Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (47 page)

Some brothel customers may desire the experience of Wild West culture as much as their tryst with a prostitute. In the New West, a brothel visit is just another stop on a local tour and an opportunity to collect a good story along the tourist trail, rather than a way to fulfill sexual needs. But other customers
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F i g u r e 1 1 . 1

S h e r r i ’ s R a n c h B r o t h e l , P a h r u m p , N e v a d a . P h o t o b y
t h e a u t h o r s .

seek to purchase their sexual intimacy in a more upscale, conventionally sexualized market space. As a result, we see that smaller, more remote brothels tend to market the downhome, Wild West, historic experience, while the larger, suburban brothels are re-branding themselves with a more familiar and luxurious, modern sexualized atmosphere (see Figure 11.1).17

The workers are migrants as well. Rarely did anyone we interviewed report that local women worked in the brothels. Labor largely comes from outside the town, and often outside Nevada. Many women also report moving between brothels depending on business. When things are slow in one town or region, it is quite common for legal prostitutes to obtain work cards in another county and change brothels; there is a brothel trail along which the working women migrate from region to region, and carry messages and stories from one house to the next. The working women also have the option to leave and work in a different place altogether, or in a different segment of the burgeoning commercial sex industry.

This migrant brothel labor force as well as the many other options for working in the adult sex industry causes frequent labor shortages in the brothels. This is particularly true for the frontier brothels, where locating and
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retaining women as prostitutes is the single greatest challenge to business survival. It can be difficult to get workers to stay in a small, isolated town when they could be closer to big cities or working in other parts of the sex industry, perhaps selling nude dances and making just as much money. The Nevada Brothel Association sees the availability of jobs as strippers and illegal escorts in Reno and Las Vegas as the greatest challenge to finding and retaining brothel workers. Competition for workers is often intense, and at least one small brothel owner we interviewed accused the larger brothels of unethically enticing the best workers away. One of the most valuable commodities to owners is the “turn outs,” girls entering the business for the first time. Dusty is a good example; she entered prostitution for the first time through the brothels. “I just called information. I had worked in a male-dominated type of profession, I was a health supervisor, and always heard the men talk about where they went. I played stupid and I called information and asked how do I get a job, and they said what do I look like? I told them so I came in and I worked six weekends and I got the money I needed.”

In an industry where recruiting workers is difficult, attracting new workers is seen as vital to replenishing the work force. This cause was helped in July 2007 when the State Supreme Court overturned two ordinances that prevented brothels from advertising in locations where prostitution is illegal.

With this decision, a few brothels are now advertising their services to clients in Reno and Las Vegas, and offering job opportunities to women willing to work in such places.

So, the structure and functioning of the Nevada brothel is changing amid evolving sensibilities regarding the purchase of intimacy and sexual services in the 21st century.18 On the one hand, the persistence of a migrant economy, economic need, libertarian and neoliberal values, and the isolation of small-town brothels means that in many ways they remain close to the Old West model. On the other, changing metropolitan sensibilities are transforming the businesses and customers, as well as the availability of workers, across the state and especially in the easier to reach, suburban areas outside Nevada’s urban areas.

B R OTH E L R E G U L ATI O N S

The amount of state and local government oversight and regulation in the brothel industry is one of the least surprising elements of Nevada’s system.

Given the criminalization of prostitution elsewhere in the United States, one would expect that where it is legal, it would be highly regulated. What is
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interesting, however, is the relative independence that local governments have in regulating brothels. Nevada’s state statutes play a relatively small role in regulating brothels. State law restricts prostitution to counties of a certain size, and prohibits brothels from being closer than 400 yards from a school, a religious building, or being on a principal business street. Beyond these regulations, the strictest state intervention comes from the State Health Department.

Since 1985, the health department has strictly controlled sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the brothels by imposing stringent health testing on working women. Every prostitute must have a state health card certifying her safe and healthy prior to applying for work in a brothel; this means testing negative for all STDs, including syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV.

Once hired, a prostitute is required to have weekly exams by a registered doctor to certify that she is not carrying any STDs. If she tests positive, she is unable to work until the treatment cures her and the physician reinstates her health card. Additionally, once a month all prostitutes must allow a registered doctor to take a blood sample to determine if she has contracted HIV or syphilis. According to the Southern Nevada Health District, not one case of HIV has been reported by a licensed brothel prostitute since this testing regime was instituted in 1985. Finally, every brothel must post notices at the door and around the brothel informing customers that condom use is mandated by the state. All the prostitutes we interviewed reported that they are supportive of the condom laws as they offer the best protection available to working women. Contracting any STD is detrimental from a financial standpoint because the women lose work time while recuperating.19

Local governments are the most important regulators of brothels and regulate both through formal licensing ordinances and through informal norms that govern the “privilege” component of licensing. Formal laws establish license procedures and fees, restrict locations for brothels, require background checks of potential owners, sometimes set their own health guidelines in addition to the state’s, and occasionally establish rules for prostitutes’ behavior. Local governments vary widely in the licensing and regulation of brothels. As shown in Table 11.1, since brothels are only licensed in the unincorporated areas of Churchill, Esmeralda, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, and Storey counties, the county is the licensing body. In Elko, Humboldt, Pershing, and White Pine counties, the cities of Elko, Wells, Winnemucca, and Ely license brothels. Counties in the north and eastern parts of the state give licensing rights to the individual cities.

