Prostitution: It's not just a job it's a career
by Lois Gormley, Outpost staff
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Red light districts = big bucks
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The word
prostitute often brings to mind disturbing images fed by network
television: under-fed, under-educated and often under-aged young women
standing on a street corners, pitching their wares to passing motorists
and turning over all their hard-earned cash to some smooth-talking pimp in
colorful suit and a felt fedora.
But if Sweet Lief, 39, is any representation of the typical Nevada prostitute, network television has a lot to learn about the business. Yes, Lief is a prostitute, but she is also a shrewd businesswoman with a nice house and two new cars, all thanks to her lucrative profession.
Working 12-hour shifts, three days a week at the Moonlight Bunnyranch in Lyon County, she is far from the tragically exploited prostitute of television lore. Last year, she said she earned just under $40,000 in a six-month period. Had she chosen to work the full year, she could have quite conceivably earned around $90,000.
Lief has been in the business for 17 years and has worked legally at brothels in both Lyon and Churchill counties as well as illegally in other states. But even with the additional costs that the regulation of legalized prostitution impose upon her, such as work card fees, medical fees and yes, federal income tax, she said she still makes more money in the legal environment than outside it, mainly because of the constant flow of customers.
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Double click here to see a clip from an interview with Sweet Lief. |
Since the early 1970s prostitution has been legalized in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, with approximately 35 licensed brothels operating within them and housing anywhere from 300 to 800 prostitutes.
But the costs of doing business aren't cheap. Each of those women must be registered with the county they work in as a licensed prostitute, purchasing a work card or work permit from the local sheriff's department.
Prices vary from county to county but Lief said the work card fees in Churchill County are by far the highest she has experienced. The total fee is $100, to be renewed each year or whenever a lady changes brothels, with $61 going toward the card and the additional $39 going toward police coverage, she said.
Just as the county ordinance there requires that all brothel employee--managers, bartenders, maids and maintenance worker--apply for a work card, she said it also requires that all females employed there, whether employed as prostitutes or not, submit to weekly medical examinations.
While for Lief these examinations are necessary and the cost, about $50 per person per week, just another part of doing business, she doesn't think it is fair of the county to inflict the cost of weekly testing on those not employed as prostitutes.
In Churchill County, male employees, who can only be employed for maintenance and repair purposes, are not allowed on the premises after dark, nor are they allowed to live on the premises, therefore exempting them from the medical requirements.
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Sweet Lief has been in the business for 17 years both in and out of Nevada. Photo courtesy of Sweet Lief. |
Even though she owns her own home, statutes in all counties require that prostitutes live in the brothel while they are working. For Lief that means the three days a week she works at the Bunnyranch she must stay overnight. But she is responsible for the room and board of $19 per day, which includes three meals a day of her choosing, for all seven days.
"You get free room and board Sunday through Thursday if you book $800 gross (per night) and free room and board Friday and Saturday if you book $1000 gross (per night)," Lief said of the procedure at the Bunnyranch.
The term bookings refer to the amount charged for services to the customers on her booking sheet. She said a booking sheet is sort of like a time card, but it's handwritten. Once she takes a customer to her room and negotiates a price for services that price is recorded on her booking sheet.
"The house gets 50 percent of our bookings," Lief said. "We get paid every day except Saturday, and we're responsible for keeping our own books and receipts."
She works Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and typically serves between seven to 13 customers per shift. She said one recent week she earned $1250 for three days work, after the split with the house, room and board and doctor's fees.
Lief is an independent contractor who provides a service, which just happens to be sex, and sets her own time limits and her own prices.
"My personal minimum is $300," she said.
But in the brothel business, most everything is open to negotiation.
Posted Dec. 11, 1998
Copyright
1998 Nevada Oupost