by Alexa Albert
As I listened to Irene explain the terms to Eva, I reflected on their inequity. Owners got away with not paying employee-related federal and local taxes or social security, and making the women tip brothel staff kept other labor costs down. At the same time, as independent contractors, women lost out on employee benefits ranging from health insurance and sick leave to disability insurance and workers’ compensation. (In all fairness, Nevada state authorities, too, have been reluctant to offer legal prostitutes any form of benefit package for fear of the potential expense.)
I wondered if these women were really afforded the rights due independent contractors. Soon enough, Eva would learn that working girls were obliged to give a share of their earnings to cabdrivers because of a financial arrangement worked out with brothel owners many years ago. Because state law prohibited brothels from advertising, even from publishing their addresses or telephone numbers, the brothels depended upon cabbies to inform passengers of their whereabouts. In return, the drivers got 20 percent of what their passengers spent at the brothel; 10 percent came out of the prostitute’s cut and 10 percent out of the brothel’s. To guarantee their kickback, most drivers accompanied their passengers into the brothel and waited in the kitchen until their fare negotiated a party, at which point cabbies would be informed of their portion, available for pickup within twenty-four hours.
Prostitutes were also expected to split their tips from customers with the house, even though a tip reflected the quality of service that each woman personally rendered. Moreover, all brothels had house minimums, ranging from $50 to $150. When a woman refused a customer willing to pay the house minimum, management expected a reasonable excuse (e.g., that he refused to wear a condom). While Eva would negotiate her own deals and could raise her prices to deter unappealing customers, management would raise its eyebrows if she did this too often.
The brothel was less concerned with racism, however. Women were always permitted to opt out of servicing black customers. Discrimination against black clients was not new to Nevada’s brothels. For many years, none of the brothels even admitted black men. Then, in 1967, at the suggestion of one of Joe Conforte’s floor maids, a black woman named Alberta (affectionately nicknamed Miss Bertie by the working girls), Conforte constructed a parlor to accommodate black clients, segregated in classic Jim Crow fashion. Inside the front gate, a separate entranceway led to this smaller, adjoining parlor; jukebox music from the main parlor was piped in. With the arrival of a black patron, willing women went over to the second parlor to line up while their unwilling peers remained in the main parlor. It wasn’t unusual for a group of black men to confront a lineup comprised of one lone woman. Only when Conforte built the current Mustang #1 facility, a permanent structure more upscale than the hodgepodge of double-wide trailers hooked together, would blacks share the main parlor with other races.
Referred to as Parlor Two guests to this day, black customers are still treated differently. Whenever a black man rang Mustang’s doorbell, the cashier or security guard monitoring the front gate sounded a distinct, shrill in-house buzzer twice, summoning only those women willing to party with a black man to line up. Rung once, the buzzer indicated the arrival of a nonblack customer by cab; three rings indicated the arrival of a black man by cab. Women who won’t entertain black customers have to quit the parlor until after the black man views his lineup.
While most of the women at Mustang Ranch lined up for black customers, about one-fourth wouldn’t. Most of these women told me that their men at home had asked them not to accept black clients. Curiously, most of those men were themselves black. Rather than deep-seated hatred of their own race, this prejudice seemed to reflect fear of losing their women to another black man. For women without the excuse of a man at home, racism was the only explanation for rejection. Too willingly, brothel management refused to challenge these prostitutes. “We get a lot of girls from the South,” said Irene. “You can’t force a girl from Texas or the South to take someone to her bedroom who her parents and grandparents have been racist against for years.” Then, apparently unaware of any irony, she added, “That would be like slavery.”
After Irene finished explaining how prostitutes’ earnings were split with the house, she asked Eva whether she had any questions. Eva said she had none. Irene asked one last question: How did Eva think she would be able to handle screwing men for money if she had never done it before? Irene’s voice was detached, and her face was a blank mask. Later, she told me that she worked hard not to become emotionally invested in any of the girls until they were officially hired. Moreover, she was proud of how discerning she was. “I won’t just hire any girl that walks in the door. Some managers do. An awful lot of managers see each girl as an extra three-dollar tip a day in their pocket. With five extra girls, you’ve almost got your mortgage payment.”
Among the criteria most important to Irene was the applicant’s response to that last question. “I always ask new turn-outs if they’ve thought about what they’ll have to do as a prostitute,” she said. “Most tell me they’ve seen Pretty Woman or that they like sex. I say, ‘Wait a minute. This job is tough. Some of these guys are fat, some are ugly, and some have B.O. These guys are going to tell you to spread your legs or to give them a blow job. Have you thought about that?’ From the look on their faces, I can see most of them haven’t.” Eva’s candid answer—that she was scared but hoped as a professional she would learn to block out any negative thoughts—was satisfactory; afterward, Irene announced she had passed the first test on the way to being hired.