Legal brothels are required to pay various taxes and fees. Counties derive income from annual brothel licenses and new application fees, liquor, and
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other business license fees, room taxes, personal property taxes, and work cards for workers. License fees and structures vary by county. Some have flat business fees for brothels, and others charge on the basis of the number of rooms or workers. Brothel license fees tend to be higher for counties closer to urban areas than for the frontier counties. New application fees are typically costly, often much more than the yearly license fees. Every county has a liquor tax, which applies to the bars inside each brothel, and these are typically the same as those for hotels. Personal property taxes are usually at the same rate as for any other property. Some counties charge room taxes, and some do not.

Sheriffs’ departments issue work cards after a check for prior felony convictions. In most counties the cards issued to prostitutes are the same as those that all casino employees must get. Work cards amount to significant income for some counties, yielding up to $100 per year per worker.

Table 11.1 reports revenue to each county from their brothels. Lyon County near Reno and Carson City (the state capital) hosts some of the largest brothels in the state, including the Moonlite Bunny Ranch whose annual business and work card fees yielded the state $353,800 in 2007. In some counties, license fees, and taxes can account for up to 25% of the county budget.20

County and city ordinances have essentially institutionalized historical practices. Many of the ordinances simply legalized brothels that already existed and prohibit the creation of new brothels.21 For example, Lander County limits the number of brothels to two, both in Battle Mountain, at locations where brothels have existed since the turn of the century. Ordinances have therefore severely restrained the growth of the industry. Since 1973 the number of brothels in the state has ranged between 22 and 33, with 28 today.

It is unclear whether this was an intentional effort by the counties to restrict growth of a stigmatized but tolerated business, though Pillard argues that county officials indeed intended to limit growth,22 and it is also unclear how much the owners themselves have lobbied to restrict competition. In any event, competition is greatly controlled by the licensing process, which makes this unlike other service industries and unlike the sex industry elsewhere in the nation. Most counties license only two or three brothels and limit the areas in which they can be located. It is difficult to get a new license. For most potential owners, the only way a new business can open is to buy out an existing license. Existing brothel owners are sometimes the strongest opponents to new licenses because they fear the competition.

Old West sexual norms persist. Not only are brothels located away from the good families of the community, but in some counties (Carlin, Winnemucca, Churchill) men have been explicitly forbidden from working in
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the brothels.23 These rules assume that men would either be pimping or getting free sex from the working girls. Only recently have counties changed the rules prohibiting male owners. In addition, informal rules within brothels very clearly reproduce heterosexual norms. Many owners felt that local governments would absolutely not tolerate the sale of homosexual services in the brothels, and that women would never want to purchase sex from straight male prostitutes, especially when, according to one owner, “they can get it free at any bar.”

Not only are brothels regulated by a set of formal rules that reinforce Old West sexual norms, there is an informal structure of regulation. Because the brothels are privileged licenses, officials have the power to revoke licenses for any reason and are free to impose all kinds of regulations. In the past these small towns had informal rules as well. For example, rules in one town stipulated that a prostitute’s family could not live in the community, the prostitute must be in the brothel by 5 P.M., no men other than customers and repairmen were allowed on premises, and that brothel owners could not seek publicity.24 Most of these rules have since been abolished.

As independent contractors, brothel workers negotiate and sign individual contracts with the house that spell out the duration and terms of their work. Most women work 3 weeks at a time, but workers, especially established ones, have much flexibility. Women can break the contract at any time, but are not likely to be welcomed back at that brothel. Women usually split half of their earnings with the house, and often must tip housekeeping staff, taxi or limo drivers, bartenders, and other employees. They also pay for their own medical expenses.

Brothels also impose their own house rules, rules that vary greatly. Among the most controversial are those restricting the women’s mobility. Large brothels in Nye County and many in the smaller towns require women to live at the brothel for the duration of their contract. Most brothels allow women to leave while off work to run errands; some require an escort from the brothel or limit the amount of time away. But they may not leave the brothel without being health tested again.

A manager of one of the suburban brothels justified these strict rules for health reasons: “Because you never know what she [the prostitute] will do out there.” Others justified the rules based on a tradition of unwritten local norms or because “it is just good business practice.” As one person associated with a prominent and large suburban brothel explained it: Nye County has ordinances that differ from other counties; it states that if a working woman is off the brothel property in excess of 24 hours, she must retest
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for STDs. It takes 48 hours get test results back to the house. It seems useless to allow a woman to come in to work for a day, leave for a day and then come back and have to wait two days for test results in order to go back to work. . . . We don’t want to hassle with it, and the girls don’t either.