Cover story
King pimp
Dennis Hof says he wants to clean up legal prostitution's
image
By Deidre
Pike
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Photo By David Robert
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Under the table, 24-year-old Victoria paws
at the large man's crotch. The owner of the Carson City restaurant
walks by with a sour look, eyes averted. Victoria, a dark-haired hooker
from Minnesota, passes a plate of lemon chicken, giggling.
"Do you want some, Daddy?"
Dennis Hof, prominent Nevada brothel owner and lately HBO
star, grins.
Of course he wants some. That's the idea.
Hof's goal is to see prostitution become a major economic
force in society's mainstream. He'd like to help sanitize the sleazy
street-corner-hooker image. He foresees a coming cultural atmosphere in
which those seeking female companionship can easily find a safe, legal
place to get laid.
"The Bunnyranch," Hof tells me, "is an example of how
sex-for-sale is going to be in America within the next 30 years."
He tells his girls: "Everybody likes sex. If you're not
buying it, you should be selling it."
In Nevada, wider acceptance of legal brothels could provide
a needed tourism boost, Hof says. And that could provide a needed tax
revenue boost for local governments.
"A guy will think of events to come to in Reno--ski trips,
bowling, Hot August Nights, poker tournaments--and in the back of his
mind think of going to the Bunnyranch."
He references Amsterdam.
"People walk through the Red Light District buying T-shirts
and enjoying a society that doesn't have restrictions on personal
freedoms," he says. "The notoriety of brothels brings people to
Nevada."
It's about 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, a few days after New
Year's. We're having dinner with Hof and a few licensed sex workers.
The group called ahead to reserve a largish table at a mom-and-pop
Asian restaurant in a strip mall near a Scolari's grocery store in
Carson City. The proprietor's wife seems less than thrilled at the
presence of Hof, seven working girls, Bunny Butler Sir Edward, a
reporter and RN&R photographer David Robert. She first ignores the
table altogether, then walks by it, shooting fiery glances at the
laughing girls.
"Where's the boss at?" Hof asks her, referring to her
husband. The woman doesn't reply.
"The boss is right there," one of the girls answers,
pointing at Hof. "You're the boss, Dennis."
Hof is a large square-faced man in his mid-50s. He sheds his
suit jacket for dinner and dines in a rumpled white shirt and a brash
patterned tie. Hof owns two brothels--the Moonlite Bunnyranch and
Kitty's Cathouse--in Lyon County, a few miles from Carson City. Lyon is
one of 10 counties in Nevada that allow licensed prostitutes to work
out of legal, license fee and property tax-paying brothels.
After dinner, Hof pours the last of the sake for Victoria
and announces a new twist on the reading of fortune cookies.
"Whenever you go out for Chinese food from now on, Deidre,
you'll remember reading fortunes with this old sex-seller, this
infamous cathouse owner," says Hof.
The fortune cookie game turns out to be the one where you
read a fortune aloud and add a prepositional phrase to the end to shift
the meaning. Hof suggests "between the sheets."
Danielle, 26, a slender black girl from Alaska, reads her
fortune: "You are always welcome at any gathering ... between the
sheets."
"Isn't that the truth!" Danielle says.
Hof pretends to read a fortune that forecasts an evening
with multiple blondes and brunettes.
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Photo By David Robert
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Happy Horny Heidi
applies make-up in her room early on a Saturday night.
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"I'm going to be busy girls, no locking the doors tonight!" he warns.
His actual fortune isn't much different: "You will be extra
busy for the next few days and enjoy every minute of it ... between the
sheets."
Leaving the restaurant, Hof holds the door for the girls.
Each files past Hof and pauses for a kiss. As Hof leans down to kiss
Danielle, he opens his mouth and out darts his tongue.
"You're bad," she says, wagging her pierced tongue back at
him for a second kiss.
The girls pile into the Hummer for a ride back to work.
Inside the restaurant, a frazzled Asian man rubs his
forehead. The wife glares on.
Hof doesn't miss a chance to get his name in the
press. He's offered free and reduced-price sex to U.S. military
personnel who served in Iraq. The sex workers at Hof's two brothels
have done fundraisers for sick kids, fire victims, a skate park,
library books and the Lyon County Food Bank.
Between coverage in The New York Times, the 2001 profile of
Hof ("American Pimp") in The New Yorker and oodles of radio and cable
TV coverage, the Bunnyranch is arguably becoming America's best-known
brothel.
