Nevada's brothels get tough look

[iblosted]

whats the problem ?? there was hookers in the old bible days, and there here now, and will always be. get of thier backs, every one has a right to make a living. sheesh .

[Thais]

Rich wrote:

The women make fantastic money, but what of the emotional and psychological cost to them? No amount of money will ever be able to cover that cost.

That is YOUR opinion. And it is true for some women. Not for all.

And if I choose to escort, it is MY choice. To all of you who think of prostitution as degrading or disgusting, please stop denying us agency and ability to make choices as well as take responsibility fot them.

There women there who choose sex work out of multiple other options, and sometimes, as an addition to those options. Not out of desperation.

And it is thanks to your prejudice that we are facing the need for double lives, often hiding our occupation from friends and relatives. Because I would need to spend a lot of time aducating them on the realities of consensual sex work, and then giving them time to come to terms with it before I could ever come out of the closet.

[Thais]

sorry for typos... I did not proof read my message as well as I thought...

[Looken]

Thais wrote:

<quoted text>
That is YOUR opinion. And it is true for some women. Not for all.
And if I choose to escort, it is MY choice. To all of you who think of prostitution as degrading or disgusting, please stop denying us agency and ability to make choices as well as take responsibility fot them.
There women there who choose sex work out of multiple other options, and sometimes, as an addition to those options. Not out of desperation.
And it is thanks to your prejudice that we are facing the need for double lives, often hiding our occupation from friends and relatives. Because I would need to spend a lot of time aducating them on the realities of consensual sex work, and then giving them time to come to terms with it before I could ever come out of the closet.

You did just fine Thais.... and I totally agree with your post ...typos and all.

[Ferd]

Interesting... I visit Nevada at least twice a year, have for 20 + years, and have spent time at the brothels every visit. I don't know where this "researcher" gets her information, but I can say that the ladies come and go at will, live in excellent conditions, and those who I keep in contact with after they retire tell me that they look fondly at their time there. Are there exceptions? Hell yes. There are a couple "rural" houses out in the desert, and a couple outside Las Vegas that treat their ladies "badly". BUT, ask almost any working lady in the state about them, and you will get an earfull. They are well known and avoided by anyone (customer or lady) who has any clue.

[Anon]

castanea wrote:

Who's the idiot now? Apparently, Anon is. The link s/he provided includes this conclusion:
"Thus, the findings do not support the notion of a direct causal link between childhood victimization, becoming a runaway, and in turn being arrested for prostitution."
Ah, the wonders of actually reading what one links to.

Please. The study showed no direct link between becoming a runaway and becoming a prostitute. That is all. See here:

"That is, being arrested as an adolescent runaway does not
predispose people who were sexually abused as children to be arrested for prostitution as adults."
The link betwen sexual abuse as a minor and arrest for prostitution as an adult still stands as I posted earlier.

[Anon]

Ya want more?

2/3 of prostitutes were sexually abused from the ages of 3-16.(The average age of victimization was 10).

http://www.icasa.org/uploads/prostitution.pdf

[Steve]

I find it very interesting how the comments on all these posts very quickly degenerates to arguments ad hominem very quickly on both sides of the issue. I am reminded of Adalai Stevenson's reply to a comment from a debate rival that "I have a right to my opinion." Stevenson's reply was "but you do not have a right to make up your own facts." All of this is a reminder that a democracy to work requires a well informed citizenry, not a citizenry so ignorant of the rules of logic and debate that they can be manipulated by emotionally based propoganda.

[Thais]

Steve wrote:

I find it very interesting how the comments on all these posts very quickly degenerates to arguments ad hominem very quickly on both sides of the issue. I am reminded of Adalai Stevenson's reply to a comment from a debate rival that "I have a right to my opinion." Stevenson's reply was "but you do not have a right to make up your own facts." All of this is a reminder that a democracy to work requires a well informed citizenry, not a citizenry so ignorant of the rules of logic and debate that they can be manipulated by emotionally based propoganda.

Those words are golden.
And herein the problem with the issue of prostitution.
Too few reliable facts. Too little reliable research.

There has been a lot of reserach done on street walkers, women in shelters. The segment that has the worst experiences and conditions and wants out.
The reserach among medium and higher end of the industry is too little and too unreliable. How do you even get a truly representative sample when people are scared by both criminalization and stigma and potential consequenes? I believe English sociologists and criminologists have been working on this and I have seen several papers addressing indoor workers. But still, not enough.

All we have are facts from differing studies none of which represent different population and only taken all together they may shed some light on the issue. As well as anecdotal evidence that differs drammatically. For the voices of educated women in the industry who have chosen to stay in sex work, feel free to google "bound not gagged", "sex work", SWOP and Desiree Alliance and check out the links.

[Michael Goodyear]

Thais is of course correct that it is the criminal stigma placed on women (and men) who provide sexual services that they find hardest to cope with, and serves no purpose other to marginalise people, many of who are already disadvantaged.

As noted, discussions around commercial sex produce a lot of opinions based on myths and not facts.

This is actually a reasonably balanced article, except that Scharnberg gives prominence to Melissa Farley and her self published books, but not to the mainstream scientific research. Barbara Brents and Kate Hausbeck provide support for all of the statements made by the workers and management in the article and their research can be found here:
http://jiv.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2...

Michael Goodyear, Dalhousie University, Halifax

[Michael Goodyear]

Sorry, I was not logged in!

