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Nevada is special among the U.S.
states in that it is the only one with legal prostitution: it allows
heavily regulated brothel prostitution in some of its counties.
Legal situation
All Nevada counties except the biggest one (Clark
County which contains Las Vegas) are allowed to legalize and regulate brothel
prostitution if they so choose. Incorporated towns and cities in counties that allow prostitution may regulate the trade further
or prohibit it altogether.
As of January 2003, prostitution is illegal in Carson City, Washoe County, Douglas County and Lincoln
County. Eureka County neither permits nor prohibits
brothels and does not have any. The other 11 counties permit licensed brothels in certain specified areas or cities.
The precise licensing requirements vary from county to county. License fees for brothels range from an annual $100,000 in
Storey County to an annual $200 in Lander County. In order to be licensed, prostitutes have to be
at least 21 years old, except in Storey County and
Lyon County, where the legal age is 18.
State law requires that registered brothel prostitutes are checked weekly for several sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for
HIV; furthermore, condoms are mandatory for all
oral sex and sexual
intercourse. Brothel owners are held liable if customers become infected with HIV after a
prostitute has tested positive for the virus (NRS 041.1397 ).
Nevada has laws against engaging in prostitution outside of licensed brothels, against encouraging others to become
prostitutes, and against living off the proceeds of a prostitute. All of these behaviors are quite common, however. Brothels are
also not allowed to advertise their services in counties where brothel prostitution is illegal.
The legal brothels
All in all, about 30 legal brothels existed in the state in January 2004, employing about 300 prostitutes at any given time.
All but the smallest ones operate as follows: as the customer is buzzed in and sits down in the parlor, the available women
appear in a line-up and introduce themselves. If the customer chooses a woman, the price negotiations take place in the women's
room, often overheard by the management with an intercom system. The house normally gets half of the money. Typical prices start
at $100 and average about $200 for half an hour of intercourse
and oral sex.
Brothel prostitutes work as independent contractors and thus do not receive any unemployment, retirement or health benefits.
They are responsible for paying their own taxes, which many neglect. They typically work for a period of several weeks, during
which time they live in the brothel and hardly ever leave it. They then take some time off. It has been argued that the tight
control that brothels exert over the working conditions precludes the women from legally being classified as independent
contractors.
Since 1986, when mandatory testing began, not a single brothel prostitute has ever tested positive for HIV. The mandatory
condom law was passed in 1988. A study conducted 1995 in two brothels found that condom use in the brothels is consistent and
sexually transmitted diseases are accordingly absent. Few of the prostitutes use condoms in their private lives, however.
Illegal prostitution
Prostitution outside licensed brothels is a misdemeanor in Nevada.
The big casino towns Reno and Las Vegas have tried to attain a family-friendly image by cracking down on the once-rampant
street prostitution. Prostitutes continue to work in casinos, where they wait in bars and attempt to make contact with single
males. Escort services offering sexual services are ubiquitous, with about 140 pages of the Las Vegas yellow pages devoted to
"entertainers".
History
Brothels had been tolerated in Nevada since the middle of the 19th
century. One brothel in Elko has been in business since 1902. In 1937, a law was enacted to require weekly health checks of
all prostitutes. Reno and Las Vegas had red light districts,
when Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered the suppression of all
prostitution near military bases in 1942. When this order was lifted in 1948, Reno officials tried to shut down a brothel as a public nuisance, and this action was upheld
by the Nevada Supreme Court in 1949. In 1951, both Reno and Las Vegas had closed their red light districts as public nuisances,
but brothels continued to exist throughout the state.
In 1970, Joe Conforte, owner of the brothel called Mustang
Ranch near Reno, managed to convince county officials to pass an
ordinance which would provide for the licensing of brothels and prostitutes, thus avoiding the threat of being closed down as a
public nuisance.
Officials in Las Vegas, afraid that Conforte would use the same trick to open a brothel nearby, convinced the legislature in
1971 to pass a law prohibiting the legalization of prostitution in counties with a population above a certain threshold, taylored
to apply only to Clark County (NRS 244.345 ).