Filmed at the Bunnyranch, the HBO reality TV sequel, Cathouse
2: Back in the Saddle, aired the Saturday night between Christmas
and New Year's. Within a few hours, Hof says, the cathouse's Web site
had gotten 14 million hits.
"We were prepared," Hof says of the site's ability to handle
that much action. "We had a [data] pipe as big as a sewer."
The Bunnyranch received 3,000 phone calls in 24 hours. About
400 calls were from girls applying to go to work. Hof says he received
numerous marriage proposals.
Several potential customers contacted Hof about threesomes
with himself and another girl. One 18-year-old from Boston wanted to
surrender her virginity to Hof.
Not that Hof is bragging, of course.
"I'm just telling you what's been happening," Hof says.
For five years, Hof says, HBO had wanted to do some kind of
program on the Bunnyranch. They came up with the "reality TV" concept.
It's true that, like so many other media concoctions, Cathouse
2 is barely reality TV. As the credits roll for the HBO special,
fine print reveals that some of the clients on the hidden cams were
paid by HBO to visit the brothel for the show. It's said that at least
one guy who appeared in the show works for a porn Web site.
No matter. It's all about ratings. The idea is to coolify
the brothel image. And, in Hof's eyes, it's working. Mainstream media
coverage is "changing everything," says Hof.
"I'm going to put it in the face of America, and I'm going
to do it right," Hof says. That includes "treating girls right," he
says, freeing them from the exploitation that comes with working as
illegal prostitutes.
"Over 100 girls got maimed or killed last year by customers,
pimps and rogue policemen who rape and maim them," Hof contends two or
three times during our talks.
Legal prostitution is about protecting girls--and
clients--from sexually transmitted disease. In Las Vegas, Hof says,
where prostitution isn't legal, about 300 HIV-positive prostitutes have
been arrested.
"At the legal brothels, we've been through hundreds of
checks, and we don't have any [HIV-positive sex workers]," he says.
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Photo By David Robert
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Playboy model Jo Lay
Lynn plays cards with a fellow sex worker while on call at the Moonlite
Bunnyranch.
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That's the message he's taking to the public--in radio shows like Howard
Stern, TV shows including The Man Show, interviews with
Paula Zahn on CNN, and talks with elected officials. (He once stood
talking with a Nevada senator who was approached by other elected
officials from around the state. Each ended up shaking hands with Hof.
"I said, 'I'm Dennis Hof from the Moonlite Bunnyranch in Carson,' and
they all said, 'Oh yes, I've heard of that place, but I've never been
there.' " This gives Hof a chuckle.)
Hof considers himself a fascination to the nation's
entertainment community. He attributes this to the fact that legal
prostitution is a novelty in Hollywood and New York City. In the Big
Apple for several media appearances just before Christmas, Hof and his
girls received invites to the Fox News Christmas party, to an exclusive
party at Hogs and Heifers (the bar in which the film Coyote Ugly
was shot) and Caroline's Comedy Club.
"Everybody was there, and I knew them all," Hof says.
"Didn't you go to Robin Williams' Christmas party?" a girl
asks.
"Yeah, I was at Robin Williams' party. ... I know all the
top comics. For them, they're impressed with us because we're in the
sex business. This is normal for us."
It's hard to get a sense of the physical Bunnyranch
from watching the HBO special. Indeed, the series of low-ceiling
structures and connecting passageways--some of which date back to the
1950s--has the feel of a Habitrail, a complex bunny warren with cozy
nooks and mirrored crannies.
Think of the novel Watership Down, in which clueless
rabbits are kept in high, comfortable style for what turns out to be,
from the rabbit's perspective, a much darker purpose.
Our trip begins when David Robert and I turn off of Highway
50, a few miles from Carson City, just after crossing the line into
Lyon County. We take a left on Red Rock Road--yes, just look for the
Christian day care center on the corner--and head toward the huge
blinking red arrow.
Hof bought a parcel of land right at this intersection,
where he plans to open up a nightclub that'll be called NV-50. He sees
no need to expand or improve the Bunnyranch itself. It's already the
hip, happening place, he says, for rock stars and comedians to visit
when they're doing shows in northern Nevada.
Example: When the rock band Bush played Reno, word got out
among teen fans that Gavin Rossdale would be heading to the Bunnyranch
after the show.
"We had 20 million girls out at our gate, waiting to see
Gavin," Hof recalls. When Rossdale was told that a flock of fans were
outside the gate, he went out to sign autographs and pose for photos.
