CARNAL NATION

Earlier this month, a bill was proposed in the Nevada State Senate that would tack a $5 tax on every sex act performed in a brothel. Opposition was vehement and varied, and the bill didn't make it out of the Senate Taxation Committee. However, the taxation topic has been a recurring one, and there's plenty of confusion to parse around the discussion of this proposal, much of it reflecting unfortunate misconceptions around prostitution in any form.

Sen. Bob Coffin, the tax's biggest proponent, disingenuously posited the issue as one of denying the brothels legitimacy, and, correspondingly, the Nevada Brothel Owners Association came out in favor of the tax. (The Association is constantly looking for ways to improve its public image.) Bob Fisher, a spokesman for Pahrump's Chicken Ranch, implied that not taxing the brothels was the equivalent of "not [giving brothels] the same respect as any other business." Opponents of the tax also adopted this language. Gov. Jim Gibbons said he wouldn't support the bill because it was "a recognition of the legality of [prostitution.]"

There's plenty of sand in Nevada for Gov. Gibbons to stick his head in, but that doesn't change the fact that prostitution is legal in 10 of his state's counties. Refusing to acknowledge existing laws, contrary to what we might wish, doesn't actually change those laws. While it's true that the state hasn't collected taxes from brothels since their legalization over 30 years ago, it's misleading to present this as a remarkable situation when it's simply a natural circumstance of pre-existing policy. Nevada has no state income tax, and the United States as a whole has a history of applying sales taxes exclusively to goods rather than services.

As with many bills that propose targeting the sex industry for extra state income, this one came with a provision that some of the funds generated would go towards an "ombudsman" for sex workers who would be charged with the task of placing women in other jobs. This stipulation has clearly arisen from the popular myth that sex workers are incapable of getting any other job because no woman would voluntarily sell sexual services if given the choice to, say, teach kindergarten instead. Yet women from around the country travel to Nevada specifically to work legally within the brothel system, a phenomenon detailed in Alexa Albert's Brothel. Albert also found that almost 9 in 10 brothel workers had a GED or high school diploma. She encountered no evidence of drug use during her studies at the Mustang Ranch, a period that spanned six years.

Having visited two brothels myself (both in Pahrump, the legalization site closest to Las Vegas), I can vouch for how remote these facilities are. They're set a good fifteen minutes from town, a one-road strip where Walmart is the most prominent shopping center. You don't stumble into a Nevada brothel; you actually have to work pretty hard to get there, especially when taking into consideration the fact that brothels aren't allowed to place "help wanted" ads. While it's plausible that some women wish to change careers, it's equally as plausible that brothel work suits the needs of others who have no desire to enter a different field. If some women do wish to change professions, they may actually already be equipped with the skills and resources to do so.

State representatives provided no evidence of demand for such an ombudsman from current or former prostitutes. The only reasoning offered was their own convoluted discomfort with the idea of women profiting from sex. "It's tough enough raising teenage daughters without adding this to the mix," Sen. Maggie Carlton said with regard to the tax bill. I'm guessing "this" refers to an honest and nonjudgmental discussion about prostitution?

Nevada is notoriously abashed about its tradition of relatively permissive governing when it comes to sex work, and it overcompensates for this insecurity with harsh prostitution crackdowns in Las Vegas. Rather than promoting the brothels' impressive safety record—no prostitute has tested positive for HIV since mandatory testing was implemented—or standing behind their legal endorsement of consensual adult sex, Nevadan politicians waste time and energy dithering about taxes. The truth is that Nevada does have something to be embarrassed by, and it isn't the fact that brothels exist in their state but rather that brothels have long been run in ways hostile to the prostitutes themselves. It is not the work that degrades these women but the conditions around the work.

Legal prostitutes, like strippers, are independent contractors, which means they receive no healthcare, sick leave, or disability. Prostitutes are required to pay out of pocket for their work supplies (condoms, lube, baby wipes), which the house often sells to them at a high markup, and they also foot the bill of their frequent health tests. The brothel collects fifty percent of the workers' earnings solely for providing a space in which to work and bestowing the coveted seal of legality. (Brothels are not allowed to advertise, so they incur no costs in generating clientele beyond the occasional kickback to a taxi cab company, which can just as often come out of the income of whatever prostitutes are patronized by the taxi's rides.)

Brothel owners are notorious for severely limiting worker contact with the outside world, including family and friends. Police and owners have colluded to segregate workers from the surrounding towns' citizens by imposing curfews, banning prostitutes from public establishments such as bars, and threatening to revoke the prostitute's license if she violates these off-the-book strictures. (The "privileged" status of a prostitute's license in Nevada means that an official can revoke it at any time, for any reason.)

Leaving the brothel usually requires a full report of where one intends to go and for how long. Some brothels even require that a prostitute pay for an escort to accompany her. The assumption here is that any prostitute beyond brothel control will "freelance" and—gasp!—actually keep the entirety of whatever she charges for a sexual act, a possibility with which neither brothels nor the state is comfortable. Nevada has always prioritized the brothel owner's profits and the state's moralistic impulse to limit "sexually dangerous" women over the human rights of the prostitutes themselves. Now there's something to be ashamed of.