[LES]

Some of you are very foolish in your opinions. At its base, prostitution is about sex. Do you wish to outlaw sex, because this is the only way to get rid of prostitution. Today there will be sex between men and women. Secretaries will climb into the sack with their bosses. High school students will sneak into the backseats of cars on back roads. A man and a woman will meet in a bar and fall all over each other. Oh, is it the multiple partners of prostitutes that bothers you? Some men brag and are esteemed by theier friends for walking into bars and picking up women at will. I have known women who are proud of their ability to snag any man they want, regardless of marriage status. Prostitutes are not doing anything that millions of other Americans won't be doing tonight. Oh, you don't like them getting paid! Let's see, some guy will pick up a woman in a bar. He might buy her drinks and pay for dinner, maybe even a movie. He might even buy her a nice present after the act. I'm not saying all men do this. But it does happen. This is legal. But the women that takes straight cash is a criminal; and she might be getting less cash value than the previous mentioned guy. C'mon people, prostitution exists an many form, legal and illegal. The difference is those women strictly doing sex for money and that pretend sex is the issue and not money. No, I an not claiming all women are whores; I claim that punishing prostitutes is hypocritical and unfair based on all the other sex taking place.

[Looken]

LES wrote:

Some of you are very foolish in your opinions. At its base, prostitution is about sex. Do you wish to outlaw sex, because this is the only way to get rid of prostitution. Today there will be sex between men and women. Secretaries will climb into the sack with their bosses. High school students will sneak into the backseats of cars on back roads. A man and a woman will meet in a bar and fall all over each other. Oh, is it the multiple partners of prostitutes that bothers you? Some men brag and are esteemed by theier friends for walking into bars and picking up women at will. I have known women who are proud of their ability to snag any man they want, regardless of marriage status. Prostitutes are not doing anything that millions of other Americans won't be doing tonight. Oh, you don't like them getting paid! Let's see, some guy will pick up a woman in a bar. He might buy her drinks and pay for dinner, maybe even a movie. He might even buy her a nice present after the act. I'm not saying all men do this. But it does happen. This is legal. But the women that takes straight cash is a criminal; and she might be getting less cash value than the previous mentioned guy. C'mon people, prostitution exists an many form, legal and illegal. The difference is those women strictly doing sex for money and that pretend sex is the issue and not money. No, I an not claiming all women are whores; I claim that punishing prostitutes is hypocritical and unfair based on all the other sex taking place.

Well said Les! Couldn't agree with you more.

[Richard Roe]

Like Demark, it's better to have it out in the open and monitored, and taxed. This is a realistic approach that agrees that the ancient practice is never going to go away, so why not keep an eye on it and make $ on it, rather than have it cost society money to treat it as a crime.

[Tennessee Libertarian]

Prostitution should be legal in every state. The state governments should regulate it and tax it heavily. The tax revenues could solve much of their financial woes and help provide better education and health care to their residents.

[FrenchKiss]

Feminista wrote:

First of all, prostitution is not a PROFESSION and second of all with that attitude, we'd still have slavery because someone could say..wait for it...slavery has been going on for a long time and still exists. Prostitution can be ended if more men were willing to treat women as full human beings instead of sex objects.

When the 13th Amendment was passed abolishing slavery, it did not make it a crime to work on a farm or become a cook, maid or other house servant. So why would you insist on outlawing all forms of prostitution and not just when it is forced?

You may find this hard to believe, but many women prefer having sex with strangers (even icky ones) for $200+ dollars an hour than scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. Not that cleaning bathrooms is the only other option, but I don't see anyone arguing about how debasing that sort of work is- especially given the low pay.

[Looken]

Richard Roe wrote:

Like Demark, it's better to have it out in the open and monitored, and taxed. This is a realistic approach that agrees that the ancient practice is never going to go away, so why not keep an eye on it and make $ on it, rather than have it cost society money to treat it as a crime.

I swear Richard, after the past 6.10 years, if I didn't have kids in the United States I'd move to Holland or Denmark and take up residence. Either the United States is becoming insufferably close minded, or the neo-cons control the media. But I agree with you 1000%.

[someone]

What I do not understand is this.

If many men believe that prostitution should be legal and is in fact better than the gold digger who takes but put out erratically, the stay at home mom who lives off her husbands incomes, the professional woman who makes as much as the man but still wants dates paid for…..then why do prostitutes have such a lowly reputation among men? They're beaten, robbed, raped and the very word whore is just spat out with utter derision by men. I can see why women wouldn’t like them but wouldn’t men hold them on the same plane of esteem as "mother" or "nun"? According to lots of men the prostitutes are providing a very much needed service with a cut and dry transaction

I mean, shouldn't "whore" be something akin to "saint" then?

[iblosted]

get a life, let nv, do as nv does, sheesh

[Bree]

I am a former prostitute from Nevada's legal brothel system. I am not sure where Ms Farley got her information. It is inaccurate on almost every point. I personally know "Love" and can tell you she is a very successful businesswoman. I was never fed from a slot in the door or locked in my room. I did pay the owner half of what I made and that was agreed upon before I went to work there. I was never raped, sexually harassed or molested in any way. I left the business the day I chose to and have never worked there again. I was treated with more respect and dignity than I ever have been working for the US government.

I realize this probably doesn't make my feminist sisters very happy but I found it to be a very empowering situation. I have worked city, state and federal government positions most of my adult life and I very much enjoyed my adventure in Legal Prostitution in Nevada.