Book Review: Brothel– Mustang Ranch and its Women (2001)
Brothel – Mustang Ranch and its Women (2001)
Alexa Albert
This is a book about the Mustang Ranch, Nevada’s largest legal brothel. The writer was a medical student doing an internship in family planning and human sexuality at Emory University. She was doing a public health study to investigate condom use during the early years of the HIV epidemic and wanted to investigate the Nevada brothels boast of never having any reported HIV infections.
She managed to persuade the director of the Nevada Brothel Association to get the Mustang Ranch to cooperate with her study. She went to the brothel and lived on the premises and got to know the prostitutes and the staff. She began her study and gradually gained the trust of the ladies. Her findings were that the girls had a strict protocol of inspection of the customer’s cock and that they were expert condom users. The practices were reinforced by the Nevada State Health Division’s regulations that required the use of latex condoms for all sexual activity at the legal brothel, as well as the strict STD testing schedule necessary to keep the licenses.
The author had already worked with Streetwork, a drop-in center in Times Square, that was an outreach center for the adolescent, runaway prostitutes of New York City. She came into the Nevada study with the knowledge of the terrible dangers the street girls faced and had disbelief that a state would “choose to legalize this atrocity”. She learned of the long history of prostitution in Nevada, going back to the gold-rush days of the 19th Century, leading to Joe Conforte’s acquisition of the Mustang ranch in 1967.
The day-to-day practices of the brothel are described in detail, including the subject of black patrons. Before 1967, black patrons were not admitted to any of the Nevada brothels. Joe Conforte built a separate facility but later allowed black patrons into the main house allowing any girl who objected to servicing a black client to opt-out of the “line-up”. She learned that many of the girls who wouldn’t service black clients had black husbands or boyfriends who feared losing their woman to another black man.
The author gained the trust of the girls and got to know several of their stories. The stories include what drove the women to the brothel in the first place, usually compelling financial need. The background of the girls was described: many from “functional two-parent households”, fewer than half had childhood sexual abuse, less than 10% had a past of prostitution outside of the brothel, and the licensing requirements rejected anyone with a criminal past.
The author was dismayed at how many of the girls gave their earnings to a manipulative pimp. The books describes many of the relationships with pimps. In addition, the relationships with boyfriends and family were related; one-third of the prostitutes were mothers. The author interviewed regular customers as well as the girls.
She noted a rift between the girls who actually enjoyed their work and others that felt it was highly “unprofessional” to come with a client and who despised the girls who enjoyed their work.
In the end, the author was surprised by her own change in attitude, supportive of the legal brothels, as being definitely the ‘lesser of evils” with unregulated, illegal sex work.
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