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Response to Melissa Farley related to her book:
Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada:  Making the Connections

By Geoffrey J. Arnold
November 25, 2007

Melissa Farley is a liar and a fraud. 

She is a liar because the assertions in her book are completely and totally false, sometimes impossible.  She is a fraud because her intentional deception is part of a misguided political agenda.  She is a radical feminist, and she will stop at nothing to promote her agenda.  Her self-published book is nothing more than her personal opinion, yet it is a fraud because it is cloaked in apparent respectability under the title of PhD and the guise of “research.”  Although she attacks anyone and everyone remotely connected with sex work, she specifically attacks the Nevada legal brothels because they have an address and are an easy target.  She sees elimination of Nevada’s legal brothel industry as the first step in a larger plan to eliminate all forms of sex work, which she sees as a form of violence and victimization of women.  The statements in her book are so ridiculous that they would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous.  Because her agenda is political, she has assembled other political activists, often politicians, ideologues, educators or pedagogues who will say anything or do anything to accomplish their common political goals.  Worse yet, the ridiculous farce represented by her book was paid for by a grant from the U.S. government.


Who am I to pass judgment? 

No, I am not a PhD sociologist or psychologist.  I’m not a “peer.”  But I have lots of experience learned in the school of hard knocks related to Nevada’s legal brothels which put me in a near-perfect position to know the truth about the matters she addresses in her book.  I know what I’m talking about and what she is talking about.  I am very familiar with Nevada’s legal brothel industry and like others, can clearly see her work to be a total deception, fiction, fraud.  I have a BS in psychology from Whitman College, and the equivalent to an undergraduate degree in accounting after graduate school.  I also have an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of PA, and I have been a CPA in Idaho and Nevada for 30 years.  As a CPA in Elko I did the books and tax returns for several legal brothels for 17 years.  Then 11 years ago I bought Donna’s Ranch, an important “country brothel” in Wells, NV.  So I have been around Donna’s for 28 years.  I have known hundreds of working girls; their histories, origins, relationships, hopes, dreams, trials, tribulations, addictions, successes and failures.  They have been associates, acquaintances and friends.  My experience isn’t based upon a brief sample of 45 women.  It is the real thing with hundreds of women constantly over a period of many years.

About seven years ago I became the president of the Nevada Brothel Owners’ Association.  The NvBOA operates like an industry-oriented Chamber of Commerce which tries to encourage harmony, cooperation and proper operating practices among a group of highly independent and colorful brothel owners.   The primary purpose of the association is political and involves lobbying efforts to protect the legal industry from legislative changes which could be harmful.  Along these lines we try hard to keep owners from activities which their communities may perceive as politically objectionable.  Our philosophy is to be good neighbors, support our communities and maintain a “low profile.”  “Keep your heads below the sagebrush!”  Not all owners listen.  Some we simply cannot reign in, and they promote themselves in a manner most other owners consider to be “way too high profile.”  Then the industry lobbyist, George Flint, and the more conservative owners deal with the political fallout of media antics.  Fortunately, most of the owners certainly of the larger brothels agree to the business-like, low-profile manner of operation. 

As president of the brothel association politically I am involved in handling various questions or complaints from owners, working girls, employees, legislators, Sheriffs, the Nevada Health Dept., doctors, labs, politicians, regulators, prospective buyers, students, researchers, internet bloggers, reporters, photographers, videographers, the media and the general public.  Through these almost daily involvements I have been in most of the legal brothels, know most of the owners, peripherally am involved in resolution of rivalries or disputes and know many stories and reputations of all of the owners and all of the houses.  In addition, I have spent hours even days on the phone with George Flint discussing political issues and solutions.  I respect George’s wisdom and experience as he has been involved in the legal industry since its earliest days, and he knows more about the legal industry including all of its skeletons than any other person, ever.  In sharing George’s frustrations and triumphs I have developed a broad industry perspective.  It is from this deep perspective that I evaluate Melissa Farley and her book.


Trafficking 

Trafficking in persons is defined by the U.S. State Department and the UN as follows:

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.  Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor, or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

In multiple statements, all throughout her book, Farley states that “Trafficking” is rampant in Nevada’s legal brothels as well as the illegal sex trade in Las Vegas and Reno. 

Page xiv:    “Many women engaged in legal and illegal prostitution in Nevada have been trafficked into the country or from elsewhere in the United States.”

Page xv:    “……..the experience of trafficking victims are paralleled by the experiences of women working in Nevada’s legal brothels.”

Page 12:    “……...Nevada’s legalized prostitution and its illegal outgrowths make Las Vegas the epicenter of North American prostitution and trafficking……”

Page 13:    “There also appear to be instances where where women have been trafficked into legal brothels.”

Page 90:    “The trafficking of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai and Filipina women into Nevada prostitution is commonplace.”

Page 94:    “Legal prostitution is a major contributing factor to the human rights violations of sex trafficking.”

“……..countries with legal prostitution are in effect setting out a legal welcome mat to pimps, johns, and traffickers.”

Page 95:    “Under the shelter of the state’s aura of legal prostitution and as a result of tens of millions spent on advertising prostitution, Las Vegas has become the hub of illegal prostitution and sex trafficking that takes place in casinos, hotels, strip clubs, the street, illegal home brothels, and massage parlors.”

“………..prostitution and trafficking…….occurs despite its illegality in Clark County as a result of ……….a supportive political atmosphere, and the corruption of city, county and state officials and district judges.”

Page 198:    “Legal prostitution increases sex trafficking because of the market of sex, that is, because of men’s demand for 24/7 purchased sexual access to women and girls.”

“It’s actually deceptive to make a distinction between trafficking and prostitution…….”

Farley’s opinion is that prostitution in any form is violent victimization of women and the same as slavery, that prostitution should be defined to be trafficking because it involves “the sale and sexual use of a human being.”  (Pg 198)

As such, and as the major conclusion in her book, “trafficking” is rampant in Nevada simply because she defines all prostitution to be trafficking.

Throughout her book Farley fails to distinguish differences between legal and illegal prostitution.  Because of this she misses the key point that they are completely different, opposites in may respects.  She then negatively paints legal brothels with the brush of illegal street prostitution.  She also grossly confuses the issue by mixing up legal vs. illegal, foreign vs. US, US vs. Nevada, brothel vs. street, owners vs. pimps, legal “cow county” activities vs. illegal Las Vegas activities.   After her readers are thoroughly disoriented and confused she simply makes her point by assertion or by citing the opinionated “research” of agenda-motivated cronies, or by taking statements out of context, often reversing the meaning or conclusions of the source from which the statement was quoted.

No matter how she wishes to define trafficking, the truth is that at the center of the true definition of the activity of trafficking is the concept of “coercion, deception and fraud.”  And because all of the ladies working in Nevada legal brothels are there of their own volition and free will, there is no “trafficking” in legal Nevada brothels.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  Zero.

In fact, “white slavery” and trafficking of illegal women in Nevada legal brothels is impossible due to the regulatory requirements associated with the legal industry.  All of the legal working girls are required to get a work card through the Sheriff or Police department of the licensing authority.  Proper ID is required in order for the Sheriff’s Department to run an NCIC background check.  This check is utilized to verify the arrest record on the working ladies’ license application as well as to check for violations related to violent crimes, Mafia connections or drugs.  It is all part of the legal process, and it would therefore be impossible for an undocumented foreign working girl to get licensed in a legal brothel.  Could an undocumented lady be hidden in a brothel?  Not for long.  One of the truths of the industry is that “There are no secrets in a brothel.”  It’s a house full of women and there are no secrets.  The women are in competition, and they wouldn’t tolerate one of the girls being there “unfairly.”

So my first and overriding conclusion with respect to her overall message in her book that “Trafficking is rampant in Nevada legal brothels” is that her assertion is not only totally incorrect, but impossible.  It’s only possible when she changes the definition of trafficking to include all prostitution by definition.  There are no ladies held captive in Nevada legal brothels as a result of coercion, deception or fraud.



The All-knowing Salesman

He didn’t want me to use his name, but he’s a favorite of the ladies in the industry.  He sells sexy dresses, lingerie, shoes and some jewelry to the ladies.  If you want to know who I’m talking about you can ask almost any legal working girl.  He has been traveling to the legal brothels and illegal massage parlors for 30 years!  He told me that after visiting the brothels regularly and continuously for 30 years and while knowing most of the working girls in the industry, he has never seen a single instance of illegally trafficked women in the legal industry!


“Making the Connections”

From the Introduction on Page 1 Farley says that the basic premise for her book came from a conversation in 2005 with Ambassador John Miller of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons of the U. S.  State Department.

“He told me that his department was seeking proposals for a study on Nevada prostitution since little was known about trafficking from other countries into Nevada, trafficking from other U.S. states into Nevada, and little was known about the situation of the women in the Nevada legal brothels.  He wanted to better understand the connections between legal and illegal prostitution in Nevada, the extent of organized crime, and in particular whether any prostitution in Nevada was related to trafficking in persons.”

“I was eager to work on this project when Prostitution Research & Education, the nonprofit organization I am affiliated with, was offered the job.”

So this is why her book is titled:  “Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada, Making the Connections.” 

Farley’s entire book was a foregone conclusion!  She wrote the book gathering snippets of information from here, there and everywhere in order to justify the conclusion which long before fit her agenda.  She wrote the book to justify the conditions of her grant.  It doesn’t matter that the book is entirely fiction cloaked in the charade of research or that her statements of fact are entirely wrong, often the opposite of reality.  She intentionally ignored the truth about the legal industry merely to smear it with lies, innuendo, comparisons to foreign conditions or conditions in the illegal sex trade in Las Vegas and the rest of the world. 

If you look at Farley’s website for her activist organization Prostitution Research & Education it is clear that she promotes the typical radical feminist agenda:

Most if not all sex represents violence towards and victimization of women.  Sex in general is therefore evil.  Prostitution is the epitome of the sexual evil, which of course involves men.

Prostitution is a result of male supremacy.

Prostitution is and of itself is an abuse of a woman’s body.

