Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (49 page)

In its attempt to simply preserve the existing brothel system rather than initiating changes more favorable to owners, workers, and the industry, the association believes that keeping quiet is strategically best. Customers can have their sexual needs met safely and efficiently, as long as it remains a largely hidden exchange. Geoff Arnold, President of the NBA, sums it up nicely on the NBA’s homepage (http://www.nvlb.com/president.htm): We have a wild, wonderful, and very dynamic industry. . . . The industry is life itself, and it is a living remnant of the Old West. . . . Of course there were always the working ladies helping to make the world a better, brighter, warmer, and more human place. They deserve more thanks and recognition than they ever receive, for they were and are an important part of our communities and lives.

The fundamental law of the Old West was a “Live and Let Live Attitude.” It still exists and it is a large part of what makes Nevada a unique and special place. If what your neighbor does or thinks doesn’t hurt you, then you leave him be. As the uniqueness of cultures of our Americas fade into sameness and political correctness such that even Southern accents fade away, I am so thankful that Nevada retains some lasting character of the Old West. It is an endearing and fragile virtue.

Before legalization, many of the owners were women, as it was considered inappropriate for anyone other than a woman to run the business. Since legalization, brothels are more likely to be run by men and the biggest brothels are more likely run by partnerships or corporations. For years, many
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owners were descendants of or trained by Joe Conforte and Sally Burgess.

While many of these owners have now left the business, much of the traditional brothel culture remains; among the remnants is an old-timer mentality that sees the industry as endangered by outsiders coming into the business just to “make a buck.” They maintain brothels need to fly low, under the radar. These corporate businesses bring in a more corporate and bureau-cratic model of selling sex. They see the brothels as a natural continuation of the wide and growing array of legal, adult sexually oriented businesses, and increasingly manage the women, the informal house rules, their business practices, and customer relations in ways that make their brothels much more like other service and leisure industry businesses. To paraphrase Dennis Hof discussing his dreams for the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, “We want to be the McDonald’s of sex” and although he said that McDonald’s is too low class a comparison, he embraced the analogy.

Some in the industry—including George Flint—have a wary acceptance of corporate presence in the industry. Flint referred to one newcomer who had previously been a condominium developer:

He scared me to death because he wanted to operate it like a regular business.

Conforte says these new people don’t know the business. . . . In some ways, when you see a business run by a square, it puts us on edge. The delicateness, the sensitiveness, the tenuousness of it. Aggressive marketing frightens us all. . . .

They jeopardize their ability to survive and make legislators very nervous.28

Increasingly, newer owners talk of the business as if it is similar to any other small business, except for being more delicate and perhaps more precarious in its legal standing. These owners are pushing for a more bureaucratized workplace. One owner of a very small brothel reported that his biggest labor complaint is that the women “don’t take a business approach to their work. They get absorbed in the party and don’t work the bar as well as they could. There is a tendency for them to make only the dates they are comfortable making and not really hustle.” By the same token, owners and managers of larger, more modern brothels see the opposite trend: the women working for their brothel are increasingly business savvy, and some even market themselves as a brand.

The NBA’s charismatic leadership by George Flint, its inability to mobilize all brothels, its deference to local needs rather than long-term collective needs or federal trends, and a prevailing attitude of quiet compliance to conserve the status quo all attest to an ongoing Old West attitude. At the same time, the organization faces challenges from newer, modern brothel
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owners whose business model is less an old-time saloon than a more global, touristic commodity to be marketed and sold to a broad and diverse clientele.

C O N C L U S I O N

We draw four major conclusions. First, it is clear that the legal brothels of Nevada are in the midst of transition from an Old West small business model, to a business enterprise that looks and operates ever more like other mainstream leisure and service industry. That many regulations differ among counties attests to the power of local tradition and the influence of charismatic community leaders. The persistence of restrictions on brothel owners and workers that would be rejected as unfair and unconstitutional for other legal businesses exemplifies the Old West pattern of local norms governing business enterprises. In sum, the structure of the brothel industry is still partially characterized by the culture of the Old West.

This is the anachronism: brothels still exist in Nevada because they have a rich history that has been ensconced in the rural economies and culture of the Old West. This tradition has normalized brothel prostitution, allowing it to persist even in the changing context of the postindustrial economy, the growing metropolitan sensibility and tourist market, and the modernizing culture of the New West. In some of these smaller towns, brothels seem to fit more comfortably in the Old West than the global late capitalist marketplace.

And yet changes such as the emergence of the Nevada Brothel Association, the influx of outside business interests into the brothel industry, the new business practices introduced by corporate owners, the changing tourist market and the increase in state oversight through the State Health Department regulations have all contributed to the apparent adaptation of brothels to the contemporary economic and cultural climate in Nevada. Further, we argue that the brothel industry in Nevada is beginning to use similar marketing strategies and business forms to other tourist service industries. The brothels are increasingly selling individualized, interactive touristic experiences: workers sell their services in a regulated context, but they are encouraged to do so in ways that are unique, fill market niches, and make customers feel absolutely individual, special and emotionally connected.29 Increasingly exporting the images and messages of the brothels to distant markets, via advertising, TV shows, more sophisticated marketing efforts, and cross-industry pollination by expanding into other legal sex industry businesses are all new practices that move the brothels out of the dusty mirage of the Nevada desert and closer to the mainstream of modern touristic economies and
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commodity cultures. The irony is that this same heightened visibility that is now helping to sustain many of the large brothels by becoming more like other service industry sectors also makes Nevada brothel prostitution a potential target for antiprostitution activists.

