and imprisonment. There is no factual or philosophical basis for criminalizing prostitution.

Additionally, there is no research comparing legal sex work and the safety of other professions, like domestic work. The problem of abuse, drugs and misogyny is engrained, and encompasses several industries, not just the sex industry.

Sexual and physical violence is tied to power imbalances, discrimination and the devaluation/stigma of certain people. Targeting sex workers does not help to solve systemic abuse and violence across many communities and in many professions. In fact, stigmatizing sex work could increase violence against workers.

However, there are inherent problems with the way we have established our prostitution laws, and many workers do end up in horrifying conditions with few opportunities for recourse. Nevada law limits legal sex work to specific locations in specific counties, operated largely by affluent businessmen with no incentive to provide benefits for their employees. In our current climate, workers have less choice, less autonomy and less negotiating power under contracts at brothels than they would as either unionized employees or private independent contractors who decide when, where, how and with whom they do business.

However, these problems are not solved through the criminalization/outlawing of prostitution, which paints women as victims who are disempowered and lacking autonomy. Many of the problems rampant in sex work are a result of a sweeping lack of choice for marginalized communities across the board. By improving access to high-paying alternative employment and educational opportunities, as well as legislating protections for marginalized workers, we can begin to transition people out of sex work who do not want to be there, and end the stigma against those who willfully choose that employment.

The creation of better laws protecting the interests of workers and offering legitimate paths out of the profession for those who want to leave it is much better public policy than throwing sex workers in jail or attempting to pass laws that would make trafficking victims less safe.

Many of the people and organizations doing work in the sex trafficking prevention arena are not asking underground sex workers and trafficking victims what they need, but relying on research that is rarely peer-reviewed or procedurally vetted. Recent peer-reviewed articles about sex work tend to find positive outcomes to decriminalization. The prominence of bad research makes it difficult to speculate or theorize the harms of sex work in other contexts, and when problems in prostitution do materialize, we rarely see suggestions of solutions to specific issues – we see a call-to-arms for criminalization.

UN Women reports, “The conflation of consensual sex work and sex trafficking leads to inappropriate responses that fail to assist sex workers and victims of trafficking in realizing their rights. Furthermore, failing to distinguish between these groups infringes on sex workers’ right to health and self-determination and can impede efforts to prevent and prosecute trafficking.” While there are claims that “pimps bring their victims to Nevada” because of prostitution, trafficking is tied far more to immigration, population and globalization than legal prostitution.

Traffickers also often use the danger of police intervention and criminality to control their victims, accusing them of breaking the law or threatening them with deportation. Despite “safe harbor” laws in some states, which have been implemented to protect victims from criminal punishment, the State Department reports that many victims, including minors, are routinely prosecuted by state or local officials on charges related to their trafficking.

At the end of the day, legal prostitution has its demons, but to unfairly target sex work and delegitimize the self-determination of many sex workers who do want to be in that profession by claiming that “no little girl wants to grow up to be a prostitute,” we do irreparable harm to ending the stigma of sex work. Enacting thoughtful, respectful and well-researched labor and education laws that give sex workers power and autonomy will do far more to make our state better than trying to outlaw prostitution.

Isabel Youngs is a Reno local and advocates in the issue areas of sex work, disability rights, health care and child welfare. She studied political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, with an emphasis on social policy. She currently works at a legal aid nonprofit. The opinions here are her own and not necessarily reflective of any organization or employer she is affiliated with. This column was originally published by the Nevada Independent.

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Brothel ban supporters concede they won’t get question on Nye County ballot

(Michelle Rindells | Nevada Independent) – Organizers of an effort to ban brothels in Nye County have conceded the measure won’t make it onto the ballot this cycle.

Jason Guinasso, an attorney who’s helping coordinate similar efforts in both Nye and Lyon counties, told The Nevada Independent on Monday that the campaign wasn’t able to secure enough support from Nye County commissioners to call a special meeting and approve language for the ballot ahead of a mid-July deadline. The campaign could have forced the question on the ballot through a referendum petition, but was several hundred signatures short of the 1,963 needed to do so when volunteers ceased the campaign.

“I don’t consider it a failure,” Guinasso said. “One of the big impetuses of this is to raise awareness — I think we’ve done a good job of raising awareness.”