Prostitution is a result of dominance and cruelty of men towards women.

Prostitution is an intersection of racism and sexism.

Prostitution is also a result of economic inequalities and unfairness.

Prostitution is violence against women.

Violence in prostitution results in post-traumatic stress disorder in women.

Prostitution is a result of abusive power relationships between men and women, and it is similar to the dynamics of battered women.

All of these concepts are derived directly from her website.  Is it any wonder then that her book would conclude anything other than the same activist feminist agenda?

From the Mission Statement on the website for her Prostitution Research and Education organization she states that “the goal of PRE is to abolish the institution of prostitution while at the same time advocating for alternatives to trafficking and prostitution.”

Of course she wants to abolish the legal Nevada brothels first, then the illegal prostitution in all its forms in Las Vegas, then the activities of most if not all sex workers in strip clubs, dance clubs, swingers clubs, escort services, casinos, bars, on the street, in massage parlors, in illegal brothels across the US, in internet chat rooms, Craig’s list, dating sites and sex workers on the internet.

Because all of the activities which are already illegal don’t have an address, they cannot be pinned down.  The legal Nevada brothels however all have an address and are an easy target.  In the overall scheme of things they are so small that they don’t really matter, however Farley and her activist cronies fervently believe that elimination of legal brothels would be a great moral victory.  They are “true believers” in the traditional and very dangerous sense of the concept.  They are incapable of seeing or acknowledging the very real good created by the Nevada legal brothels, and in the typical negative view of committed activists, they only want to see an insignificant speck of a perceived evil wiped out.

Unfortunately, for all of us owners who have paid dearly for highly restricted and controlled brothel licenses, she has severely damaged all of us.  She has seriously defamed our character.  She has seriously hurt our investments, our ability to sell valid property rights.  She has seriously threatened and has vowed to continue her quest to wipe out our entire net worth.  She justifies her attack by accusing us of being evil or a part of evil.  But her opinions are based upon assumptions and foregone conclusions.  She cannot possibly have come to any valid conclusions with a limited sample of flawed research.  As I will point out, her conclusions are entirely invalid and only fiction.  In addition, she has severely libeled all of us with hundreds of lies in writing.  What we can do about this remains to be seen, as she has cloaked her deception in an aura of respectable educational research.  Yet there is no research or educational value to her work.  It is entirely her own opinion, part of a political movement, and a fraud.  Just like her organization, PRE, has nothing to do with prostitution research and education.  It is a fraud because she has assumed that prostitution is inherently evil.  She has no interest in studying or understanding the women who have chosen prostitution as the world’s oldest profession.  She assumes that sex workers are stupid, weak, controlled, tricked, and mind-controlled victims who have no responsibility for their decisions or actions.  She proposes a government solution to their problems which would be an expensive and monumental failure. 

She doesn’t care about the hundreds of legal working girls who have chosen their line of work and are totally happy with their choice.  She says they don’t exist.  She doesn’t care about the hundreds, maybe thousands of members of SWOP who are activists in favor of decriminalization.  She doesn’t care about the thousands of sex workers who are strippers, dancers, escorts or independents who seem to be relatively happy with their work.  She reads her own conclusions into the ladies’ speech.  She says that they don’t know what they want or what they are thinking but instead are victims of pimp mind control.  She doesn’t care if her research methods are totally biased and flawed such that no valid conclusion can be drawn with respect to anything she says.  She only cares about her agenda, and therefore her biased and contrived conclusions are completely worthless.


Pussy Prisons

Farley made an innocent mistake.  She called them “Pussy Penitentiaries.”  (Page 17)  It’s a cute concept, but it’s a joke.  Among the ladies, the correct term is Pussy Prisons, not Pussy Penitentiaries.  The ladies use the term in a complaining manner when referring to some of the restrictive rules imposed by municipalities, counties, Sheriff’s Departments or health authorities.  The restrictive rules are completely different in various locations.  In Wells, working girls can’t be out after 5PM without a representative of management.  This is because some working girls in the past have had a little too much to drink at one of the casinos and probably have laid a hand on the shoulder of a woman’s husband.  I’ve seen that happen and it’s not pretty!  In Nye County the ladies are required to go directly from the Dr’s office for her medical exam to the brothel.  This is so they can’t be exposed to any potential problems while waiting for their clearance.  At one time there were occasionally restrictions against cell phones and laptop computers because they made it easy for the ladies to “takes dates out of the house.”  I think most of those restrictions are a thing of the past.  In some jurisdictions the ladies are allowed to work shifts and go home at night!  It seems that Nye County wouldn’t like this as it appears to be a loophole in the system of internal controls related to medical safety, however it apparently hasn’t caused any problems.  If it did, it would certainly show up quickly,  and the practice would be curtailed. 

There’s one brothel in particular that probably is numero uno along the lines of being labeled a pussy prison, however if Farley wants confirmation as to which one, she can ask the 45 ladies in her sample, or an owner, or George Flint, or any of the hundreds of guys on Nevada Brothel Times.  But all of those same people know that even in the ultimate pussy prison, all of the ladies have requested to come in and work.  They are all free to leave at any time, and frequently do.  In the lighthearted term of pussy prison, there are no real prisoners; no one is enslaved, abused, victimized, battered, traumatized, injured, starved, mind-controlled or mistreated.

Farley’s position is that all of Nevada’s legal brothels are like prisons “ringed with barbed wire or electric fencing.”  Page (15)

She says, (Page 17) “Prison is not only an apt metaphor for the conditions in many of Nevada’s legal brothels – it is a near literal description of many of the brothels.  I saw a grated door with bars in one brothel.  The women’s food was shoved through the door’s steel bars between the kitchen to the brothel area.  They are locked in at [name of ] brothel, stated a witness who occasionally helped girls and women escape from this particular brothel.  She sometimes threw food over the brothel’s fence because the pimp starved the women if he thought they were too fat.”

Page 9:    In 2006 there were about 30 brothels in 10 Nevada counties.  Located in sparsely populated rural counties, the brothels reflect  a lingering frontier mentality with its sex-libertarian worldview.  Surrounded by barbed wire and high fences, Nevada’s legal brothels are legal prisons in doublewide trailers.  With no resemblance to HBO’s Cathouse or to other pornography fantasies, the Nevada brothels are miserable institutions, some smelling worse than others, a mix of yesterday’s cigarettes, sweaty clothes, semen, and last year’s booze and rug cleaners.  Non-john observers are stunned at their first sight of the brothels.”


Barbed wire fences, the book’s cover.

The photo on the book’s cover is truly ironic.  It is a photo of the back yard of Sagebrush Ranch in Mound House.  The back yard isn’t used for much of anything except for parking cars outside the office.  Maybe some of the girls park their cars in the yard for protection against vandalism.  Sagebrush is one of the nicer brothels where the ladies do have some expensive and fancy cars.

But what is truly ironic about this photo, which makes a graphic point for Farley’s assertion that all of the Nevada legal brothels are pussy prisons, is that Sagebrush is frequently described as the one of the best brothels in the State with an owner who is frequently described as being the best owner in the State!  He is entirely business-like, fair, respectful, honest and respected by associates, Lyon County regulators and working ladies across the State.  For an owner to have the universal respect of virtually all of the working ladies across the State means he is a truly wonderful owner!  Although there is fence around it, there are truly no prison-like conditions at the Sagebrush!

But Farley isn’t interested in the truth.  She is interested in promoting her message and her agenda.  So the photo presents and supports her message that all of the legal Nevada brothels are pussy prisons where the ladies are victimized, controlled, exploited and disrespected.  In fact, the opposite is true at Sagebrush and at substantially all of the other brothels in the State.

In fact, there are only seven fences out of the 28 brothels:  Cherry Patch, Sagebrush, Moolight I & II, Kit Kat, Old Bridge and Wildhorse.  That’s by required ordinance in Lyon and Story Counties and by historical precedence at Cherry Patch in Nye County.  There are no fences at Chicken Ranch, Sherri’s, Shady Lady or Angel’s in Nye County.  There are no fences in Ely, Elko, Wells, Battle Mountain, Winnemucca, Fallon or the Highway 95 brothels.

An interesting part of Farley’s deception is that she presents the case that the fences are designed to keep the working girls enslaved in pussy prison.  But in fact, they’re not designed to keep the girls in, but others out!  The fences are a stupid historical relic of the industry.  I hate the fences!  But supposedly Farley read Jeanie Kasindorf’s book, Nye County Brothel Wars, in which one of the owners of the Shamrock allegedly torched Walter Plankinton’s original Chicken Ranch while the ladies were sleeping inside.  Fortunately everyone escaped the blaze which burned the trailers to their frames.  But therein lies the historical origin of the requirement for the fences.  It certainly explains the possible origin of the fence at Cherry Patch.  The other fences are a result of requirements by ordinance.

In Story County, the original Mustang had a perimeter fence.  Old Bridge, next to the old Mustang, still has the same fence which isn’t terribly intimidating.  Lance Gilman at the new Wildhorse a few miles further down the Truckee River where he also moved and renovated the old Mustang buildings pulled off what I consider a PR coup when he enclosed the entire facility behind a fancy gate so it has the appearance of an upscale gated community!

The four Lyon County brothels simply are stuck with required fences.  But fences or not, all four of the Lyon County brothels have relatively good reputations and are relatively well run.  Even though Dennis Hof occasionally gets into trouble from being the consummate promoter and being too high profile, other than a few bumps in the road, he has a reputation for being liked by the working ladies.   


Prison doors, and food slid to inmates beneath prison doors

This concept of course is too juicy for the press to ignore.  They love it, so it has been dutifully repeated in several articles including the Guardian from England.  Of course this is ridiculous.  I’ve been in almost all of the brothels, and there are no prison doors or prison conditions in any of them!


