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| Dennis Hof is the owner
of the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel
south of Carson City.
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Re "Getting
Girls Off The Streets" [RN&R Jan. 3]:
I feel compelled to say that, despite the well-intentioned
efforts of the Reno Police Department, "shutting the store
down" has never "stopped people from using the product."
The reality is that the demand for sex in this country is
at an all-time high.
"It's time that we recognize prostitution as a part of
human society," Rev. Ruth Hanusa says. "They don't call it the
world's oldest profession for nothing.
Sgt. Nuttall unwittingly admits as much when he states that
continued police presence has only made Johns a bit more
careful. "They're leery now. They drive by our girls a couple
of times. But they can't control themselves." And they never
will.
The answer doesn't exist in criminal enforcement. If you're
against the exploitation of women, against sexually
transmitted diseases, drug abuse, pimps and money feeding an
underground society, then you de-criminalize
prostitution--it's as simple as that.
It's painful for me to hear of girls being beaten and
robbed while turning tricks on the streets. And even more
chilling to hear Sgt. Nuttall tell us, "They don't report it.
They take their lumps. They lose their money. They go on." Not
at the Moonlite BunnyRanch they don't--and not in any other
legal brothel in Nevada either!
Unlike the woman mentioned in the story who had to enter a
program to receive a GED and get her life "together," many of
the women who work at the BunnyRanch are subsidizing their
college educations, businesses and dreams by working as legal
prostitutes. We have one 18-year-old at the Ranch who
purchased a 2002 car, has almost saved enough for a house and
is socking away money for the college of her choice. She is
not the exception.
One of the tragic ironies of the legal brothel industry, as
George Flint poignantly notes, is that we are limited in our
ability to advertise, when in fact, advertising our business
provides a public service. I wonder if those self-righteous
moralists who want us to lay low in the brush realize they are
contributing to an increase of criminal activity, the spread
of disease, violence against women and, as Helen Reynolds
documents in her book, The Economics of Prostitution,
$14.4 billion of unreported income to the IRS annually.
With the closure of the Mustang Ranch and the restrictions
placed on making the public aware of the services of existing
legal brothels, there has been a proliferation of illegal
hooking in Reno. Quite frankly, the under-funded police are
only scratching the surface by targeting the Fourth Street
girls. Reno is turning into a Las Vegas, with a myriad of
escort services and freelance pros flooding the area. The
problem of illegal prostitution runs much deeper than the
article implied.
The fact of the matter is that criminals cannot operate in
a legal environment--a licensed, regulated, doctor-approved
environment where the women become their own bosses, as well
as tax-paying citizens.
The public school system teaches sex education to sixth
graders. When will the rest of society become so enlightened?