Guinasso said the group started relatively late in the election cycle and didn’t use paid signature-gatherers, which could have improved the prospects of the measure.

A pro-brothel campaign called Nye County Freedom countered the anti-brothel campaign, arguing that legal prostitution is a relatively unique liberty and taking it away could lead to the curtailment of other freedoms.

Guinasso said the plan is to continue outreach in the county and pursue a ban later, perhaps in  2020.

Lyon County, which had an even higher signature threshold for petitions than Nye County, already decided to take the advisory question route. That will give voters a chance to weigh in on whether they support keeping prostitution legal, and commissioners can decide whether to heed that advice and implement a ban.

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Why closing legal brothels is a bad idea

(Ronald Weitzer) – Prostitution is legal and regulated by the government in several countries, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, New Zealand and some Mexican states. In most of these places, street prostitution remains either illegal or officially discouraged, while indoor prostitution is legally permitted under certain conditions and monitored by local authorities – much as it is in Nevada’s rural counties. The logic of legalization is similar to that for marijuana and casino gambling: the principle that tolerating consensual vice is far superior to criminalizing it, forcing participants underground and perpetuating the risks and harms inherent in any black-market enterprise.

The potential advantages of legalization are recognized by some prominent organizations and agencies. In 2013, Canada’s Supreme Court unanimously declared the country’s prostitution laws unconstitutional. According to the court, these laws violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they endangered sex workers safety. Amnesty International embraced the same logic when it officially endorsed decriminalization in May 2016, following earlier decisions by Human Rights Watch and the World Health Organization. And, although long forgotten, the National Organization for Women voted in 1973 to support decriminalization in the United States. The resolution declared that NOW “opposes continued prohibitive laws regarding prostitution, believing them to be punitive” and “therefore favors removal of all laws relating to the act of prostitution.”

These are just a few examples showing that legal prostitution is not a crazy, fringe idea. In fact, the American public is much more sympathetic to the idea of it than is commonly believed. Recent national polls show growing tolerance: Support for legalizing prostitution increased from 38 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2015 and 49 percent in 2016. And legalization bills have been recently introduced in Hawaii, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C.

Anti-prostitution activists claim that legalizing prostitution will increase sex trafficking. This notion defies all logic. Organized crime thrives where an activity is criminalized and clandestine, not where goods and services are lawfully exchanged. The history of alcohol and drug prohibition offers overwhelming proof of this maxim.

One fatally flawed “study” in Europe purported to find a link between legalization and increased trafficking, but this paper was roundly criticized by other scholars, including me. In the Netherlands, where prostitution has been legal since 2000, a report by the Ministry of Justice in 2007 stated that “it is likely trafficking in human beings has become more difficult, because the enforcement of the regulations has increased.”

Evidence from Germany seems to confirm this argument. Government figures show a consistent decline since 2002 (when legalization took effect) in three trafficking measures: From 2000 to 2014, the number of officially certified victims decreased from 1,197 to 524; the number of suspects prosecuted dropped from 927 to 485; and the number of convictions of traffickers fell from 148 to 77.

While these figures do not necessarily prove that trafficking is decreasing in Germany, we would expect to see a consistent increase in these three metrics if trafficking has increased since legalization. The trend lines clearly show the opposite pattern.

What about Nevada? The best research on the state’s legal brothels comes out of UNLV. This research shows that brothel workers are generally satisfied with their working conditions, do not consider themselves victims, rarely experience altercations with customers, have freedom to choose the kinds of services they provide and are working in healthy conditions.

Since the state mandated monthly testing for HIV and sexually-transmitted infections in 1986, not one legal brothel worker has tested HIV-positive (condom use is required by state law). Moreover, the brothels have little if any adverse effect on the surrounding community.

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. The brothels also have a long pedigree, having been legally permitted since 1971, almost half a century!

None of this is intended to romanticize sex work, but it is clear that it is not going to disappear. Outlawing legal brothels in Lyon and Nye counties will only be counterproductive – disrupting a well-regulated system that protects sex workers’ health and safety, imposes a set of regulations on business owners and is not considered problematic by most Nevadans.

Ronald Weitzer is a Professor of Sociology at George Washington University and the author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business. He has spent nearly three decades researching sex work in various countries and is considered one of the leading international experts on the topic.  This column was originally published in the Nevada Independent.

