Something you should know about me is I live in my own bubble. Ok, not literally, but figuratively. I don’t have a tendency to know what’s going on in the world around me-that includes both current events, as well as that celebrity news trash. I never know who married who or who just broke up with who, but I also never know major events, like hey, we’re at war. Okay, I’m not that oblivious but pretty close. Anyway, probably my last semester of college or so I got addicted to yahoo! news. At first I loved it only because of the section entitled “odd news,” but it didn’t take too long before I started reading the main headlines. I never said I read the articles but the headlines count for something, right?! As I would go about my day, I would find myself on yahoo! news for hours at a time, catching up on all that I’ve missed in this world around me. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m not quite as diligent about checking. I’m not one to read the newspaper and I rarely watch the news, so this is pretty much my only connection to what’s going on in the world. Anyway, the last few times I did find myself on there, I stumbled across some articles about Nevada brothels. Where have I been living that I didn’t know prostitution was actually legal in parts of this country? Oh that’s right, in my bubble. It had to have been 2 or 3 times in a row that I went on yahoo! news that this subject came up, so I decided I needed to learn a bit more about it.
As of June/July 2008, Nevada has 28 brothels up in operation…legally that is. Currently, 8 out of Nevada’s 16 counties have active brothels. The counties containing Las Vegas and Reno both do 
not fall into that category, as it is illegal in these counties, among a few others. Licensed prostitutes must be 21 years old in most cases, though in select counties that drops to 18, and must undergo weekly testing for STDs, as well as monthly testing for HIV and syphilis. Women work a legally mandated minimum of 9 days for each work period. The state law that said brothels were restricted from advertising their services in counties where brothel prostitution is illegal was overturned in 2007. In other words, brothels can advertise anywhere in Nevada. Over 300 female prostitutes are employed at any given time. Brothel prostitutes work as independent contractors and thus do not receive any unemployment, retirement or health benefits. They are responsible for paying Federal income tax and their earnings are reported to the IRS via form 1099-MISC. Nevada does not have a state income tax. The women typically work for a period of several weeks, during which time they live in the brothel and hardly ever leave it. In 1998, some pimps from Oregon managed to place at least four underage girls in Nevada’s legal brothels; they were arrested and convicted. Many called these isolated cases but detectives don’t agree.
While brothel prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, escort services offering sexual services euphemistically as ‘entertainment’ or ‘companionship’ are ubiquitous, with about 140 pages of the Las Vegas yellow pages devoted to “entertainers”. According to a recently released report by the U.S. State Department, there is nine times more illegal prostitution in Nevada than where prostitution is legal in the state. It also says 90-percent of prostitution in the state is happening in Las Vegas whether it’s in illegal brothels or private homes. The report estimated that the sex industry in Las Vegas generates between $1 billion and $6 billion a year. The U.S. State Department report shows that they have quotas amounting to more than 1,800 customers a year. That money gets split between taxi drivers, pimps and bell hops at casinos, leaving very little for the prostitutes. 81% of the women in the Nevada legal brothels prostitution don’t even want to be there; they urgently want to escape it!
Columnist Bob Herbert criticized Nevada’s brothels, in an article published in The New York Times. He wrote “A grotesque exercise in the dehumanization of women is carried out routinely at Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel about an hour’s ride outside of Vegas. There the women have to respond like Pavlov’s dog to an electronic bell that might ring at any hour of the day or night. At the sound of the bell, the prostitutes have five minutes to get to an assembly area where they line up, virtually naked, and submit to a humiliating inspection by any prospective customer who has happened to drop by”.
I think the saddest part about all of this for me is that here I was, naive, thinking this was something only happening overseas until BAM! yahoo! news burst that bubble. I’m in no way upset that my bubble was burst, because that’s what this whole next year is going to be about, but it’s just sad. It’s sad that we don’t see the image of God in one another. It’s sad that we don’t treat each other with the dignity and respect we deserve as children of God. It’s just sad.
Here’s some more information. My blog itself is done. You can read it if you want. The choice is yours.
MYTH: Legal prostitution protects FACT: Women can report rapes and assaults to the police
MYTH: Nevada’s rural counties reap FACT: Pimps tell women in prostitution: You’ll get rich!
economic benefits from legal prostitution. You’ll make $15,000 a week? They also lie to Nevada’s
The rural economies would not survive citizens, telling them that rural counties are supported by
without the brothels. brothels. It’s actually the other way around: the counties
are supporting the brothels. By the time licensing, policing,
and other state-paid tasks are performed, most counties with
legal brothels barely break even. In both northern and
southern Nevada, major developers have stayed out of the
MYTH: When prostitution is legal, licensed FACT: Legalization increases child prostitution. This has
brothel owners do not hire illegal, underage been well documented in the Netherlands since brothel
or trafficked women. prostitution was legalized. Pimps want to make money.
They don’t care if someone is illegal, age 16, or whether
she was trafficked. Pimps, organized criminals, and
especially johns flock to wherever a thriving prostitution
industry exists such as Las Vegas.
eliminates pimps by providing prostitutes educational and job options to choose from. Most women in
with an occupational alternative. prostitution end up there only because other options are not
available. They do not have stable housing, they urgently
need money to support children or pay for school, and they
often have limited or no education. Prostitution is not labor,
it is paid sexual exploitation. It is often paid rape. It is
intrinsically harmful and traumatic.
promote the mental health of prostitutes causes the harm, it’s the prostitution itself. The longer
because they feel ashamed and stigmatized she is in prostitution – legal or illegal – the more she is
by illegal prostitution. psychologically harmed. The shame and the isolation
persist even if prostitution is decriminalized or legalized.
Even though they’d be earning retirement benefits if they
registered, women in Dutch prostitution don’t register as
legal prostitutes because they are ashamed to be known as
prostitutes. Regardless of its legal status, women would
prefer to get out of prostitution and usually feel ashamed of
it. Does any woman in prostitution deserve to be treated
disrespectfully or stigmatized? Of course not. But
prostitution inevitably means that you’re treated like an
object to be masturbated into.
save a lot of money because police wouldn’t expensive legal challenges because no one wants
have to arrest prostitutes or johns or pimps. prostitution zoned into their neighborhood or near their
kids’ schools. Mustang Brothel was shut down because of
tax evasion. Pimps are simply not going to hand over the
massive profits that they make from the business of sexual
exploitation.
to do something to make it a little better. than domestic violence can be made “a little better.”
Legalization is better than nothing at all. Women in prostitution tell us clearly: they want the same
options in life that others have: a decent job, safe housing,
medical care and psychological counseling. They deserve
that, not just an HIV test to make sure that they are “clean
meat” for johns or a union to ensure that they get an extra
dollar or two for being paid to be sexually harassed,
sexually exploited and often raped.
solution to an age-old problem. women’s prostitution. The Netherlands and Germany are
considering repealing legal prostitution because of the
crime, trafficking, and sexual violence in both legal and
illegal prostitution. A 1999 Swedish law describes
prostitution as a human rights violation against women.
Understanding the massive social and legal power
difference in the prostitution transaction, Sweden arrests
johns but not the women in prostitution. Trafficking and
prostitution have plummeted in Sweden since the law was
introduced. If you don’t want to get paid for having sex
with 5-10 smelly strangers a day that pimps send your way,
why do you think anyone else does? Women in prostitution
do not want to be in the brothels: 81% of the women in the
Nevada legal brothels urgently want to escape prostitution.
Other sources include http://www.klas-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7029088 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Nevada.