Starving girls who are too fat

This is also ridiculous!  I spend a lot of time in a brothel filled with 10 or 12 women who work very hard to maintain a trim and sexy figure.  Do you have any idea of the number of diets going on in the house at any one time?  Lots.  Adkins diet, South Beach diet, soda cracker diet, peanut butter diet, grapefruit diet, 5 miles per day on the treadmill diet and on and on!  I can see a working girl asking an owner to help her not eat this or that, but no owner is going to starve a girl.  That’s stupid.  If an owner tried to seriously starve a girl, she would simply go to another house.  The girls switch houses in search of money frequently anyway.


Lineups

Farley says, (Page 18)  “In Nevada brothel lineups……women stand in a line like cattle at an auction while Johns select which he will rent.  Most women hate the humiliating experience of the lineups.  A French survivor of prostitution described what it felt like……………..”

Attitude is the most important factor in life, and certainly choice of words like “auction, Johns, rent and survivor” are indicative of a very bad, almost sick attitude.  But then what is my perception of a sick attitude on the part of a feminist who simply doesn’t understand what she is seeing, from her perspective may be perceived to be crystal clear perception and almost holy thought.

However, brothel lineups weren’t invented by any of the brothel owners.  They come out of history and are required by the ladies themselves.  This is because in the competitive sisterhood of the brothel it is extremely important, even essential that the selection process is “fair.”  The guys get to “sniff all the flowers in the garden” or “vote with their wallets.”  It is extremely important that all of the ladies get an equal shot at the guys.  Therefore the guys get to choose who they will go on tour with.  If the guy tours with one girl and they can’t come to an agreement, then she may “walk” the customer to another girl she believes may be better suited for the requested party.

In the lineups the girls have developed very specific rules of behavior, dos and don’ts or rules which are designed to keep the selection process “fair.”  Behavior which is deemed to be “unfair” or draw special attention to one girl over another is called a “dirty hustle.”  The concept of “dirty hustle” is an extremely involved and interesting concept which could fill a small book.  This is the part which Melissa Farley in her brief cruise through the legal brothel industry completely missed.  Consequently because of her lack of understanding, she assumed that lineups are simply demeaning cattle auctions.  Matter of fact, based upon her perception that the girls are merely “rented,” Farley either missed the boat entirely, or she simply presented the slant on the issue which would best support her agenda.


“Non-john Observers”

I give historical and PR tours to hundreds of “non-john observers” every year, mostly the relatives of locals or to participants in the Sr. Pro Rodeo, the Wells Car Show or golf tournaments.  Contrary to what Farley says, they’re not shocked, outraged or horrified.  At the end of the tour in the fantasy room I ask them, “Is there anything you’ve seen which you didn’t expect or surprises you?”  The most common answer is “It’s so clean.”  The second most frequent response is from some lady of retirement age who says something like “You mean all these years I’ve been giving it away?!”   Some brothels are beautiful.  Some are dumpy.  But Farley’s comments are merely designed for shock value.


Frontier Mentality and sex-libertarian worldview

Yes, many of the folks who live in the sparsely populated rural counties of Nevada cherish their frontier mentality.  We are cowboys, miners, ranchers, railroad workers, geologists, hunters and good-natured, down-home, real, independent and personally responsible men and women who cling to and love the wide-open nature of our landscape, its old-fashioned values and the code of the West.  “If what your neighbor does or thinks isn’t hurting you, then you leave him alone.”

This creed of the old West is very important and it runs deeply through rural Nevada culture.  We don’t appreciate holier-than-thou Californians coming over and telling us how to run our lives.  Most true Nevadans don’t hold much admiration for an intellectual feminist do-gooder who thinks she knows what’s best for everyone.  And as far as a sex-libertarian worldview, I suppose that is simply a libertarian worldview applied to sex.  The libertarian view is essentially that free individuals are responsible for their own well-being, happiness, attitude, economic condition and existence in the world.  The opposite view is that individuals are not responsible for themselves, that government, even a one-world government is responsible for their welfare.  The concept of large government providing for the direction, control and welfare of a universal population is a fraud.  It always fails because the government’s promise to take care of all the citizens is an economic impossibility.  It leads to government failure, oppression and loss of individual liberties.  The only true condition in the world or in life is that individuals are properly responsible for themselves and will make the best decisions when looking out for their own welfare.  This concept also applies to the decision to work in prostitution on the part of women.  The women should be able to make their own choice, and not have their choice dictated to them by a governmental entity.


Organized Crime

In a disjointed, disorganized and conceptually lost chapter on Trafficking and Organized Crime Farley is all over the board.  On page 117 she says:

“There is evidence of organized crime in strip club prostitution, escort prostitution, legal brothel prostitution, pornography production in brothels and clubs, and in the domestic and international trafficking of women for the purpose of prostituting in a range of locations throughout Nevada.”

What?  This is an extremely broad accusation for which I see no support.  She quoted a newspaper article. 

She continues, “Despite these facts, there is a persistent myth that legalizing prostitution decreases organized criminals’ involvement in prostitution.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Sex trafficking cannot happen without the involvement of organized crime.”

What?  Legal brothels increase the incidence of organized criminals’ involvement and trafficking?  This makes no sense.  She once again paints the legal industry with the brush of illegal activities in Las Vegas.

She then goes into supposed studies from Turkey, the Netherlands and Australia concluding, “Clearly, legal prostitution decreases pimp’s risk of arrest for pimping and johns’ arrest for prostitution.”

In 28 years of being directly involved in the legal Nevada brothel industry, I have never seen any evidence of any involvement of organized crime in the legal industry.  None.  From knowing old owners and current owners, following political issues in Elko, White Pine, Story, Lyon, Nye, Lander, Churchill, Clark and Washoe counties and reading stories in the media and on the internet, I’ve never seen any evidence of organized crime.

I define organized crime as the Italian Mafia, syndicate or Mob.  I don’t include small time criminals, geographically limited gangs referred to in the industry as “the hood,”  or clubs such as the Hells Angels.  It might be possible that Farley would include the ownership of the Old Bridge Ranch by David Burgess, the Reno Chapter president of the Hells Angels to qualify as “organized crime.”  But I don’t.  Story County is entirely aware of the Hells Angels organization at Old Bridge and it’s no secret to anyone.  As a matter of fact, I believe that there was a court case in which Story County moved against David Burgess’s brothel license because of his affiliation with the Hells Angels and the wearing of Hells Angel’s colors by various members at Story County Commissioner meetings.  The issue went to court, and in March of 2000 the U.S. District Court made two important rulings in the case.  The first was that a Nevada brothel license is a property right, and therefore it cannot be “taken” by a municipal ruling body without “due process.”  This also means, I believe that municipal licensing authorities or voters cannot simply cancel a brothel license without fair compensation to the owner who originally bought that license in good faith when it was an operating and legal business.

The second finding in the case in my own words was to the effect that a municipal licensing authority cannot move against a brothel owner’s license based upon the friends he keeps.

In this instance, I don’t think the Court was looking at the Hells Angels as “organized crime” either. 

Instead of considering some arbitrary definition of organized crime, I instead look at the operation of the Old Bridge brothel.  In this area David Burgess has caused few problems and run a good operation.  In my capacity as Brothel Association president I have come to know some of the Hells Angels, and even though no one has taught me to ride a Harley, I like them as individuals.  Of course, like everything else in life, they have both good and bad characteristics.

Page 123:    Farley says that “…for the most part, international organized crime has replaced the older crime families in Nevada’s sex businesses.”

She mentions, Russian, Armenian and Mexican organized criminals in Las Vegas escort prostitution.  She also mentions Korean, Chinese and Asian gangs in massage parlors and illegal Las Vegas brothels. 

I am not familiar with conditions in Las Vegas.  I am only familiar with the legal brothels, and by the fact that there are no incidences of organized crime in the legal industry but apparently fairly common problems in the illegal industry, it seems to me to validate that if the Sheriff’s Department is in house checking medical records on a regular basis and if the owner is subject to losing a very valuable brothel license for illegal activities such as trafficking or drugs, the legal process seems to be a practically effective system for eliminating affiliation with organized crime in the legal industry. 

In this chapter Farley presents no evidence linking any legal Nevada brothel with organized crime.  She only associates us by innuendo and supposed association with illegal activities across the world or in Las Vegas. 

Although I don’t have direct knowledge of organized crime problems in Las Vegas, I am influenced by the fact that because almost 100% of what Farley asserts in her book is false, I have my doubts about her widespread claims about illegal trafficking into Las Vegas.  From reading the annual reports of the U.S. State department, the annual illegal trafficking of persons into the U.S. is between 14,000 and 18,000 persons.  Roughly 85% are supposed to be women into illegal prostitution.  Certainly a significant portion are going into New York, Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland.  A relatively high percentage seem to be Asians into illegal massage parlors in the above-referenced cities, especially on the West Coast.  That doesn’t leave too many for Las Vegas.  Also, from what I’ve seen advertised in the Las Vegas phone book, on the strip, seen in the casinos and from what I’ve heard in the girl underground, most of the working girls seem to be American, Latin, or Asian girls from other parts of the U.S. who have documents which would allow them to work legally if they desired to do so.  Until Farley published her book, my impression of the “white slavery” or trafficking problem was that it was pretty insignificant in the U.S.  Certainly it is insignificant, even non-existent in the legal Nevada brothels.


Brothel License Applications for Prospective Owners

Page 112:    Farley says, “Strip club managers pimp women in a network controlled by organized crime that stretches across the United States……….  These circuits are controlled by strip club owners who are most often pimps who are frequently affiliated with organized crime groups.  Illustrating strip club pimps’ connections with legal prostitution, a Nye County legal brothel was recently purchased by two men who were owners of several strip clubs in New Orleans.  The six legal Nevada pimps I interviewed were quite reluctant to talk about their previous employment.  Several hinted at connections with organized crime.”