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Lyon County places brothel ban advisory question on November ballot

(Jackie Valley | Nevada Independent) – The Lyon County Commission has decided to place an advisory question on the November ballot asking voters whether brothels should be made illegal in the jurisdiction.

The move comes after a group of Lyon County residents filed a referendum petition in April seeking to end legal prostitution in the rural county. Commissioners voted unanimously to add an advisory question to the ballot after concerns were raised about the referendum.

“This was brought to the Board to address concerns brought up with a proposed referendum to end brothels in Lyon County,” county manager Jeffrey Page wrote in a statement. “The referendum language is confusing to the voter and could potentially require voter approval to change the brothel ordinance.”

Given the addition of the advisory question, proponents of the referendum will not be filing it, Page said.

The advisory question simply gathers input on the matter but is not legally binding for any governing body or lawmaker. The question that will be placed on the ballot is this:

“Shall the Lyon County Board of Commissioners rescind Title 3, Chapter 5, the Lyon County Brothel Ordinance, in order to end brothels and legalized prostitution in Lyon County, Nevada?”

A fiscal note attached to the advisory question states that eliminating brothels in Lyon County would result in the loss of associated license fees, work card permits and room taxes. Liquor licenses and business licenses for the brothels could also be affected. Brothel license fees brought in $425,116 last fiscal year in Lyon County. The county’s total budget this year is $48 million, meaning the brothel licenses fees make up less than 1 percent of it.

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The Indy Explains: How legal prostitution works in Nevada

(Michelle Rindells | Nevada Independent) – Nevada’s unique status as the only state in the union with legalized prostitution has once again come into focus as efforts to ban brothels in certain counties crop up and as the state’s most famous brothel operator runs a campaign for an Assembly seat.

“Nevada is probably the last live-and-let-live state in the country, and I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy,” said Dennis Hof, the brothel proprietor who’s seeking a place in the Legislature, in his 2015 biography.

But tourists seeking to take advantage of all the state’s vices should beware: There are strict limits to where sex can be sold, and even people who have worked in the brothels are divided on whether Nevada’s model is a good one.

Here are some things you should know about legal prostitution in Nevada:

People stand outside the Chicken Ranch brothel in Pahrump on Thursday, April 19, 2018. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent)

How long has prostitution been legal in Nevada?

The state’s earliest brothels date back to Nevada’s early mining days in the 19th century. Elsewhere in the country, the sale of sex was not widely barred before the 20th century, but was subject to vagrancy and “streetwalking” bans that would have limited prostitutes’ activities outside of indoor brothels.

The movement against prostitution after the Civil War was closely linked to the abolition of slavery, and started with efforts to fight the licensing of houses of prostitution in many states, according to a history provided as part of a Ninth Circuit Court decision on brothel advertising. From 1911 and 1915, there was a wave of laws passed against people who profited off putting women and girls into prostitution.

But Nevada was a holdout, and brothels were openly operated and “tolerated,” if not explicitly allowed, for decades. Still, it wasn’t until the Storey County Commission officially sanctioned Joe Conforte’s Mustang Ranch Brothel in 1971 that the state had its first legal brothel, historian Guy Rocha told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Where is it legal?

Nevada law prohibits solicitation and prostitution unless it takes place in a licensed house of prostitution. State law bans licensed brothels in counties with populations of 700,000 or more (currently Clark County, home of Las Vegas).

Only 10 counties in Nevada allow prostitution, and even then, only within licensed brothels. Churchill County allows prostitution, but the last brothel license was surrendered in 2004.

Esmeralda, Lander, Mineral, Nye and Storey County allow brothels throughout. Elko, Humboldt, Lyon, and White Pine County only allow brothels in some incorporated communities.

Prostitution is illegal in Clark, Washoe, Carson City, Pershing, Douglas, Eureka and Lincoln counties. That includes Las Vegas and Reno, as well as the state capital.

How many brothels are there?

A count by the L.A. Times in early May revealed there are 20 operational brothels in Nevada.

Nye County has four, including two owned by Dennis Hof. Lyon County has four, all of which are owned by Hof.