If Eva met the remaining requirements, Irene wanted to hire her as a day girl, to work the shift from eleven A.M. to eleven P.M. According to Irene, day and night girls needed different personalities. Those who did well as day girls were more reserved and conventional, whereas night girls needed to be able to hustle and party. Irene preferred to start all new turn-outs as day girls. Mustang was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and women worked twelve-hour shifts (fourteen hours on Fridays and Saturdays): early (eleven A.M.–eleven P.M.) middle (three P.M.–three A.M.), or late (eleven P.M.–eleven A.M.). I discovered later that brothels in more rural, outlying areas, with less traffic, had all their prostitutes work the same shift—from noon or one to two or three A.M., at which point lineups were suspended and the prostitutes were allowed to go to bed. Those who’d done the least business were given the choice of being “early up” girls, servicing customers who came in between four A.M. and one P.M. A few brothels used photo albums to introduce available women rather than to rouse them from their sleep.
Irene was respectful throughout the interview, but I heard horror stories from some of the prostitutes about other managers and owners with unorthodox interview practices. A few required women to disrobe to examine their bodies, checking for track marks as well as for the quality of their physique.
When Eva, Irene, and I finally emerged from Irene’s office after the thirty-minute interview, the UPS man was delivering a shipment of five thousand condoms ordered forty-eight hours earlier, direct from the manufacturer. This reminded Irene of something that had almost slipped her mind. “Eva, you know you have to use condoms with all your customers?” she said sternly. Since 1988, the Bureau of Disease Control and Intervention Services for the Nevada State Health Division has required brothel patrons to use latex condoms for all sexual activity with brothel prostitutes. Eva already knew this, having seen the sign on the front gate. Houses of prostitution were required to post a public health notice stating that although Nevada state law required that every brothel prostitute be tested regularly and that customers wear condoms, this did not guarantee freedom from STDs. As he stood there waiting for Irene to sign the receipt, the UPS man couldn’t help interjecting, “And the condom companies love you for it.”
I tagged along as another prostitute showed Eva down Hallway D to a vacant room. Like mine, it was about twelve feet by ten feet, painted dusty pink, with pink-champagne wall-to-wall carpeting. The wa
lls were bare, save for a litter of pushpins and pieces of Scotch tape left by the previous tenant. White bedding covered the full-size mattress situated on a wooden box frame. The only other piece of furniture was a dresser made from particleboard, on top of which sat a black plastic ashtray. A crooked vertical blind covered the lone window, which looked out onto the desert landscape. The other prostitute advised Eva to fix up her room a bit, using pillows, artificial plants, posters, pictures, and mirrors. Plain and bare, the empty room looked more like a cell than a boudoir. Indeed, it was difficult to imagine a customer finding this room erotic. Eva was also told she should store her valuables in the closet and padlock the door.
Eva hadn’t brought much with her. She had hoped to go home before starting work. Women with more experience generally came to their interviews loaded down with suitcases and garbage bags filled with personal belongings. Irene suggested that Eva begin the time-consuming process of getting licensed, and then the brothel runner could drive her home to collect some of her possessions. Irene also gave her a list of essentials: water-based lubricant; condoms; Betadine and baby wipes to clean the customers; mouthwash; vitamin E capsules to insert in her vagina to soothe the irritation of frequent intercourse; Mentholatum to spread on tampons, also to help relieve vaginal soreness; cosmetic sponges for use during menstruation to absorb heavy flow; a bathrobe; and a disinfectant to wipe down the toilet seat and bidet after each client.
Over the next two days, Eva busied herself getting licensed, a process involving several steps. First, the brothel runner drove Eva to the brothel physician’s office, where she was tested for STDs, including HIV, to obtain a valid health certificate. Since 1986, the state legislature had required that all brothel prostitutes be tested for HIV as a condition of employment; once employed, they were tested monthly. In 1987, the legislature further decided that owners could be held liable for damages caused to any patron exposed to HIV as a result of the continued employment of an HIV-positive prostitute. Long before the industry was legalized, however, brothel prostitutes were getting tested regularly for STDs. Back in 1937, Nevada inaugurated an aggressive venereal disease prevention program that required prostitutes to have weekly medical exams for gonorrhea and monthly blood tests for syphilis. In 1992, counties added chlamydia to the weekly test.
Women seeking employment were not allowed to work until all tests came back negative. The labs that performed the tests were to call or fax all positive results to the STD/HIV/TB program of the state’s Bureau of Disease Control and Intervention Services as well as to brothel medical providers. If a woman tested positive for an STD other than HIV, the medical provider notified the brothel as well as the county sheriff, who pulled the prostitute’s work card until she underwent a course of treatment. In some counties, working girls were obligated to use certain medical providers, selected by either the brothels or county commissioners, whereas other counties allowed prostitutes to see the physician of their choice. Health care costs could be sizable: $50 for each weekly exam and $85 for the monthly exam that included HIV and syphilis testing.
