Friday's edition of the Guardian reviews a new book by Melissa Farley titled, "Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada: Making the Connections", about her two year investigation into Nevada's legal brothels.
During a two-year investigation, the author, Melissa Farley, visited eight legal brothels in Nevada, interviewing 45 women and a number of brothel owners. Far from enjoying better conditions than those who work illegally, the prostitutes she spoke to are often subject to slave-like conditions.
Described as "pussy penitentiaries" by one interviewee, the brothels tend to be in the middle of nowhere, out of sight of ordinary Nevadans. (Brothels are officially allowed only in counties with populations of fewer than 400,000, so prostitution remains an illegal - though vast - trade in conurbations such as Las Vegas.) The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave.
Farley goes on to say that the physical appearances of the buildings are shocking as well with barbed wire fence surrounding them and grated iron doors. The rooms all have panic buttons, but many women confided they had experienced violent and sexual abuse at the hands of customers and pimps. One pimp starved a woman he considered too fat.
The women are expected to live in the brothels and to work 12- to 14-hour shifts. Mary, a prostitute in a legal brothel for three years, outlines the restrictions. "You are not allowed to have your own car," she notes. "It's like [the pimp's] own little police state." When a customer arrives, a bell rings, and the women immediately have to present themselves in a line-up, so he can choose who to buy.
Sheriffs in some counties of Nevada also enforce practices that are illegal. In one city, for example, prostitutes are not allowed to leave the brothel after 5pm, are not permitted in bars, and, if entering a restaurant, must use a back door and be accompanied by a man.
Brothel owners typically pocket half a women's earnings; they must pay tips and other fee's to the brothels staff, as well as a finder's fee to the cab driver who delivered the customer. The women must also pay for their own condoms, wipes, as well as for the use of towels and sheets.
Farley found a "shocking" lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. "When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation," says Farley, "why should the state offer services for escape?" More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.
Proponents of legalized prostitution argue that regulations prevent further abuse from street pimps and also cut down on disease.
Opponents of legalized prostitution argue that most of the women who enter into the field have been sexually and mentally abused as children, suffer from mental illness, bi-polar and schizophrenia.
The solution, Farley believes, is to educate people about the realities of legalized abuse of women. "Once the people of Nevada learn of [prostitutes'] suffering and emotional distress, and their lack of human rights, they, like me, will be persuaded that legal prostitution is an institution that just can't be fixed up or made a little better. It has to be abolished."
Will prostitution ever be abolished?