There is also one in Storey County, the Mustang Ranch in Sparks; one in Mineral County, the Wild Cat Brothel in Mina; two in White Pine County, the Stardust Ranch Brothel and Big 4 Ranch in Ely; one in Lander County, Hot Desert Club Girls in Battle Mountain; and seven in Elko County, the Dove Tail Ranch and Sharon’s Brothel and Bar in Carlin, the Desert Rose Gentlemen’s Club, Inez’s D&D, Mona’s Ranch and Sue’s Fantasy Club in Elko and Bella’s Hacienda Ranch and Donna’s Ranch in Wells.

Does Nevada tax prostitution?

Although brothels and prostitutes pay a state business license fee, there is no excise tax on sex acts.

In 2009, Democratic then-state Sen. Bob Coffin introduced a bill to apply a $5-per-day tax for customers buying prostitution services. With an estimated 400,000 customer days in Nevada legal brothels each year, the measure was expected to bring in $2 million.

The bill failed a committee vote and didn’t move forward in the Legislature even though prostitutes and others in the industry voiced their support for a tax. Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons had earlier expressed his disapproval of the bill, telling NPR: “I’m not a supporter of legalizing prostitution in Nevada. So by taxing it, there’s a recognition of the legality of it. And that’s all I want to say.”

Has Nevada tried to end legal prostitution?

In 2011, Democratic then-Sen. Harry Reid called on legislators to ban prostitution in a speech to lawmakers.

“Nevada needs to be known as the first place for innovation and investment – not as the last place where prostitution is still legal,” he said, adding that he’d met with visiting business leaders who were shocked to learn there were operational brothels in Storey County.

But legislators never took up the cause, and Gov. Brian Sandoval said the matter was up to individual counties.

A new movement to ban prostitution in select counties has cropped up this spring. Efforts are underway to ban prostitution in Lyon and Nye counties through county-wide votes.

Can brothels advertise?

Nevada law prohibits brothels from advertising in jurisdictions where local ordinances or state statutes ban prostitution. In jurisdictions where brothels are allowed, it’s illegal for them to advertise “in any public theater, on the public streets of any city or town, or on any public highway.”

Sheri’s Ranch brothel in Pahrump is seen on Thursday, April 19,2018. (Jeff Scheid/The Nevada Independent)

How much do services cost?

It varies. Brothel workers say they negotiate their own rate with customers for “parties,” or sexual appointments, based on what customers choose from a menu of services.

A girl will take a client into her room, negotiate a price and collect a payment before offering up the service. Christina Parreira, who works at one of Hof’s brothels, told The Nevada Independent she generally does not have intercourse with a client for less than $1,000.

Lengthier interactions, such as an overnight stay or the “Girlfriend Experience” that also includes date-like, non-sexual activities, can go for about $1,000 an hour. Hof includes details in his autobiography of men paying for lengthy, lavish “parties” that would last days, weeks or even months, with one topping out at more than $2 million and lasting five months.

T.J. Moore, who worked as a house parent and then as a madam at the Love Ranch South brothel from 2013 to 2015, said the girls usually try to agree to come to an agreement on a minimum price and not go below that. But sometimes, they break the agreement because they want the business.

Moore said that sex often went for $300 to $400, although it can go lower. She said she once booked a “party” for $80.

How much are the prostitutes paid?

Workers for Dennis Hof say they keep half of their earnings, with the house keeping the other half, but they also have to pay rent, food, transportation and other costs associated with brothel operations.

Prostitutes must also pay for weekly STD tests and sex worker registration cards, which vary in price by county. Nye County charges prostitutes $150 each quarter to register, plus another $150 annually; there are 97 prostitutes registered in the county for the current quarter.

Workers are independent contractors and get business licenses from the State of Nevada.

“They operate like any other independently licensed business,” Hof wrote in his book. “They don’t get health benefits, vacation pay, or retirement, and they are responsible for their own taxes.”

Some, like Moore, are critical of calling the arrangement “independent,” citing policies governing when prostitutes can leave the premises and pressure to aggressively market themselves on online message boards.

How much revenue do brothels bring local governments?

It varies by county.

Last fiscal year, Nye County collected $141,779 in revenue from worker registration cards and brothel license fees.

Nye County brothels themselves face different licensing fees depending on size. Brothels of up to five prostitutes pay just over $2,300 per quarter. Brothels with 26 or more prostitutes working at once would pay $46,900 per quarter.