Customers weren’t obligated to be tested for anything. (Practically speaking, testing clients would be close to impossible.) But brothel prostitutes had long been inspecting men’s genitals before sex to screen out customers with STDs. Once hired, Eva would be paired with a more senior working girl who would teach her how to examine a customer’s penis for visible signs of disease. In no time, she would become an adept clinician, proficient in looking for signs of gonorrhea (“yellow-white discharge”), chlamydia (“watery white drip”), warts (small, painless bumps), herpes (small blisters), and crabs (pinhead-sized insect parasites). When a prostitute found a suspicious lesion, she called in another working girl, a floor maid, or a manager for a “d/c,” or double check. If her suspicions were confirmed, the woman was supposed to give the customer a pamphlet from the Bureau of Disease Control and Intervention Services that explained he might have an STD and advised him to seek medical care. For a fee of $60, women could treat men for crabs on the spot. Men who passed inspection had their genitals cleansed thoroughly by the prostitute, on either the bidet or a “peter pan,” a small plastic dishwater pan, using soap or Betadine as a disinfectant.
At the conclusion of Eva’s medical exam, with verification of her doctor’s visit in hand, she and the runner headed to the sheriff substation two miles from Mustang Ranch in the Lockwood Mobile Home Park, where she registered for a work card.
Manning the substation for the Storey County Sheriff’s Department was Sergeant Bill Petty, a fifty-nine-year-old former Navy man with a military-style flattop. Any felony conviction, he explained, would bar a woman from becoming licensed, as would a conviction related to fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation of funds, or larceny; unlawful possession or distribution of narcotics; unlawful use of a pistol or other dangerous weapon; unlawful entry of a building; buying or receiving stolen property; or any sexual offense or crime involving “moral turpitude.” Other counties had similar ordinances. In 1996, the city of Winnemucca became the first to issue brothel work cards to women previously convicted of misdemeanor offenses such as shoplifting.
After Petty finished his introduction—it was more for my benefit, I think, than Eva’s—he turned to Eva and asked if she had already been to the doctor. Silently, she handed him the certificate that verified she had been tested earlier in the day for gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, and HIV, with results pending. Petty pulled out an application form that asked for the name she was given at birth; all subsequent aliases and assumed names; her birth date; her address; a physical description (race, height, weight, hair and eye colors, and “marks, scars, tattoos”); her three-year employment record; and an explanation of any previous arrests. (Brothel owners had to complete a similar application to obtain a brothel license.) She would also have to sign a waiver to authorize both the release of subsequent medical information and an investigation into her criminal history.
As Eva wrote, Petty squinted, studying her.
“How old are you, miss?” he asked.
Startled, Eva looked up at Petty. Up until now, she had tried to avoid eye contact with him. She felt self-conscious and nervous at revealing to a law enforcement agent her intention of becoming a prostitute. But he expected a response, and she didn’t want to mess things up. She said she was twenty-one. Petty asked to see some photo identification and her Social Security card while she finished up the application.
Petty was cautious because of a recent scandal in which he’d been involved, having to do with the licensing of underage girls. He had mistakenly approved the fake identification of two minors seeking employment at Storey County’s third brothel, Old Bridge Ranch. However, Petty claimed, underage prostitutes were rare in his county. Police from Oregon, where the two minors came from, were less certain; they claimed that underage girls secured work as prostitutes in Nevada brothels using fake identification far more often than either the brothels or law enforcement liked to admit. Joe Conforte’s nephew, David Burgess, who owned the Old Bridge Ranch, defended the system to the media, asserting that his managers did everything they could to avoid hiring underage girls, but “If they’ve got the proper ID, there’s no way we can tell.” Remorseful about the incidents, Petty went out of his way to attest that he had always been very conscientious about verifying women’s identification and age. Since the brouhaha he had tried to intensify his scrutiny.
Storey and Lyon counties were the only counties in Nevada to grant brothel work cards to eighteen-year-olds. Elsewhere in the state, the minimum age was twenty-one. There was no upper age limit, although I met few working girls beyond their mid-forties. The exception was Dinah, Mustang Ranch’s oldest prostitute at sixty-three. Dinah had turned her first trick at fifty-one. “My first day, I lied when the manager asked me about previous work experience,” she told me one day at Mustang #1. “Of course I had never done it before. But I was a much older lady—almost fifty-two years old.” With a touch of a So
uthern drawl, she explained her atypical entry into the profession: “I was a virgin until I got married. My husband was an Ivy League graduate—stable, reliable, a provider. I had it all. But we weren’t compatible sexually. He was too big, and I didn’t get excited the way I should have. When it hurt, I went to doctors, who told me it was my fault; I wasn’t making enough lubrication. I hated to go to bed because he wanted sex. I would stay up all night, washing, cleaning, and ironing, so I didn’t have to go upstairs. I don’t blame him for getting another woman.”
After her divorce, Dinah began dating, and found she could enjoy sex after all. However, her fresh independence brought new financial struggles—she was a single mom striving to get two sons through school—until a colleague told her about Nevada’s brothels. “You give it away, don’t you?” said her friend, alluding to Dinah’s promiscuity. Determined to provide for her kids, she decided to give prostitution a try. She astonished herself when she earned $4,300 in her first fourteen days at the brothel. Since then, she had come to Nevada regularly for three-week stints, telling her family she was away on business.