Second, the brothel industry had not previously been integrated into the larger service economy or with other components of the legal sex industry, but that is changing. While smaller, rural brothels remain largely invisible and localized enterprises, the larger and more urban brothels are increasingly visible, verbal, and strategic in their external marketing and internal business practices, helping to mainstream them into the leisure industry. Although the brothel industry is quite separate from other types of sexually oriented businesses for several reasons, connections are developing. Other adult businesses, such as gentlemen’s clubs, adult book/video stores, adult toy stores, and phone/cybersex operations, often defend their status as legal businesses on the basis that they do not sell actual sexual contact. This means that building alliances with brothels, even though they are legal in Nevada, may tarnish the image of adult businesses operating in regions where prostitution is illegal and stigmatized. Adult businesses also compete with brothels, and the competition would increase were brothel prostitution legalized in Reno and Las Vegas. Despite this, some brothel owners are cross-fertilizing their brothel business with other legal adult businesses (for example strip clubs, Internet sex sites, and adult film production).

Third, it is clear that the historical marginalization of legal prostitution has been a response to the conventional sexual norms and values that permeate American society writ large. The brothel industry recognizes the tensions and risks inherent in selling sex. To survive, in the past brothels thought that they must remain quiet and invisible, be as innocuous as possible, and do business in highly traditional ways. Given recent changes in the larger economy and culture of Nevada, the U.S. and the global commercial marketplace, a new reality has emerged for brothel owners and supporters. Quiet, quaint, and remote is no longer the recipe for the brothels’ survival. Now, the strategy for larger brothels seems to be to adopt a business model that embraces the ways of touristic cultures and leisure economies: to package and sell unique experiences (with memorabilia and souvenirs to boot), sexual encounters laden with emotional labor, and individualized service—or the appearance thereof—

all in a safely sexualized space, for workers and customers alike.

That said, there remains widespread resistance to establishing brothels that cater to nontraditional clients or sexual services. For example, a few years ago an entrepreneur interested in opening an all-male gay brothel in Pahrump was discouraged as it was seen as too politically controversial. Likewise, nearly
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every brothel owner scoffed at the idea of staffing male prostitutes to service heterosexual women. While a few county ordinances explicitly prohibit hiring male prostitutes in brothels, in many parts of Nevada the absence of male brothel prostitutes is more a product of tradition and gender role stereotypes (men cannot perform on demand; women do not have the money or desire for sex, or they can get it for free).

Finally, based on all of this, we argue that the Nevada brothel industry is in the midst of an historical transition. Rooted in the Old West but facing the challenges of a highly sexualized commercial culture throughout the United States and, indeed, much of the world, the traditional Nevada brothel system has been at a crossroads. Finding the status quo increasingly untenable for workers, owners and clients, there has been notable change in the industry.

From owners defending their right to advertise in order to remain economically viable, to generating links between the brothels and other sexualized entertainment and leisure industries (the Moonlite Bunny Ranch’s ongoing series,
Cathouse
, on the HBO television channel; the owners of Sherri’s Ranch running a strip club and a racy ultralounge in Las Vegas, etc.), the brothel industry is beginning to use strategies and business practices that are much more like those in other service and leisure industries. Although Nevada gaming interests remain generally opposed to legal prostitution, there is little argument that American culture generally, and Las Vegas’ tourist culture specifically, has become highly sexualized and sex is used to sell an endless array of goods, services and experiences. The gap between the brothel industry and other legitimate business enterprises narrows. But, as the composition of the state legislature changes over time—with fewer and fewer of the old guard who helped legalize prostitution involved in Nevada politics—and the Nevada Brothel Association continues to experience tension and divisiveness, the brothel industry does not have the luxury of overconfidence.

The integration of brothels into their communities, a state tradition that permits the sale of sexual services, the profitability of the brothels for savvy owners and the cities or counties in which they operate, clients’ demand for safe, legal, and personalized commercial sexual encounters, and the promise of potentially lucrative employment options for women who choose to prostitute, are all powerful forces supporting the continued existence of legal prostitution. But to survive, brothels will need to continually adapt to the imperatives of the global tourist economy and sexualized consumer landscape, and behave as if they are legitimate businesses deserving the same opportunities and regulations as any other businesses. This is likely to improve work conditions and employment options for working women, as well as close the gap between Nevada’s unique brothel industry and other mainstream leisure
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businesses and service industries. As such, it is not useful to examine the sex industry as generalized “other” to mainstream businesses; as a simple, anachronistic, Old West patriarchal institution; or as a local oddity or exotic site. To capture the complexities and shifting realities of the Nevada brothel industry requires nothing less than a rethinking of these legal businesses in a larger framework: one in which federal politics matters as much as state, and in which legal brothels are embedded in the global market of adult commercial services. The terms of this analysis must consider how the transition away from an Old West model may simultaneously solve some problems for working women and for the brothels, while generating others.

N OTE S

The authors thank Crystal Jackson and Jennifer Heineman for their invaluable assistance.

1. William Reibsame, ed.,
Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing
Region
, New York: Norton, 1997. See also Hal Rothman,
Devil’s Bargains:
Tourism in the Twentieth Century West
, Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998.

2. Exceptions include John Galliher and John Cross,
Morals Legislation
Without Morals: The Case of Nevada
, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983; Ellen Pillard, “Legal Prostitution: Is It Just?”