Lyon County brothels pay anywhere from about $20,000 to $26,000 a quarter in licensing fees, depending on how many rooms are in the business. In a year, the county brings in about $384,000 in brothel license, liquor license and business license fees from the four establishments.

“Those taxes support doctors, a police force, EMTs, and even the public schools,” Hof wrote in his book.

How old do you need to be?

It varies by county. For example, Nye County requires prostitutes to be at least 21 years old. In Lyon County, they must be 18.

What is it like?

Parreira, a doctoral candidate at UNLV, conducted research in brothels for her dissertation. The Hof-owned Alien Cathouse said she could conduct her research as long as she was also working in the brothel as a sex worker, and she did just that in 2014.

“I never had sex for money before…and I didn’t think I could do it,” Parreira told The Nevada Independent in a podcast interview.

But Parreira, who had done some exotic dancing and adult webcam acting, said her work at the brothel was just a job, albeit one that provided companionship and sex as a service. Brothel work became “a lot of fun” and Parreira enjoyed Alien Cathouse’s “familial atmosphere.”

A typical day in the brothel started at 11 a.m. The sex workers had to be ‘show ready’ by then meaning they were showered, groomed and dressed in lingerie ready to be selected by a client. The women line up when a client arrives so that person can pick who they want to “party” with.

“It’s a hard job,” Madam Suzette Colette Cole of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch wrote in Hof’s book. “Every day is a party for the client, but it can be hard on the girls, both physically and psychologically. The lineup alone can be really hard on them. Client after client comes in and the new girl doesn’t get picked, and she begins to feel bad.”

Hof said in his book that one of his core principles is ensuring girls can turn down clients if they want to. Parreira and Ruby Rae, a prostitute who works in one of Hof’s brothels, insist the principle is upheld.

“In the brothels, we have the choice, always, to say which clients we will say yes and no to,” Rae wrote in an op-ed to The Nevada Independent.

Much of the work is done online, with prostitutes posting frequently on brothel message boards to draw in prospective clients. Prostitutes at Hof’s brothel are warned not to discuss prices over state lines to avoid running afoul of state and federal laws.

Do prostitutes enjoy the work?

Women who are or have been employed in Nevada’s brothels and spoke to the The Nevada Independent in interviews have offered widely different assessments of the work.

Lexi James of Love Ranch North attended a Lyon County Commission meeting to oppose efforts to shut down brothels there.

“They are trying to say they’re saving our lives but they are really just trying to save our souls. And I’m good. I have a very close relationship with God. I don’t need anyone religious stepping in and telling me what I do for a living is wrong,” she said. “What I do is not sex. I sell love. I provide services to disabled clients, widowers, divorcees, helping couples spice things up.”

Cara Rain, another brothel worker, said voters who are deciding the fate of brothels should learn more about it.

“I think they need to educate themselves on all of this completely,” she said. “I chose this profession without ever being in the sex industry prior and I’m completely happy here.”

But Moore said the real experience was nothing as glamorous as what appeared on the HBO reality show Cathouse. She said many girls came in with substance abuse issues and in dire economic straits and struggle to make decent money.

“I really did think it was a better place for the girls,” she said, but changed her mind “having seen them come and leave in no better position.”

“Contrary to what they say, ‘you don’t have to be with a guy,’ if you’re not doing your parties and you’re not making money, they get on your case,” she said.

Hof acknowledged in his book that many of his working girls have had a dark past.

“I get another question all the time, and it’s this: ‘What kind of girl becomes a prostitute?’ Well, all sorts of girls. But if I’m going to be honest, some of them come from pretty fucked-up families. I’ve had plenty of girls who were abused,” he said.

Diana Grandmaison, a former pornography actress who spent about four months working in Nevada’s legal brothel industry in 2009, said the pay was barely enough to get by and the experience was demeaning. She said she’s evolved over the years and is now completely against prostitution, legal or otherwise.

“The fact of putting a price on a human being or body part is, to me, inhumane,” she said. “Now I’m totally against it, I want the entire thing shut down and I want it illegal across the nation and across the world.”

Soni Brown, Megan Messerly and Daniel Rothberg contributed to this report.