In 1977, county officials in Nye County tried to shut down
Walter Plankinton's
Chicken Ranch as a public nuisance; brothels did not have to be licensed
in that county at the time, and several others were operating. Plankinton filed suit, claiming that the 1971 state law had
implicitely removed the assumption that brothels are public nuisances per se.
The Nevada Supreme Court agreed with this interpretation in 1978 (Nye County v. Plankinton, 94 Nev. 739, 587 P.2d 421
(1978)), and so the Chicken Ranch was allowed to operate. In another case, brothel owners in Lincoln County protested when the
county outlawed prostitution in 1978, after having issued licenses for 7 years. The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the county
had the right to do so (Kuban v. McGimsey 96 Nev. 105, 110 (1980) ).
The state law prohibiting the advertising of brothels in counties which have outlawed prostitution was enacted in 1979; it was
promptly challenged on First Amendment grounds. The Nevada Supreme
Court declared it to be constitutional (Princess Sea
Industries, Inc., v. State, 97 Nev. 534; 635 P.2d 281 (1981) ). (Princess Sea
Industries was Plankinton's company that owned the Chicken Ranch.)
Several towns enacted rules prohibiting local brothel prostitutes from frequenting local bars or casinos or associating with
local men outside of work. After the filing of a lawsuit in 1984, these regulations had to be abandoned, but as a result of
collaboration between sheriffs and brothel owners, they remain in effect unofficially. For instance, most brothels do not allow
the prostitutes to leave the premises during their work shifts of several days to several weeks.
Politics
Occasionally, conservative Republican lawmakers attempt to introduce legislation outlawing all prostitution in Nevada.
These efforts are typically supported by owners of casinos and other large businesses,
claiming that legalized prostitution harms the state's image. The Nevada Brothel Owners' Association, led by George
Flynt, a minister from Reno, lobbies against these laws. Their typical arguments are "this should best be left to local
government" and "it is safer regulated than unregulated". Rural lawmakers normally oppose these laws as well, since legal brothel
prostitution provides a significant amount of income for some poor counties.
One particularly colorful opponent of legalized prostitution in Nevada is John Reese. Initially arguing on moral and religious
grounds, he switched to health hazard tactics, but had to back down in the face of a threatened libel suit. In 1994, he tried to
get a license for a gay brothel in a thinly veiled attempt to galvanize opposition against all brothels. Then in 1999 he staged
his own kidnapping near the Mustang Ranch. His efforts to collect signatures in order to repeal the prostitution laws have
failed.
Organizations supporting the rights of prostitutes typically favor deregulation and oppose Nevada-style regulation, mainly
because of three reasons:
- the licensing requirements create a permanent record which can lead to discrimination later on;
- the large power difference between brothel owner and prostitute gives prostitutes virtually no influence on their working
conditions;
- while prostitutes undergo legal and health background checks, their customers do not; the regulations are thus designed to
protect customers, not prostitutes.
A poll conducted in Nevada in 2002 found that 52% of the 600 respondents favored the status quo of legal and regulated
brothels, while 31% were against laws that allow prostitution and the remainder were undecided or did not offer an opinion. The
trend seems to be that new arrivals to Nevada tend to oppose legal prostitution while long-time Nevadans tend to support the
status quo.
Trivia
Crystal near Pahrump has a somewhat limited brothel art museum associated with some
local brothels.
References
- Albert, Alexa, "Brothel. Mustang Ranch and its Women". Random House 2001. ISBN 0375503315
- Alexa E. Albert, David Lee Warner, and Robert A. Hatcher: "Facilitating Condom Use with Clients during Commercial Sex in
Nevada's Legal Brothels", American Journal of Public Health, 88(4), 1998, pages 643-646, online abstract
- Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale and Jacqueline Lewis, "Escort Services In A Border Town" , Literature and Policy Summary Windsor:
University of Windsor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, 1999. Study containing a section on prostitution in Nevada.
- The Louvre of Libido , Las Vegas Review
Journal, June 20, 1999. Report about a visit to the brothel museum in Crystal.
See also
External links
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