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.
Although she was always cordial, Dinah kept mainly to herself at Mustang. Typically, she sat alone at one end of the bar throughout most of her shift. In spite of her aloofness, Dinah kept an eye on the Mustang scene and always had gossip to dish, of which I often became the recipient. For Dinah, the trip to the sheriff’s substation to get licensed had been more terrifying than turning her first trick. Already apprehensive about her new venture, Dinah said that although the sheriff was perfectly professional, facing him was terrible. “I turned out at the Sagebrush Ranch in Lyon County. I’ll never forget my first visit to the sheriff’s office to register. The application asked which position I was applying for. I stared at the two boxes—one that said ‘Maid’ and the other ‘Prostitute’—for the longest time. It was like I couldn’t bring myself to check off ‘Prostitute.’ I nearly died before I managed to mark off theright box.” Unlike Lyon County, Storey County used a euphemism to lessen women’s embarrassment: Petty told Eva to write “Entertainer” as her professional title.
Once Petty was satisfied with Eva’s application, he photocopied her two pieces of identification and accepted her $50 cash to cover the licensing fee, which would be submitted with her application to Storey County officials in Virginia City. The final steps of the licensing process involved taking two Polaroid photographs—one for her file and another for her work card—and then fingerprinting her. The print, of her right index finger, would be used in Virginia City to confirm her identification and search for outstanding warrants. Petty said that few applicants actually had any history of previous altercations with the law, save for occasional speeding tickets, but a few days later, he was to handcuff a new blond turn-out and escort her dramatically out of Mustang. She had four warrants for her arrest.
After county officials processed Eva’s application, Petty would deliver to Mustang Ranch her laminated lime-green work card, her official documentation authorizing her to prostitute in the named brothel. Prostitutes could only be approved to work at one licensed operation at a time; if Eva chose to change brothels, she would need to reapply and pay another $50 licensing fee. (Not infrequently, women moved from brothel to brothel as the seasons changed and business fluctuated.) Brothel management retained each woman’s work card, in preparation for the next impromptu inspection by the sheriff. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Eva would need to wait a minimum of twenty-four hours to “clear,” or receive the resultsof her STD tests. Once the tests came back negative, she would be a licensed prostitute.
I was surprised that licensing was such a rigorous process, but that was precisely the idea behind legalization: to impose a number of conditions upon an otherwise unruly enterprise as a means of control. “Within our society, we have no choice as to whether or not we want this fact of life called prostitution,” Joe Conforte was fond of telling his critics. “You are not going to eliminate prostitution. Our only real choice in the matter is how we choose to deal with it: control or uncontrol. As long as the business is here, as long as we can’t eliminate it, why not organize it?”
Advocates of legalized prostitution, like Conforte and George, were quick to point out that criminalization of prostitution, the policy
Although she was always cordial, Dinah kept mainly to herself at Mustang. Typically, she sat alone at one end of the bar throughout most of her shift. In spite of her aloofness, Dinah kept an eye on the Mustang scene and always had gossip to dish, of which I often became the recipient. For Dinah, the trip to the sheriff’s substation to get licensed had been more terrifying than turning her first trick. Already apprehensive about her new venture, Dinah said that although the sheriff was perfectly professional, facing him was terrible. “I turned out at the Sagebrush Ranch in Lyon County. I’ll never forget my first visit to the sheriff’s office to register. The application asked which position I was applying for. I stared at the two boxes—one that said ‘Maid’ and the other ‘Prostitute’—for the longest time. It was like I couldn’t bring myself to check off ‘Prostitute.’ I nearly died before I managed to mark off theright box.” Unlike Lyon County, Storey County used a euphemism to lessen women’s embarrassment: Petty told Eva to write “Entertainer” as her professional title.
Once Petty was satisfied with Eva’s application, he photocopied her two pieces of identification and accepted her $50 cash to cover the licensing fee, which would be submitted with her application to Storey County officials in Virginia City. The final steps of the licensing process involved taking two Polaroid photographs—one for her file and another for her work card—and then fingerprinting her. The print, of her right index finger, would be used in Virginia City to confirm her identification and search for outstanding warrants. Petty said that few applicants actually had any history of previous altercations with the law, save for occasional speeding tickets, but a few days later, he was to handcuff a new blond turn-out and escort her dramatically out of Mustang. She had four warrants for her arrest.
After county officials processed Eva’s application, Petty would deliver to Mustang Ranch her laminated lime-green work card, her official documentation authorizing her to prostitute in the named brothel. Prostitutes could only be approved to work at one licensed operation at a time; if Eva chose to change brothels, she would need to reapply and pay another $50 licensing fee. (Not infrequently, women moved from brothel to brothel as the seasons changed and business fluctuated.) Brothel management retained each woman’s work card, in preparation for the next impromptu inspection by the sheriff. Meanwhile, back at the Ranch, Eva would need to wait a minimum of twenty-four hours to “clear,” or receive the resultsof her STD tests. Once the tests came back negative, she would be a licensed prostitute.
I was surprised that licensing was such a rigorous process, but that was precisely the idea behind legalization: to impose a number of conditions upon an otherwise unruly enterprise as a means of control. “Within our society, we have no choice as to whether or not we want this fact of life called prostitution,” Joe Conforte was fond of telling his critics. “You are not going to eliminate prostitution. Our only real choice in the matter is how we choose to deal with it: control or uncontrol. As long as the business is here, as long as we can’t eliminate it, why not organize it?”
Advocates of legalized prostitution, like Conforte and George, were quick to point out that criminalization of prostitution, the policy
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