Farley doesn’t tell the whole story because it didn’t fit her desired message when the application for the two prospective purchasers of the Chicken Ranch fell through.  The father/son team from all appearances were financially well qualified to purchase the Chicken Ranch.  I heard that they were the type of people who flew around in Gulfstream business jets.  Actually, I believe they withdrew their application as a result of requests on the part of Nye County which may not have been entirely reasonable, including an audited personal financial statement summarizing their personal financial affairs at a cost of over $100,000.  I was told that a further request was made that their financial records would be subjected to a forensic audit by a CPA fraud audit specialist.  This is unusual, as an audited financial statement is capable of standing on its own.  However, one of the purposes of the application process at the County level is to eliminate prospective applicant owners who might have affiliations with drugs or organized crime.  Maybe Nye County simply made it tough on the applicants so they gave up.  Maybe the applicants didn’t want to be subjected to the scrutiny involved with owning a legal Nevada brothel…

In all counties, prospective buyers are subjected to an investigation by the Sheriff’s Department of the licensing authority.  It is similar to the investigation an individual goes through with the Nevada Gaming Control Board before he is granted a Nevada gaming license.  The brothel license application in most counties is somewhat less in scope that the gaming application and is therefore usually less expensive. 

But the process is similar.  The Sheriff’s investigators are looking for past criminal activities, involvement with drugs, or affiliations with organized crime.  All of the current owners of legal Nevada brothels have gone through such examinations, and therefore it is somewhat preposterous for Farley to allege legal owner affiliations with organized crime.  For her to say “Several hinted at connections with organized crime” is ridiculous.  It is fiction.  No owner would have hinted at connections with organized crime.  She made it up.


30 Chinese Girls (in Elko) and Trafficking to Nye County

Page 119:    “Legal prostitution combined with widespread tolerance of illegal prostitution means that Australia is now recognized as a destination country by traffickers, international governments, and buyers alike.  This also appears to be true for Nevada.  We saw for ourselves and also heard accounts of internationally trafficked women in the Nevada Legal Brothels.”

In the words of Bobbi Davis of the Shady Lady in Nye County:  put up or shut up.  This isn’t true.

Page 120:    “Several informants told me that they knew Russian and Romanian women and who were trafficked into a Nye County brothel.  I spoke briefly with a very nervous woman from the Czech Republic who lived at a southern Nevada brothel.

Again from Bobbi:  put up or shut up.  It’s not true.

Page 120:    “We visited a legal Nevada brothel where there were approximately 30 Chinese women who did not speak English.  An assistant pimp told us that the women entered the United States on 30-day work permits.  The permits frequently expired while they were prostituting.  Several women in a nearby brothel told us that most of the women in that brothel had been trafficked from Southern China to illegal massage brothels in and near San Francisco, and from there to the Nevada legal brothel.

According to these witnesses, the Chinese women were threatened with being thrown out of the brothel, reported to immigration officials and deportation if they did not agree to service the high numbers of buyers they were pimped to and if they did not accept whatever paltry amounts of money the pimp chose to pay them.  The women were coerced into offering johns oral sex without condoms.  They were also required to undercut prices of nearby brothels.  We reported our observations about this brothel to the FBI in January 2006.”

The only brothel in the State which specializes in Chinese girls is Inez’s in Elko.  The only problem is that there is no brothel in the entire State big enough to work 30 girls.  The biggest are Sheri’s, Sagebrush and Wildhorse, maybe Moonlight, all of which are in the low 20’s, but not 30 and not Chinese.  Inez’s is more like 4 or 5 girls, although they could all be Chinese. 

Farley’s mistake was going across the street and talking to the competition at Sue’s.  Unfortunately, working girls at a competing brothel across the street are never “credible witnesses” when it comes to comments about their neighbor.  This is true regardless of the location:  Chicken Ranch/Sheri’s, Moonlight/Kit Kat or Sagebrush, Bella’s/Donna’s, Old Bridge/Wildhorse or Inez’s/Sues.  So the comments about undercutting prices and doing oral sex without condoms are completely unreliable.  Also the comments about trafficking, while possible are still questionable.  Please note that because both Inez’s and Sue’s are legal brothels with specific locations known to law enforcement, if there ever is a problem it can quickly be identified and corrected.   The legal system works.

I’ve met two working girls who left Inez’s to work at Donna’s, Suki and Hylan.  Hylan speaks only Chinese, and was only at Donna’s for a couple of weeks before returning to Los Angeles.  I know that both Suki and Hylan were legal and not trafficked because they passed the NCIC check at the Wells Sheriff’s Dept.  They weren’t enslaved at Inez’s because both left Inez’s to work at Donna’s.  Suki was a fine person who after a few months moved to Las Vegas, went to gaming school to become a dealer, and became a bilingual dealer at a casino.  I asked Suki if all of the Chinese girls at Inez’s were legal, and she said they were.  I also talked to Dale Lotspeich, Sheriff of Elko County about the possibility of trafficked working girls at Inez’s.  He said that while something might be possible for a limited time due to fake ID’s, trafficking of illegal persons would not be possible in the long run.  Any problems would be discovered quickly by the Elko City Police Department and corrected. 

Nevada Legal Brothel Model

The concept of the Nevada Legal Brothel Model is a very important concept because it works!  The primary objective is medical safety.  The secondary objective is to provide a safe, clean, legal and relatively normal atmosphere in which consenting adults can safely participate in consensual sexual activities.  The concept is that the activity is essentially a business transaction mixed with varying degrees of friendship, relationship and communication.  In this context neither the girl nor the guy is considered to be a “victim.”  The working girls consider themselves to be counselors, therapists, shrinks, courtesans, experts at massage, sexual wonder workers, and often friends to their “regulars.”  The guys are adventurers, lovers, studs, protectors, talkers, braggarts, specialists at one thing or another and also friends.  Some are kinky, a few are scary, but most are pretty normal like everybody else.  The guys usually understand that “there’s no love sold in a cathouse.”  But that’s OK.  There are relationships.  The women are highly independent, enjoy the independence provided by their earnings, and are not looking for a husband or boyfriend.   

Contrary to what Farley and her feminist activists assume, violence is very rare inside the brothel, almost non-existent.  Yet the assertion of violence is central to the feminist complaint.  They say that all prostitution is violence, male domination of women and victimization of women.  This simply isn’t true.  I am totally convinced that there is less violence inside a legal brothel than in general monogamous relationships in the “normal” outside world.  This important concept deserves a little elaboration or support.  Certainly there are no “battered women” in the legal brothels like there are on the outside or with the pimps on the streets or in gangs.  This is because most macho guys are scared to death when they come into the brothel.  The possibility that they can choose from any of several lovely women with the assurance of a “home run for every trip to the plate” is simply mind-blowing.  Most guys can hardly breathe when facing a “line-up.”  Taking the wind out of their sales isn’t conducive to violence.  Also, the general attitude is to “make love, not war.”  From watching behind the scenes it’s obvious that the guys are no match for the fact the entire house is run by and controlled by a bunch of women.  The view from behind the scenes is that the poor guys in the bar have been caught in a giant spiders’ web spun by a bunch of scantily clad beauties.

In the 11 years I’ve owned Donna’s Wells and the 7 years I’ve owned Donna’s Battle Mountain there have been no serious acts of violence towards any of the working girls.  Sometimes there is aggressive sex.  Sometimes guys have tried to or taken the condom off (which instantly ends the party.)  Sometimes the girl could see that the date was turning bad.  Even though they may appear to be a member of “the weaker sex”, most working girls are really strong, experienced and worldly.  Maybe three times in eleven years I’ve seen a working girl throwing a rowdy or drunk customer out of her room.  It happens so fast and with such thorough conviction that it is truly astonishing!  Later in a section about “It’s a Womens’ House” we’ll talk more about why women can throw men out without a fight whereas a male bouncer couldn’t.

At any rate, in 11 years there have been no instances of working girls being injured by customers to the extent that they would require first aid.  There have been no trips to the hospital.  In that time period there have been over 50,000 “parties” without significant violence.  This to me is much better evidence than Farley simply defining all prostitution to be an act of violence or “paid rape.”

The Legal Nevada Brothel Model has 8 Essential Components:

Each component is essential to the effective function of the industry.

Working girls
Customers
Owners / Houses
Municipal licensing authority
Law Enforcement
Medical Doctors / Specialists
Nevada Department of Health
Health Labs


Working girls. 

The ladies come to the legal industry mostly out of massage parlors or from escorting.  They’ve usually gotten busted and don’t want their family or kids to see their picture in the paper.  They want to be legal.  Some want the safety of the house.  Some want to get away from a pimp.  Some want to use the legal industry as a stepping stone to retire or move on to a new career.  Girls from the street sometimes have trouble adjusting to the sisterhood inside the house.  Money is always the primary motivator.  Many times the girls are sick of some low-paying job such as being a waitress.   Some just like sex.  Some think its glamorous.  Most like the cars, trips, houses or other things they can buy with their money.  Many are supporting kids or in some instances a boyfriend or husband.  They call to come in.  They leave when they want to.  Their mental attitude is a lot like they’re already retired.  They usually come back simply to pay their bills.  Most working girls only work part of the year.  The working girls are independent contractors.  They move from place to place following the money.  They use their own tools and establish their own prices.  They perform activities they want to and don’t have to do things they are not comfortable with.  Most working girls file tax returns based upon 1099’s which are issued by nearly all brothels.  They record revenue usually on Schedule C and can write off all ordinary and necessary business expenses against their income, just like any other independent small business person. 

Customers. 

Of course they are essential, however most good operators know that the girls are the most important focus.  If an owner can keep the girls happy, the girls will certainly keep the guys happy.  The truth inside a legal brothel is totally different than Farley’s description of a pussy prison.  It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about it that brothels with unhappy girls are automatic failures.


Owners / Houses.   

