Richard Abowitz writes on vegasblog.latimes.com: Despite the idea of legal prostitution in Las Vegas having been shunted aside as quickly as it appeared in the Legislature, the issue will not die in the public arena.
Driving to the Chicken Ranch Wednesday, I listened to the local NPR affiliate's "State of Nevada" program, on which advocates for legalization and callers in favor of legalization of prostitution seemed to predominate.
But the district attorney's office and the police declined to appear on the show. Yet, at this very moment, authorities are making a public relations campaign out of their list, two years in the making, of the top 50 "most prolific prostitutes" in Vegas and methodically busting them on charges that in almost every case do not include actual prostitution.
www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=33037
(Charges are more in the vein of trespassing or loitering with intent to solicit prostitution.)
Many of the callers to KNPR and experts from University of Nevada Las Vegas on the show noted that although law enforcement and the courts in Vegas are dedicating tremendous resources to the issue of illegal prostitution, there is legal prostitution about an hour away at the Chicken Ranch. So, why is it unthinkable to legalize something in Clark County that is already legal in Nye County? It seems such a reasonable question on the surface. And, of course, Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has been pushing for years to deal with that inconsistency by studying the effects of bringing legal prostitution to the city.
Still, those opposed to legalization feel so strongly about the issue that legal prostitution in Vegas will likely remain at the fringes of political discourse for now despite the horrible economic times. Las Vegas Review Journal's John L. Smith has been particularly hostile to the idea. Smith was scathing in his comments. He sees this entire discussion as the Nevada Legislature looking to distract people from all the taxes that should be raised from other business interests in the state by instead focusing on ways to broaden the group who pay taxes to include newly legal brothels in Vegas. Smith wrote:
"Not that I endorse legalizing prostitution for the purpose of taxation. It's about as morally backward an idea as I've heard. It's the depth of desperation -- even in a recession. ... It's ethically bankrupt, a real sellout in a state whose lawmakers, with a few exceptions, haven't mustered the collective will to tax businesses and banks and big mining."
Meanwhile, the issue of City Life that came out today offers this provocative cover text "Why learn? Whore instead!" Inside the writer, a school teacher, is even worried about the effect of the media attention the issue is generating. He writes: "Instead of merely aspiring to become valet parking attendants or cosmetologists, kids in Vegas now see themselves as having another opportunity upon graduation." That is sort of misleading, because all Nye County brothel prostitutes must be 21.
But there is definitely a connection between the costs of higher education and legal sex work. At the Chicken Ranch, I have already met one worker using her income from prostitution to pay for her UNLV tuition. Actually, she is taking an online class at the brothel. Also, on Wednesday, I talked to a prostitute who has an undergraduate degree in history but has taken a leave of absence from her day job at a library in another state to come to Nevada and earn enough money to pay off her student loans. Her plan is to save enough money to go back to graduate school to get a master's degree in library science.
Obviously, there are many ways to pay college tuition or student loans that don't involve prostitution. But using legal prostitution to pay for school is taking place here in Nye County whereas in Vegas "student" seems mostly to be a lame advertisement codeword for young sex workers. Case in point: signs for "Hot Asian Students Direct To your Room."
