Federal lawsuit takes aim at Nevada’s brothels

[GDaddy]

Federal lawsuit takes aim at Nevada’s brothels

A new lawsuit from a human trafficking survivor against the state of Nevada threatens the operation of the state’s legal brothel system. The suit claims that Nevada’s brothels violate a pair of laws that prohibit encouraging anyone to cross state lines to engage in prostitution.

The suit, filed this week in federal court, takes aim at a small corner of the world of sex work in the United States and would affect the 20 or so brothels in the highly regulated Nevada system. Nevada has the sole legalized system of prostitution in the country.

But it also provides a snapshot of the conversation around sex work and trafficking, one that was roiled by national anti-trafficking legislation passed last year and more recently by a prostitution sting in Florida that ensnared NFL team owner Robert Kraft.

Plaintiff Rebekah Charleston, who lives in Texas, worked in the Nevada brothels off and on in 2004 and 2005 and is now an outspoken critic of the system. Charleston advocated for a county ballot initiative in Nevada last year that could have shut down the brothels. She was recruited to the case by attorney Jason Guinasso, who has been working with the Nevada nonprofit Awaken to combat sex trafficking in the state.

Brothel owners point out that the ballot initiative in Lyon County, one of a handful of counties where brothels are legal, was rejected by 80 percent of voters. “This is an end-run around the people of Nevada,” Lance Gilman, owner of the Mustang Ranch brothel, said in a statement about the lawsuit. The Mustang Ranch has announced that it plans to file a motion to intervene in the lawsuit, become a full party to it as an intervenor and get the claim dismissed.

...

Several women, who spoke with The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to protect their safety, said they feel safer at the brothels than they would as independent sex workers. “I was doing independent work for a while, but it was sketchy,” said Chloe, who now works at the Mustang Ranch. “I would post up in a hotel, and my boyfriend would send clients up. But I had no idea who’d be coming through that door.”

Another Mustang Ranch worker, who goes by Cherry, came to the ranch as soon as she turned 18 and now, at 23, is the brothel’s top earner most months. “The really harsh reality is that I would probably still have to do this work because I can’t find a job that pays what this pays,” she said. “I pay for my mother’s chemotherapy. And I grew up in a bad area with a bad school system, and the first step to getting out of poverty is to go to a better school. So I pay for my younger sister’s schooling, too. If something happened and this place shut down, most all of us would still be doing this work, but we’d be pushed to the streets, to hotels, to strip clubs selling ‘extras,’ and things would happen to us. Statistically, things would happen to us and it would be awful.”

Guinasso points to stories like Cherry’s as examples of coercion. “Can you really call it choice when women are ‘choosing’ between poverty and not?” he said.

D’Adamo and Hepburn say that most people are driven into their jobs by economic incentive. Yet many of those jobs, they say, include abusive labor practices. The focus on sex work, they believe, is driven by a sort of moral aversion to that line of work. “I know so many people supplementing incomes from jobs they love with sex work,” D’Adamo said. “There’s a problem here, and it’s capitalism, not the sex industry.”

Guinasso doesn’t deny having a moral aversion to the sex trade. “I think it is inherently violent, and it feeds men’s fantasies,” he said. “Because money is being transacted, we call it consent. I call it the thin green line between consent and rape. I can’t say that no woman would choose this work, all things being equal, because I can’t speak for all women. But the institution needs to be rethought.”

For Charleston, “paid sex is coerced sex — there’s no way you can introduce an influencer like cash and say that’s not coerced.”

.....

 

[Duffy LaCoronilla]

When did prostitution become “human trafficking”?

Oh, right, when the idea of legalizing it became popular.

 

[FecalFace]

Guinasso is correct.

 

[potato-nator]

indentured servitude and sexual trafficking are a reality of the Atlantic City night.

noteworthy is that often or always these "houses of ill repute" are run by (asian) women.

 

[Billy Ocean]

Like drugs, making illegal does not make it go away

It just gets regulated by violence exclusively

 

[Billy Ocean]

When did prostitution become “human trafficking”?

Oh, right, when the idea of legalizing it became popular.

There will be similar attempts to prevent the spread of sexbots

If getting laid becomes very easy for betas, society as we know it will collapse

 

[GDaddy]

Guinasso is correct.

Probably most employment is undertaken because the person is choosing between poverty and not.

"All employment is coerced." “There’s a problem here, and it’s capitalism, not industry.”

 

[Autoprax]

Like drugs, making illegal does not make it go away

It just gets regulated by violence exclusively

You took the words right out of my big fat 25% jew mouth, b

 

[Autoprax]

When did prostitution become “human trafficking”?

Oh, right, when the idea of legalizing it became popular.

There will be similar attempts to prevent the spread of sexbots

If getting laid becomes very easy for betas, society as we know it will collapse

Maybe.

It might save us.

Dudes who can't F fight.

It's natural/

 

[Billy Ocean]

When did prostitution become “human trafficking”?

Oh, right, when the idea of legalizing it became popular.

There will be similar attempts to prevent the spread of sexbots

If getting laid becomes very easy for betas, society as we know it will collapse

Maybe.

It might save us.

Dudes who can't F fight.

It's natural/

No more wars but also no reason for betas to toil

Everyone will adopt a gigalo mentality

 

[john4surf]

indentured servitude and sexual trafficking are a reality of the Atlantic City night.

noteworthy is that often or always these "houses of ill repute" are run by (asian) women.

I had a case in the 1970s in the Reno area. A company my employer was buying needed a due diligence and I was on the bubble. We did a forensic audit that came up with a Joe Conforte 'good for one date' Mustang Ranch business card (Sicilian born 'father' of NV prostitution). Short story, the CFO of the company my employer was interested in was a frequent patron of the Mustang which was just East of Reno. I visited the Ranch several time (business investigation only) and developed a friendship with the older woman behind the bar. During the conversation she revealed she used to 'work on the beds' before prostitution was made legal in NV (cities have the rights to prohibit prostitution within city limits). She told me after retiring she took up Joe's offer of a job behind the bar. The really weird part of the story... she pointed out her daughter in the line-up (as potential clients entered the brothel doors the prostitutes lined up to intruded themselves to thee potential trick). I was a bit stunned as her comment was simply a latter of fact. So, at least in Comforte's brothel the girls didn't appear to be any part of a salve trade business. bty, Joe fled to Rio, married a local gal and could not be returned to thee US for IRS charges. The IRS briefly took over the Mustang ranch but being a government agency, they couldn't even run a whore house. It was sold later and is apparently still in business under new owners.