The owners and the houses pull it all together.  Farley as well as others and sometimes the girls themselves complain that the owners at all houses “take half their money.”  That money goes to run a house 24/7 with round the clock full time bartenders, maids, cleaning ladies, maintenance personnel, managers, assistant managers, bookkeepers and cooks.  Then there are payroll taxes, FICA, Medicare, Nevada Unemployment, Federal Unemployment, Workers’ Comp, Property Taxes, Business Tax, Sales Tax, Federal Income Tax and ATF.  Auto repairs, gasoline, dues, office supplies, cleaning and operating supplies, cost of souvenirs, liquor, beer, equipment such as computers, printers, monitors, washers, dryers, dish washers, cookware, ovens, refrigerators, freezers, bar stools, juke boxes, towels, trick sheets, internet access, websites, interest, depreciation, telephone, advertising, gas, electric, sewer, water, garbage, postage, groceries, legal, accounting, gifts, advertising, travel, meals, promotion, insurance, licenses, decorations, photos, beds, mattresses, bedding, TV’s, boom boxes, carpets, hot tubs, grills and contributions.  In many counties the licenses are monumental.  In Wells the two houses pay more in business licenses than all of the other businesses in town combined!  A brothel is just a business.  It’s a fun business, but still it operates just like any other business.  But don’t forget that the owner is also making some big payments to the previous owner because he bought a restricted license.  The licenses at smallest places are about $300K running up to over $5 million just for the license.  And the reason that a lot of the smaller places look pretty run down in addition to local restrictions such as in Winnemucca is that it is simply impossible for a brothel owner no matter how good his credit to get any kind of conventional financing.  So there are no mortgages, only private financing.

Contributions are special because if you own a cathouse everyone comes knocking with their hand out.  All Chamber of Commerce activities, Sr. Pro Rodeo and Car Show major sponsors, golf association and tournaments, Make-A-Wish, athletic booster club, Chariot Races, Sr. Citizens Center, Family Resource Center (for the kids), Grade School, High School, Teams, uniforms, bats, football field lights, smoke detectors for all seniors, senior call back program, rehab programs, kids programs for science, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, Future Farmers, FBLA, Drama, photo, graduation night and so on.  Nearly all of the brothels have similar stories.

But as far as the Nevada Legal Brothel Model goes, the important point is that the owner is paying big bucks for a very restricted license.  So the owner is very concerned with losing that license.  So brothel owners are extremely sensitive to political issues.  Most are very careful not to do anything which would cause political problems such as embarrassing or making your neighbors mad.  Also, this is the reason brothel owners would be stupid to have anything to do with drugs or the Mafia.  Because the municipal licensing authority has a constant hammer over the head of the brothel owner, for the most part it keeps the owners in line.  The brothel is in a specific location at one address, and if there is ever a problem at the brothel it is very easy for the municipal regulator to find the owner and to crack down.  Problems in the legal industry are therefore a lot easier to rectify than problems with illegal activities which are hidden, constantly moving and difficult to pin down.  This is why “legal and regulated” is always better than “illegal and unregulated.”


Municipal licensing authority.   

The city or county which issues the brothel license writes the brothel ordinance, establishes the operating rules, issues work cards and otherwise rides herd on brothel owners and working women.


Law Enforcement.   

The Sheriff or Police Department takes fingerprints of and runs NCIC background checks on working girls applying for work cards.  The personal information of working girls is kept confidential by law enforcement.  They are checking IDs, social security numbers and looking for violent crimes, felonies and associations with drugs or underworld figures.  Law enforcement has the right to pull a work card of any girl at any time for any reason.  One common reason is that the applicant lied on her work card application.  Law enforcement checks the medicals on file at the brothel.  They also occasionally run spot checks on work cards.  The work cards have photos of the ladies on the card so the officers can match each girl to her photo.

The participation of law enforcement makes a tremendous difference in allowing the legal brothel model to work.  Because a legal brothel is a normal business, if a situation develops inside the brothel which we can’t handle ourselves, we can “call the cops!”  This is a reason that violence is so rare in the legal brothels.  The legal brothels are just like any other business!  For illegal brothels throughout the rest of the country the patrons instinctively know that the brothel management can’t call the cops.  Therefore patrons in massage parlors or illegal brothels are much freer to exhibit violent or inappropriate behavior.


Medical Doctors / Specialists.   

A select group of medical doctors examine all the legal working girls every week.  These doctors are approved in advance by the Nevada State Health Department.  There are only a few of them.  Smith in Wells, Bergeron and Mattern in Elko, the Carlin Clinic, Peters in Battle Mtn, the Winnemucca Clinic, The Elko Clinic, Cassani in Reno, The Ely Clinic, Clark County Health and a couple doctors in the Highway 95 area.  The doctors usually get to know all of the working girls and assist them with all of their medical needs.


Nevada Department of Health.   

The Nevada Department of Health is the regulatory authority over all others.  They have ultimate power.  They can have any working girl banned from the industry, although this is unusual.  They can ban doctors or clinics from issuing medical clearances.  They did it one time when an RN tried to issue clearances without the required supervision of an approved MD.  The State requires the mandatory use of condoms.  They also do all of the follow up work and epidemiological research if any ladies fail to “clear.”  This means that if a lady fails to “clear” they trace back all sexual partners and make sure the working girl cannot work until properly treated and cleared.  From a practical standpoint being at the brothel when a dirty medical report shows up at the lab is like being in NORAD when the Russians launch the missiles.  The phones go ballistic.  The lab calls the State.  The State calls the Sheriff’s office.  The lab, the State and Sheriff all call the brothel.  Then the State contacts the girl either at the brothel or on her cell phone.  Then she gets treated and quarantined for a week until she can get retested.  Fortunately, this is very rare.  The amusing part of the drama is that in nearly every case the girl has caught something from her boyfriend or husband who has been dallying at home while she is away at work.  She goes home on vacation, and the dalliance is discovered when she returns to work and goes to the doctor to get her clearance prior to being able to “work the floor.”  The boyfriend is caught and soon suffers the wrath of his lady over the phone.  


Health Labs.       

A few doctors use Quest, a private health lab, but most samples are processed by the lab at the UNR medical school in Reno.  The important point is that the samples are processed overnight and reported by the afternoon of the following day. 

Safety.   

As I said in the beginning, the primary objective of the legal industry is health and safety.  You can see from above how the system works.  And the truly great thing about the system is that it is very effective.

All legal working girls have to have a physical examination and a “culture” every week.  Once each month they have a blood test for Syphilis and HIV.  Syphilis is very rare. 

The best part of the medical results is that since 1986 when testing for HIV was initiated, there has never been a single legal working girl who has converted from negative to positive!  None.  What this means is that the Nevada legal brothel industry is the only arena of sexual activity in the world which is HIV free.

Page 39:    Farley says, “There is no empirical evidence that legal prostitution decreases HIV.”

What?  Roughly 75,000 clean HIV tests and a perfect record is “no empirical evidence”? 

Farley continues, “The purpose of the following discussion is not to blame women in prostitution but to show that once in prostitution, it is almost impossible to protect her from HIV or from other violence from johns.”

“The medieval practice of HIV testing of women but not men is a hair-breadth away from reactionary sexist visions of women’s genitals as filthy or evil and women themselves as inferior to men.”

What?  Is this part of the radical feminist doctrine?  When I think of all of the thousands of men who have come through the brothel door over the years, I cannot think of a single man who has had such a sick attitude towards women, men and relationships as expressed in the foregoing paragraph.

“Since the women in Nevada brothels have many sex partners, some having serviced thousands of johns, they are at extremely high risk for HIV.”  (Page 40)

Page 41:    “In Nevada legal brothels the actual rate of HIV is unclear, as is the case in Tijuana where a similar testing program is in effect.”

Wrong.  All working girls are tested every month, and always have been clear.

With respect to this Nevada Legal Brothel Model I have a question and a comment.  Here’s the question:

If Melissa Farley wanted to study whether or not illegal trafficking of women existed into Nevada legal brothels as well as the extent of organized crime’s involvement in legal brothels, then why didn’t she contact the core participants in the industry?

There are only 10 rural counties where the legal industry exists.  Why not go to the City Managers or County Managers and say, “You know pretty much what’s going on in your City or County, and you license the brothel owners, all of the bartenders and employees as wells as all of the working girls.  We’re trying to find out if there are any illegal trafficked women from foreign countries or from other parts of the U.S. working in the legal brothels.  What do you think?  Have you ever known of any women being trafficked into the legal brothels?

The City Managers and/or County Managers would have said, “Gosh, that’s a new one.  I’ve never heard of that.”

And what about the Sheriff’s?  A similar question, but adding, “Sheriff, I know you run NCIC checks on all of the legal working girls and you check medical records and periodically renew the working girl work cards.  Have you ever run into problems with trafficking in the legal brothels?  And also, how about organized crime?  Are the owners associated with or connected to organized crime?  And by the way, don’t you check for associations with organized crime when you run the extensive background check on the owner prior to recommending the issuance or denial of an applicant’s brothel license application?  Have you had any problems with organized crime at your brothels?

The Sheriff, I believe would have said, “Nope, no problems.  Out here in the cow counties we don’t have many problems with white slavery, trafficked women or children, or with stealing bodily organs.  And we don’t see many underworld figures out here.  I don’t even think they have much of a presence in Las Vegas or Reno any more.”

And the doctors; there are only about twelve of them.  They’re easy to see.  Why didn’t Farley ask them?  “Hey doc, you get to know all of the girls pretty well.  You listen to their problems, prescribe medicine and perform their medical tests every week.  They like you and trust you.  They share with you their most intimate personal problems and questions.  Have you ever had any working girls who complained to you about being enslaved or trafficked?  Have you ever had any working girls ask for help at getting out of a legal brothel?  Have you ever seen a working girl who was beat up by a customer or owner?  Have you ever heard of any legal working girl who contracted HIV?  Do you think the girls are careful about using condoms?  About how often do condoms break?  Do you think the working girls are relatively safe in the brothels?  Do you think Nevada’s legal brothel model works from the standpoint of creating a safe place for men and women to have consensual sex? 

What about the owners?  Farley never talked to me, although she did visit Donna’s.  And none of the owners have talked to me about meeting with her.  Did she just make up the fact that she talked with six owners?

And the Nevada Department of Health?  Did she talk to Dr. Todd, former State Epidemiologist who is a great supporter of the industry?  Did she get any real statistics related to STD’s in the general population vs. the legal brothels?

No, she just talked to 45 pre-qualified working girls about their opinions, and then she colored their responses with her own ideology.

She didn’t talk to anyone else in the industry because she doesn’t care about any true facts.  She just wanted to write fiction in order to justify her government grant and to promote her agenda.

