Albert - Brothel: Mustang Ranch and its women

Well-written, nonjudgmental, informative [Brothel] could serve as a light at the end of a very long tunnel, and form the basis of both moral and legal discussions about prostitution in the future.

M. J OYCELYN E LDERS , M.D.

A complex and all-too-human study The result of this exhaustive and surprisingly compassionate research is a document that reads like a cross between a voyeuristic pulp novel and a thoroughly professional, not to mention essential, contribution to the annals of public health.

The Baltimore Sun

Alberts Candide-like approachan ingenuousness that characterizes the whole book and is by turns refreshing and somewhat incredible in our sex-besotted cultureenlivens the material, as does her tale of befriending Mustang women. Albert gets us wondering about a lot of things, including our own reactions to this most naked and mysterious of transactions.

Elle

Eye-opening Albert writes in a simple, straightforward method, recounting conversations and incidents with ease and wit. Brothel is far from sleazy. In fact its an interesting read even if you oppose legalized prostitution and may even change your mind.

Metro West Daily News (MA)

Engrossing Albert convincingly dispels myths about this mysterious world and provides a strong defense for the legalization of prostitution.

Publishers Weekly

Colorful and sharply observed A thorough and compassionate report on how prostitution is practiced in the only state where its legal. But its Alberts attitude toward her topic, a mixture of emotions that average readers can identify with, that makes Brothel so readable.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

An empathetic portrait of women who sell sex for a living An eye-opening look at their daily work routing and the way it affects the rest of their lives.

Book magazine

Absorbing [Albert] doesnt offer a romanticized vision of brothel life, but you very well might finish this book with newfound respect for hookers.

New York Post

[Albert is] a smart, savvy, and articulate woman. She could become one of the most outspoken people on the subject of sex and public health of her generation.

Seattle Weekly

Brothel is the best kind of accessible sociologyfull of empathy, detail, and the unique perspective of an outsider who got deep inside.

nerve.com

[Albert] compassionately and insightfully discusses the prejudice prostitutes face even in places where prostitution is legal, and she shatters many common misconceptions and avoids the stereotypes and feminist rhetoric to candidly depict legalized prostitution and its effect on the women involved in it.

Booklist

A Ballantine Book

Published by The Random House Publishing Group

Copyright 2001 by Alexa Albert

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Ballantine and colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.ballantinebooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002090384

eISBN: 978-0-307-55490-1

This edition published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

v3.1

All the events that take place in this book are true. Because brothel prostitution in Nevada is still a very stigmatized business (despite its legal status) and most licensed prostitutes and their customers conceal their practices from loved ones, I have changed individuals names and certain recognizable physical features to protect their identities.

1 .. THE OPENING

T he postmark read Reno Nevada, 24 Dec 1992. I stared at the envelope for a long moment before opening it. Reno? My mind was blank. Then it came to me: the brothel. For three and a half years, off and on, I had tried to convince a man named George Flint, executive director of the Nevada Brothel Association, to grant me permission to conduct a research study inside Nevadas legal brothels, the only licensed houses of prostitution in America. My letters and telephone calls had been for naught; Flint stood firm that the brothel industry wasnt available for a researchers examination. Brothel people are very private people, he had told me. They dont like people nosing around.

It had become a ritual to send him a card every year reminding him of my project. I had long ago stopped entertaining any serious hope that he would agree, so I was in a slight daze when I tore open the envelope and read: Your holiday card arrived earlier today. There may come a time that we can do something substantive together. Call me sometime and we will talk. George Flint.

I first began to think seriously about Nevadas legal brothels in 1989. I was an undergraduate and fascinated by public health issues; the AIDS crisis had exploded into mainstream public consciousness; and prostitution was the focus of national attention as public health officials hotly contested the role of sex workers in the transmission of HIV. In the context of that debate, I had learned that certain areas of Nevada licensed brothel prostitution, with specific ordinances established to safeguard the health and safety of the public. These controls were said to greatly reduce the dangers typically associated with street prostitutionviolent crime, drug use, and disease transmission. Latex condoms were required for all brothel sexual activity, and women were tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. Since HIV testing began in 1986, no brothel worker had tested positive, I was told, and the incidence of other STDs was negligible.

Before I could reckon with the public health implications of this information, I had to get over my astonishment that one of our cultures great taboos was legally sanctioned by one (and only one) American state. Why was this fact never made a national issue? What about the women? Prostitution carries with it a grave stigma; did being licensed and legal diminish that? Did legality assure these women legitimacy, even a sense of professionalism? The more I considered the human questions, the more they came to haunt me, and I found growing within me a desire to get inside this world and understand it. That the brothels were strictly off-limits to non-working women only goaded me further.

That summer, I took an internship in family planning and human sexuality at Emory University that required me to develop a public health study. After a lot of thought and much grief from my family and fianc, I submitted a proposal to investigate brothel prostitutes condom-use practices. Hard data on the efficacy of condom use in preventing HIV infection was scarce, and the issue was complicated by the very real problem of condom slippage and breakage. That hundreds of women in Nevada should be having multiple sexual partners every day without any reported HIV transmission was almost too good to be true. If I could verify it, and learn exactly what the women were doing right, I had a chance, I felt, to accomplish something important. I thought the brothels would surely cooperate with the project: it offered society valuable public health information, and it gave them validation as safe and responsible businesses.