County allows brothel to hire male prostitutes
Move hailed as first for legal sex workers
TONOPAH, Nev. – Brothel owner Bobbi Davis got the go-ahead Tuesday to hire what her Web site cheekily calls “a few good men.”
Her Shady Lady Ranch is searching for “service-oriented” guys willing to become Nevada’s first legal male sex workers.
“I personally feel, as do the many other women who have made contact with me since I started this, that this is a service whose time has come,” Davis said in a letter to Nye County officials.
A county board’s vote Tuesday affirming that Davis could offer “shady men” to her clientele followed months of rancorous debate among the state’s legal brothel community. The industry, in its own peculiar way, is somewhat conservative: Considered an anachronism of bawdy mining camps by some Nevada newcomers, it often balks at change.
Of course, new ideas in a business unique to Nevada (in its legal form) are a touch different. Adding porn stars to brothel lineups rankled some owners. Overturning a ban on brothel advertising, a battle Davis and the American Civil Liberties Union helped lead, also stirred up debate. Though neither change shuttered the state’s 25 or so bordellos – some would argue the publicity helped – many owners still operate in an off-the-grid manner, wary of being shut down.
George Flint, the longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association, has said allowing male prostitutes could be the industry’s “Pearl Harbor.” He’s hinted that brothels possibly offering gay sex – a choice each prostitute, as an independent contractor, would be free to make – might sour some legislators on the entire brothel system.
Nevada lawmakers are notoriously skittish when discussing the birds and bees. The Legislature, even when severely cash-strapped, has repeatedly declined to tax the brothels (which are banned in Reno and Las Vegas) for fear of, well, legitimizing the business.
“This is the first time in the history of the world … that men have been licensed to sell sex,” Flint said Tuesday, his voice rising. “It’s never been done!”
Davis and her husband, Jim, merely hope to boost business. Their small outpost near Death Valley, some 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas, offers up to five women, relies heavily on travelers and has gotten some requests for gigolos.
After announcing her plans this summer, she and attorney Allen Lichtenstein succeeded where the more well-known Hollywood Madam, Heidi Fleiss, had failed. In 2005, Fleiss announced she was moving to Pahrump, in southern Nye County, in hopes of creating a “stud farm.” She opened a Laundromat instead.
Davis figures that, even if it’s a flop, adding men to her roster is worth trying. She’s been inundated with more than 100 applications, she said, though she’s held off on hiring until she’d jumped all bureaucratic hurdles.