Because of her radical feminist beliefs and her bias, her work is worse that worthless.  It’s dangerous.

It occurs to me that in a book supposedly investigating the existence and prevalence of trafficking in the legal Nevada brothels, Farley didn’t talk to any of the industry participants who might have had some direct knowledge.  Except for the almost inadvertent conversation with the ladies at Sue’s related to the Chinese girls at Inez’s across the street, Farley appears not to even have questioned the 45 working girls in her survey about trafficking.  The results of her survey on pages 27 through 31 of her book don’t report anything about trafficking.  All of her information comes from neighbors, vague contacts, other like-minded associates, newspaper articles, assumptions, social workers or the Las Vegas police department task force.  I believe that just like the legal industry has limited knowledge about illegal activities in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas police department has little knowledge about legal or illegal activities including trafficking possibly occurring in the legal brothels in the rural counties outside their jurisdiction.  Therefore for the central focus of her book, Farley has no investigation of direct sources.  She only has indirect, external sources with limited true knowledge.  She drew her conclusions upon rumor, assumptions, invalid associations with illegal activities and preordained ideological concepts which allowed her to simply fabricate a foregone conclusion.


Feminist Opinions Concerning Reasons Women Enter Prostitution

On page 15 Farley says, “Women enter legal brothel prostitution for the same reasons that women enter any other kind of prostitution:  because of sex inequality, sexual abuse, poverty, lack of employment opportunities or low wages, racism, previous violent relationships, homelessness, overwhelming media messages that culturally objectify women as sex objects, and because of predators’ capacity to coerce or trick women into prostitution.”   ………….

“……..women in state-zone prostitution are physically isolated and socially rejected by the rest of society.”     ……………..

“Prostitution in Australia, like that in Nevada, is highly stigmatized even though it is legal.  This social stigma isolates women in legal bothels, where they are generally shunned by the rest of the population, and treated disrespectfully.”  …..

“Women in legal prostitution fully understand society’s rejection of them as complete human beings………”

Most of Farley’s messages came right from her website, simply massaged into the format for the State Department’s grant.  It seems to me that the feminists look too hard for reasons ladies get into the business.  From what I see, It just boils down to the money.  The women look at it as a job.  As long as they can pay their bills and do what they want, then they ignore any stigma.  The women who come into Nevada’s legal brothels are much more normal and self-assured than Farley contends.  Farley contends that working girls are incapable of making their own decisions or of choosing what directions in life are best for their own interests.  The working girls are a lot smarter than Farley gives them credit.

Even if I believe them to be wrong, I have no problem with the feminists believing whatever they want to.  My problem is with their using lies, misinformation, fabricated stories, innuendo, inappropriate associations such as to the illegal industry and invalid comparisons such as to studies of illegal foreign prostitution to attack our industry.  I am biased also because of my investment, however I give my sources, explain my reasoning and try to be accurate.

I admit that I don’t know all there is to know about the feminist position, and maybe am incapable of understanding some concepts because I am a man, however before reading Farley and the Internet I thought the feminists position was that a woman had the right to choose behaviors related to her own body.  Didn’t the feminist movement start with the concept that it was a woman’s right to choose an abortion?  I don’t really understand how a woman’s decision to become a sex worker is any different than a woman’s right to make other choices.


6000 Truckers Can’t Be Wrong, by Daniel J. Tutty, PhD

Daniel Tutty is  PhD clinical psychologist, similar to Melissa Farley.  At the time he wrote his book he was working as a counselor and clinical psychologist in Elko, Nevada.  In about 2004 he conducted a research study of the brothels and working girls mostly in Elko County, and in 2006 he published a book in which he argues that the model of bordello prostitution proven in Nevada could be implemented successfully around the country with many positive benefits.

Daniel Tutty talked to essentially the same women as Melissa Farley, and they came to polar opposite conclusions.  Dr. Tutty came to the same conclusion as almost everyone else who takes a critical, objective look at the Nevada legal brothels: the system works, and works very well.  No matter what a person’s perception is concerning the morality of sexual behavior between unmarried consenting adults, there is no question that the Nevada model of legal brothel prostitution is a system which provides a safe, clean and socially beneficial manner to deal with an activity which has always been a part of the world and which will be a part of human behavior for as long as mankind walks the face of the earth.
 
Tutty says, (Page 1)  “The major hypothesis for this book centers on the adoption as a model for the entire country a form of prostitution that has continuously operated quite successfully here in the American West for over two hundred years….  Not only will I demonstrate such a model can be successfully implemented in the rest of the country but I will also point out some of the many positive results of the adoption of this model here in the West.  The logical implications for the rest of the country seem obvious.  If the model can successfully operate on a small scale here in Nevada, there is no reason to assume that it cannot be just as successfully operated on a national scale.

The adoption of the Nevada Model of Prostitution will have a number of very positive results for the entire country to include:

Lower the rate of violent crime
Lower the incidence of Sexually Transmitted Disease
Significantly lower the costs of law enforcement related to the control of street prostitution
Generating huge sums of tax revenues for city, county and state governments
Create huge funding sources for much needed municipal projects……….
Eliminate streetwalkers from our communities
Reduce the influence of organized crime in the prostitution industry

The reason I know that the Nevada Model can work for the rest of the country is simply because it already works in Nevada.  Prostitution is strictly regulated in Nevada…… However, accepting the reality of human nature, the legislators of this State provided for the legal provision of this service.  This service is highly structured and monitored constantly (the Nevada Model.)”

Tutty continues on Page 15:    “It would enhance the level of tax revenues which could then be channeled into much needed areas of social services such as shelters for the homeless or health care reform.  It would reduce the level of violent crime, such as rape.  It would reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases.  This system, on a small scale in the State of Nevada, has proven very beneficial in many ways for the past thirty-two years.  I contend that a thirty year test trial is more than sufficient to indicate the efficacy of this system: and unquestionably signals a plan whose time has come to effectively and efficiently deal with this timeless aspect of the human condition.  It is not an effort to legislate the morality of this country but simply reflects the morality of this country.

The recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court of June 26, 2003, which legalized sodomy between two consenting adults has, in fact, established a legal precedent for the morality of this country.  Bordello prostitution, like sodomy, is essentially sex between two consenting adults.  How can anyone argue the morality of a system that parallels a system that has been sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court?  In order to assess the efficacy of Bordello Prostitution in Nevada, we must look at its historical development as well as the historical development of prostitution in general………”


Problems with Farley’s Research Methodology, Bias

There is a lot of information already on the Internet about Farley’s lack of objectivity, bias, flawed scientific method and substitution of ideology and political rhetoric in place of a scholarly search for truth.

One such paper which is particularly on point is a paper titled “Flawed Theory and Method in Studies of Prostitution” by Ronald Weitzer of George Washington University.  In his paper, Weitzer begins,

“In no area of the social sciences has ideology contaminated knowledge more pervasively than in writings of the sex industry.  Too often in this area, the canons of scientific inquiry are suspended and research is deliberately skewed to serve a particular political agenda.  Much of this work has been done by writers who regard the sex industry as a despicable institution and who are active in campaigns to abolish it.”

Weitzer’s paper specifically criticizes three articles by Jody Raphael and Deborah Shapiro, Melissa Farley, and Janice Raymond.

In a section titled “Ideological Blinders” he continues:

“The three articles are only the most recent examples in a long line of writings on the sex industry by authors who adopt an extreme version of radical feminist theory –extreme in the sense that it absolutist, doctrinaire, and unscientific.  Exemplifying this approach are the works of Andrea Dworking (1981, 1997), Catherine MacKinnon (1987,1989), Kathleen Barry (1995), and Sheila Jeffreys (1997).  These writers view prostitution as categorically evil, the epitome of male domination and exploitation of women irrespective of historical time period, societal context, or type of prostitution.  The authors of the three articles under review share these views.  Prostitution is decried as a human rights violation, “an institution that doles out death and disease” to women ……and “a particularly vicious institution of inequality of the sexes”.  These writers also insist that prostitution is by definition a form of violence against women, whether or not it involves outright physical violence.  ………… The distinction between “forced” and “voluntary” prostitution is regarded as a myth; some type of coercion and domination is always involved.”

“The terminology used in these articles, and other writings in this genre, is designed for maximum shock value.  Customers are labeled ‘prostitute users’ and ‘sexual predators’ who brutalize women.”  ……….

“Vivid labels are also applied to the workers.  Antiprostitution agencies and activists, and the writers featured in this commentary, are adamant that prostitutes be called ‘prostituted women’ or ‘survivors’.  The former clearly indicates that prostitution is something done to women, not something that can be chosen.”    ………..

“The extreme radical feminist perspective has been criticized for its essentialism and universalism, in particular the contention that victimization and exploitation are inherent, omnipresent and unalterable  -that prostitution has never been and can never be organized in such a way that minimizes coercion and inequality and maximizes workers’ interests.”

Weitzer goes on to discuss how nearly all of the research, studies or analysis presented by the radical feminists is simply invalid due to ideological bias, skewed interpretations and the near impossibility of deriving scientifically valid samples in the area of sex research.

In her book, Farley has nearly 80 pages of Endnotes or footnotes supporting her “research.”  In this area she quotes herself and many of the articles Weitzer identifies in his paper as simply being invalid.  She also draws many conclusions based upon questionable findings from foreign countries or foreign cultures for which it is improper to make generalizations to the U.S.  She also totally ignores the real differences between legal and illegal prostitution, considering them to be the same by definition. 

