Guest comment
Get girls into legal brothels
By Dennis
Hof
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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?
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