Oftentimes when Farley drew something out of context to support a point she totally changed the meaning of the original source.  For example on Page 34 where Farley quotes Alexa Albert’s book about what it felt like to be a prostitute:  “….degraded, dehumanized, used, victim, ashamed, humiliated, embarrassed, insulted, slave, rape, violated…” she took the quote from page 234 of Albert’s book, Brothel, Mustang Ranch and Its Women.  The quote came from Daisy, a working girl in an online forum written to a bunch of very savvy computer guys known as the CyberWhoreMongers or CWM.  Although I don’t like the name of the group, they’re really a great bunch of guys.  The CWM name is tongue in cheek.  This was a time when working girls were taking up more of a presence on a previously all-male website.  As Albert explains in her book, the exchange  was originally designed to elicit sympathy (and was hugely successful) and it resulted in many apologies from members of the online group.  It also went on to result in the development of a code of ethics or etiquette for online communications or exchanges.  CWM went on to be a sort of social organization in which they hold annual banquets in Reno.  Now the ladies fill the role of guests of honor, and many of the ladies successfully “work the boards.”  The guys on the Internet are very protective and generally respectful of the ladies. 

Albert says on page 236, “Despite all their bickering, the CWM and a handful of prostitutes had become a tight-knit virtual community………  The Fourth Annual CWM convention in the summer of 2000 had its largest turnout to date: seventy attendees, 40% of whom were working girls.”

Alexa Albert is an MD who spent considerable time inside the Mustang Ranch before its closure and through her sensitivity, caring and humanity was accepted by the ladies and became a member of the Mustang family.  In her book you find nothing about violence, victimization, enslavement, mind-control, male domination, evilness of prostitution or suggested closure of the legal brothels.  Instead there are chapters on Breadwinners, Pride in One’s Work, Sisterhood, and Extended Family.  In a wonderfully poignant passage, Albert noted that when the IRS closed Mustang for the second and last time, what they really did was to destroy a family.  This showed sensitivity and phenomenal insight because a legal brothel does become a family.  The family members, mostly women, all support each other and help each other along life’s journey.  The concepts of enslavement and abuse put forth by Farley and other feminists in their writings are figments of an overactive imagination fueled by unknown prior life experiences which have driven them to some very wrong conclusions.

Along the lines of Farley’s taking quotations out of context, I met with Barb Brents and Kate Hausbeck, Sociology professors at University of Nevada at Las Vegas.  They said that Farley had taken quotes from their research out of context to support conclusions which were opposite of the findings of the research from which they were drawn.  This is why I say that Farley’s writings are both fraudulent and dangerous.


Monica

Monica is a 23-year-old working girl from Salt Lake City who occasionally works at Donna’s in Wells.  Monica is a beautiful little blond-haired ray of sunshine who always seems to be bubbly and happy.  When I was reading Farley’s book, many of the working girls were interested in what it said, of course being incredulous over passages suggesting that they had no ability to make their own decisions or that they were slaves held captive in a doublewide prison.  In the discussions Monica came to me and told me that she remembered meeting Melissa Farley.  She specifically remembered her name.  She said that Farley came in the morning, sat at the bar, bought a copy of the Cathouse book from the bartender and struck up a conversation.  She asked Monica if she were well-treated and happy working at Donna’s.  Of course the ray of sunshine was all positives.  Farley wanted to know how long she had been in the business, how she had gotten started and whether or not she was being treated fairly. 

Monica said that the conversation lasted no longer than 1½ minutes.  I first started thinking that Monica had been one of the 45 working girls interviewed by Farley.  Then I realized that an interview simply wasn’t possible in 1½  minutes and that what really happened was that Monica was prequalified for the interview.  Because Monica was obviously happy with her situation and well-treated she wasn’t the kind of working girl Farley was looking for, so Farley didn’t interview her!

This means that Farley pre-qualified or “cherry picked” all of her sample.  It makes sense for me because it is the only way possible that 81% of the ladies in her sample wanted to “escape prostitution.”  At Donna’s we have a lot more ladies asking to come in than we have room for.  So all of the working girls have chosen to be there and want to be there.  The percentage of ladies who want to escape some form of bondage is zero.  Although it might depend upon how the question was phrased, such as “Do you want to retire from the business some day?” 

The key point to Monica’s story is that Farley’s cherry picking her sample absolutely and totally invalidates all observations and conclusions reported in her book.  So every reference to statistical analysis in the Endnotes is completely invalid.  All of her findings are totally worthless!  This is the only way Farley could have come up with such ridiculous conclusions as “81% of women in legal brothels want to escape prostitution.”

All of the percentages presented in the tables on pages 27 through 31 are not only invalid due to the biases introduced during the questioning, they are completely invalid based upon totally flawed sampling. 

As Ronald Weitzer said in his analysis of Farley’s work:  “Too often in this area, the canons of scientific inquiry are suspended and research is deliberately skewed to serve a particular political agenda.”


It’s a Women’s House

A legal brothel isn’t like any form of illegal prostitution.  The magic is in the house.  It’s a women’s house.  All of the working girls, the cleaning ladies, the maids, the floor managers, the bartenders, the cook, the bookkeepers and the madam……..they’re all women!  The maintenance guy is tolerated.  Believe me if he gets out of line by doing things like peeping in on the girls’ rooms, he’ll be driven out of the hive!  A male owner is no more than a house pet!  I have little more status than a cocker spaniel.  Oh, it’s not all bad.  We owners think we’re special.  It’s just that we’re not.  The women totally take over the entire personality, energy and aura of the house.  And the team that results has an overriding purpose which is awesome to behold:  fleecing the wallets of guys.  A legal brothel is like a sorority house, gone bad.  The girls may be in competition, but they absolutely form a sisterhood, and they bond together in a common objective.  For those of us who are men inside this system, the best we can do is to respect it and go with the flow.

The guys who are customers may look studly and macho when they come through the door, but the truth is they don’t stand a chance!  The first girl will tell the second girl how much she saw in the guy’s wallet.  The bartender counts clicks on the ATM machine to tell the girl how much the customer withdrew.  Girls update each other between negotiations.  It’s amazing.  Now there are limits of course, and everyone realizes the benefits to good customer service.  We all want to encourage repeat business, so the sirens can’t get away with going overboard like trick rolling, or cheating like over-charging credit cards.  So it works.

The guys on the other hand, love it.  They can see and appreciate that it’s a women’s house.  They play along.  They’re protective and supportive and bring gifts and treats.  It’s really pretty nice.

The aura of its being a women’s house is I believe one of the reasons why violence isn’t allowed inside the house.  Women I believe are inherently non-violent.  They can be catty, but I don’t see much violence in their nature.  The guys are not allowed to be disrespectful of the women in their house.  Everyone knows it.  If a guy inadvertently uses the “W” word, he quickly is taught that working girls are professional working girls, courtesans, ladies of the evening, but not the “W” word.  Just like the ladies don’t allow any form of disrespect to be directed towards them in their own house, the women utilize the same form of universal feminine pressure to outlaw violence towards them.  Women are so intuitive that they can communicate without saying anything.  Men don’t have a clue to what’s going on.  Even women who are not part of the brothel but come in on a PR tour are instantly in tune with this all-woman focus, whereas their husbands on tour can’t get past the skimpy outfits and have no clue.  The women are much more intuitive, pick up on things instantly, ask insightful questions and understand the process at a much deeper level than the men.  I’m always amazed by this. 

Also, in the bar, the control is amazing.  If a customer (guy) is getting out of hand, a female bartender can say, “Buddy, you’ve got to leave.”   And the guy leaves.  If a guy tried to throw him out, there would be an instant fight.  But a woman can throw the guy out with no problem. 

Despite what Farley and her feminist associates might say, the unwritten law of the land is that men don’t hit women.  Any man who hits a woman isn’t much of a man.  At least that’s the way it is in the redneck, blue-collar world I see most.  I watch guys all the time inside the brothel talking with the girls and trying to impress them in one way or another.  Even in the brothel the women are still put up on a pedestal.  Perhaps more so than outside the brothel.  The working girls have an intrinsic understanding that they have value, and they demand to be kept on the pedestal.


Halfway House

A legal brothel is already a form of halfway house.   Most of the working ladies in a legal brothel have come to the brothel because they are trying to escape one of the problems associated with illegal prostitution:  violence or beatings by pimps or customers; being busted, fined, jailed or humiliated by the court system; being constantly afraid of what might be waiting on the other side of the door in escorting; the drugs and danger on the streets.  Ladies in legal brothels are on the average a little older than women on the streets, in massage parlors or escorting.  That’s because experience makes them wiser as well as older.  Because prostitution of any form is an activity which “goes to the young and the swift” there is an upper age limit beyond which continuing to work is simply not viable.  Therefore at some point a woman must decide to move on.  Many settle down with a boyfriend or get married.  Some go back to preexisting careers or go into real estate or become bartenders or otherwise work in areas of interest to them.

Because the women in the house form a sisterhood or network they also help each other deal with issues as necessary for getting on with their life.  Other women and management help working ladies with issues such as getting a car, managing money, getting out of an abusive relationship, dumping a pimp, going to AA or getting off of drugs.  A lot of these struggles are difficult as they are in all areas of life, however women inside the brothel have a common bond and help each other move on. 

One of the reasons I bought Donna’s eleven years ago was to “help the working girls.”  So I continually help with all kinds of areas such as legal, accounting, tax problems, financial planning, training, counseling and so forth.  I’ve lost thousands of dollars in trying to help working girls keep custody of kids, get cars out of impound, keep furniture from being repossessed or any number of requests for assistance.  Overall I’m afraid the failures outnumber the successes, but sometimes no one including myself can compete with the draw exerted by addiction to alcohol or prescription or illegal drugs.  Such is the unfortunate realities of life.  I often realize that the most important thing I can do is just to be caring and fair.  I have succeeded in providing a safe, comfortable, respectful and mostly normal place for them practice their profession as they grow and choose new pathways in life.  Like we observed earlier, the Nevada legal brothel model works.  It achieves its objectives.


Condom Use

On page 43, Farley says, “Amazingly, a great deal of research shows that johns frequently do not use condoms.  Eighty-nine percent of Canadian customers of prostitutes refused condoms in one study……”

“An economic analysis of condom use in a brothel area of eastern India found that when women insisted on condoms, they were paid 66%-79% less by johns…….”

“Although signs are posted inside and outside Nevada brothels stating that johns are required to use condoms, there is no enforcement of this policy………”

Of course, Farley uses studies from Canada and India to suggest that condoms aren’t used in the Nevada legal brothels either.  Actually, the truth is that the requirement to use condoms is one of the main reasons that working girls choose the legal industry over the illegal alternatives.  In the illegal venues they have a lot more pressure from customers to not use condoms.  In the legal industry they can tell the customers that the State requires the use of condoms and that they can lose their license if they don’t use them.  According to the girls, this works.

I know from taking the girls shopping at Walmart and also watching the number of condoms we go through that we’ve purchased that all of the girls use condoms.  Also, if girl A doesn’t use condoms, the customers will complain to girl B that she should also not use condoms because girl A doesn’t.  (Not using condoms to the girls is a “dirty hustle.”)  Girl B then complains to me that I should fire girl A.  Usually it turns out that it is the guy who is telling girl B a story to try to get her to not use condoms.  But remember, it’s a women’s house, and all of the girls insist on condom use for their own safety.

Remember I said that the State does epidemiological tracing on any medical tests which don’t come up clean?  One of the reasons you know that the girls have to be using condoms is that if they weren’t, they would be contracting gonorrhea or chlamydia from customers on a fairly regular basis.  The State epidemiologists are tenacious and very serious, and if one particular working girl showed up with multiple problems from customers, she would be banned by the State.  I’ve never seen an instance of this, although I did see one instance in which the State got very testy over multiple problems from a boyfriend.  The girl had to get special permission from both the State and the Sheriff’s Department to continue.  Instances in which the girls catch something from their boyfriend are caught when she goes to the doctor before being able to return to work.  The system works. 

Also, in my experience over 11 years and close to 50,000 parties, there has been only one instance in which a working girl caught something form a customer as a result of a condom break.  When condoms break (which is rare) the women are checked immediately by the doctor which often includes a morning after pill.

It seems clear to me that the perfect record the legal industry has thus far experienced with having zero incidences of HIV in 21 years is a result of the requirement for the women to use latex condoms.  For Farley to say that a significant number of the working girls don’t use condoms or that the requirement for condom use is not enforced is simply wrong.  Again, she made it up.


Size of the Legal Industry

On page 12, Farley says:    Legal prostitution’s reputation far exceeds its reality.  Legal prostitution is only 10% of all prostitution in the state.  Most prostitution in Nevada, including all prostitution in Las Vegas, is illegal.  Prostitution is legal only in some of Nevada’s rural counties which are located away from the state’s two main population centers, Reno and Las Vegas.

She’s right.  Our reputation far exceeds its reality.  Actually, she picked up a couple of sources which have said that legal is 10% of illegal.  Actually, I did some of my own estimates related to estimated total industry sales, total estimated industry value, and average total industry girls working at one time and estimate that the legal industry is really only about 2% of the illegal activity.  Wow, that indicates that we’re even more insignificant than Farley originally said.  However, we’re small as a percentage not because the legal side is small per se but because the illegal side is so huge!  For the size of illegal activity in Las Vegas I used some news reports plus some figures quoted by a member of the Las Vegas metro’s vice squad at one of our Brothel Association meetings in Las Vegas a few years ago.

All throughout the book Farley blames the size of the illegal industry and the transgressions of the illegal industry mostly in Las Vegas on the existence or aura of the legal industry.  It’s as if you made the legal industry illegal, Las Vegas would go away.  It’s obvious that such an assertion is ludicrous.  Las Vegas doesn’t pay any attention whatsoever to the legal brothels out in the countryside any more than Las Vegas pays towards the political issues in the “cow counties.”  I’m not being critical, but Las Vegas only cares about itself.  Case in point, how Clark County would like to appropriate all of the water of White Pine County (Ely) and pipe it to Las Vegas. 

When compared to the Las Vegas strip clubs, massage parlors, escort services, street girls and girls working in casinos, the legal brothels in Nevada’s rural counties are totally insignificant and inconsequential.  The legal industry does not influence the illegal activity whatsoever.

So Farley and her feminist activist friends are merely after the legal brothels because we are an easy target, and they would consider our closure a moral victory.  They need to get us out of the way before they attack all activities which are already illegal. 


Advertising of the Illegal Las Vegas Business

On page 148, Farley notes that advertising for strip clubs, massage, entertainment and escort services totals 165 pages in 2006 and 173 pages in 2007.  This is probably correct, as it was approaching 130 pages last time I counted the escort service ads.

On page 151, she says that yellow page, print and internet advertising for illegal advertising totals $26.5 million.  This also sounds reasonable to me.

It has always amazed me that all the illegal businesses could advertise in the Las Vegas media when the legal brothels couldn’t.  It seems crazy, but traditionally the Las Vegas media would accept no advertising from legal brothels.  This will probably change with the recent court case which struck down the State’s prohibition against legal brothel advertising.  The case has gone up to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but it seems obvious to everyone that brothels are constitutionally able to advertise based upon the First Amendment right to freedom of commercial speech.

Incidentally, it was the official position of the Brothel Association that we did not want the State law challenged.  It was challenged by one brothel owner, some newspaper interests, and our attorney who was interested in the case from the perspective of the ACLU.  The Brothel Association did not want the law changed because we don’t want to see a proliferation of brothel billboard advertising across the state.  The former State law, helped us limit such advertising which most of us view as harmful to our image.

The legal industry is so insignificant overall that we couldn’t possibly have any influence over what happens or doesn’t happen with illegal activities in Las Vegas.  Still, while we are insignificant compared to Las Vegas, we are very significant and very important to the small communities in which we live.




Study at University of Nevada at Reno

Farley’s chapter on the Attitudes of Men at University of Nevada, Reno is a disturbing and worthless chapter.

On page 73, Farley says, “We investigated the impact of Nevada legal prostitution on the attitudes and behaviors of college-aged men toward women.  The legal sexualized objectification of women in brothels is likely to have an impact on the community, especially on men’s relationships with and attitudes towards women.  The objectification of women and of sex itself is integral to many men’s definitions of masculinity.  Nonetheless, these beliefs impair men’s ability to relate to women as equals, and therefore their ability to form and maintain intimate relationships with women.”  ……….

“Rape myths and prostitution myths are components of these culturally supported attitudes that normalize violence against women…….Prostitution myths justify the existence of prostitution, promote misinformation about prostitution, and contribute to a social climate that exploits and harms not only prostituted women but all women.”

“We wondered if a cultural environment in which women were legally for sale in prostitution would affect the college students’ attitudes toward prostitution, toward rape, and their attitudes toward women in general.”

“We found significant differences between the attitudes of the Reno students toward prostitution and those of other college students.”

Of course there was a significant difference between Reno students and other college students.  The difference was legal vs. illegal.  They are entirely different.

The Reno students were referring to legal prostitution when they answered their survey questions.  The other students were in other states where they automatically would be referring to illegal prostitution.

Farley failed to control for the differences between legal and illegal prostitution because she defines them to be the same.  Therefore, in this case, her definition caused the failure of her study!

On page 176, she continues:     “The Reno students significantly more often endorsed beliefs that prostitution is a normal activity which should be mainstreamed, such as “There is nothing wrong with prostitution,” “Prostitution should be treated no differently than any other business,”  “Prostitution should be legalized,” or “decriminalized.”……..

Of course they felt that legalized and controlled prostitution is a normal activity and should be mainstreamed, just like any other business, and they should be treated no differently than any other business……

Farley makes the insinuation that the UNR undergrads’ minds have been polluted by the existence of legal brothels in many of their hometowns.  Just like she gives the working girls no credit for being able to think for themselves, she gives the UNR men no credit for being able to make judgments about society.  She assumes that their attitudes are wrong by definition.  Instead their attitudes are correct because they grew up around legal brothels with no problems.  It’s Farley’s preconceived attitudes that are wrong.  Hopefully these same young men will grow up to become Nevada legislators who will protect us from misguided feminists like Farley!


Legal Brothels’ Effect Upon Illegal Prostitution

On page 13, Farley says, “Legal prostitution creates a ‘culture of prostitution’ in the state that is fostered or tolerated by politicians, developers, and the entertainment industry.  A sex industry the size of that in Nevada exists because of political and judicial corruption and a willingness to tolerate organized crime including domestically organized motorcycle gangs and internationally organized Armenian, Russian, Israeli, Mexican, Korean, and Chinese criminals.  Revenue from prostitution generated by international criminal networks has been connected to weapons trafficking.”

Farley now takes the leap into the bizarre.  The poor little dilapidated country brothels are now responsible for political and judicial corruption and toleration of all kinds of foreign and domestic gangs, which then leads to our being responsible for world wars and weapons trafficking!  This is absurd.

Throughout her book and on her website Farley has taken the absurd position that the existence of legal brothels tends to increase the incidence of illegal prostitution.  This makes no sense.

Or she says that the “culture or aura” of legal brothels has a tendency to increase illegal activities.  This is crazy.

The sex-related activities in Las Vegas are so big and pervasive that they have reached critical mass, and the existence of the legal brothels have nothing to do with their size or operation.

The sex environment in Las Vegas is so different from and so much broader than the legal brothels and there is so much geographical separation between them that neither has much effect on the other (with respect to Las Vegas.)  With respect to Reno, I think it is highly likely that the existence of Old Bridge and Wildhorse significantly decrease the incidence of illegal prostitution in Reno.  Certainly, when I think of the crowds at Reno’s Hot August Nights car show, the Rolling Thunder motorcycle event or the Reno Air Races I believe that street and escort prostitution would be a lot greater if the participants weren’t running out to the legal brothels. 

But Farley says that the existence of the legal brothels increases the incidence of massage parlors, street walkers and escort services.  This concept is backwards.  It is simply not true.

In Wells, Elko, Carlin, Winnemucca, Ely and Battle Mountain there are no street walkers because of the brothels.  There are almost no massage parlors, and the escort services are mostly real escort services and not the outcall services typical of Las Vegas.  Because of the existence of the brothels, there are no lot lizards at the rural truck stops.  If there were no brothels, then there certainly would be lot lizards at the truck stops along with their pimps, drug dealers and problems. 

Everyone knows that when Mustang was closed the number of street walkers on