Hof, ever mindful of public relations, took the fans' addresses and had
photos sent to their homes.
"Imagine those parents seeing their daughters in front of
the Bunnyranch," Hof says, laughing. "We didn't let [the teen fans] in,
of course."
Dave and I ring the bell at the gate, causing the Pavlovian
line-up of girls in the lobby. Black lights give a cool glow to the
girls' airy white evening gowns, short-shorts or a white bra under an
open black shirt. Girls are still zipping into formation when we tell
Madame Suzette, the Bunnyranch's general manager, that we're
journalists.
"False alarm," someone says, and the girls wander off,
looking relatively bored.
We're introduced to Air Force Amy, former Playboy model Jo
Lay Lynn and the brunette in the white bra and black shirt who goes by
Happy Horny Heidi with The Hooters.
We chat at the Bunny Bar, where Hof says "a guy can come in
and drink all he wants" on the relatively cheap. Rather than charge $10
for drinks like other cathouses, drinks at the Bunny Bar are only $3 or
$4. "Cheapest bar in town," Hof says.
The Bunnyranch accepts almost all major cards (American
Express only with a PIN number). And the ranch bills discreetly so that
your statement won't indicate that you've even been in Carson City. To
what exactly will that $100 or $300 or $1,000 be attributed?
"I can't tell you that," Amy tells me, with a huge pretty
smile. "Then it wouldn't be discreet."
The longtime Bunnyranch star takes us on a tour. A couple of
years ago, Amy, then in her mid-30s, told Rebecca Mead of The New
Yorker that she planned to retire within a year. She's still going
strong, working three weeks a month doing the kinds of sex acts that 15
years ago she says she would have kicked a guy out of her room for even
suggesting.
"Today I enjoy it," she says brightly. "I'm a freak."
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Photo By David Robert
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Air Force Amy
examines a vibrator and jokes: "Hey, Heidi, it's got metal in it. We
could get electrocuted!"
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Amy jokes about her future.
"I'm going to marry a rich man with one foot in the grave,
and I'm going to push him the rest of the way in."
Let's get some drama out of the way. Hof broke up
with famed porn star and high-ranking Bunnyranch sex worker Sunset
Thomas in mid-December. That was after the HBO sequel was taped and
before it was aired. Thomas now works at a competitor's brothel, the
Kit Kat Guest Ranch.
Yes, there's controversy. Yes, there are allegations. Thomas
calls the break-up "tragic" in a missive to a porn-industry Web site, AdultFYI.com.
"I've gotten stronger and make my own choices," Thomas
wrote. "It's just great. ... Hopefully, we can still be friends."
A reporter for AdultFYI quoted Hof: "The only person who's
ever been a friend to her in her life without expecting something in
return is Dennis Hof. I stepped up to the plate. ... Her feelings might
be hurt but [people who've leveled accusations against me] are dreaming
this stuff up. If I beat her or hit her, where's the police report?"
At the ranch, Hof briefly alludes to the break-up. The rest
of the girls seem bent on helping him forget his pain. As the
Bunnyranch stars pose for photos in one of the larger, better decorated
rooms, I read Sunset's name on the door and start to write it down.
"No, no, no," says Air Force Amy, waving her hands until I
cross the name from my notebook. "She doesn't work here anymore. We
don't want to talk about her."
Hof, for his part, is moving on. At the bar, he stands
behind Jo Lay, who's dressed in a short pink Playboy bunny tee and
short-shorts. Jo Lay studied industrial technology in college. She's
worked as a lifeguard and as a swim coach. She got her start in the sex
industry by posing for Playboy and working as a dancer. "But stripping
isn't what it used to be," she says, shaking her head. Now she flies in
from Los Angeles to work every other week at the Bunnyranch. She hopes
eventually to retire from prostitution and get a job as an engineer. As
she talks, Hof wraps his hands around her waist and kneads her waist
with his fingers.
"I just love this girl," he says. "Isn't she nice? This is
going to be the next Mrs. Hof."
Hof views himself as a rogue in Nevada�s brothel community,
where tradition compels brothels to go quietly about their business
without ruffling feathers or issuing statements to the press.That's old
school, says Hof. That's the attitude that needs to change in order to
add vitality to the sex trade. That's why the Bunnyranch invites
members of the community for a weekly "tea" at 3 p.m. Thursdays. (Wanna
go? RSVP to 775-246-0243.)
That's why Hof goes out and promotes himself during media
events the likes of which send shudders through the rest of Nevada's
long-respected brothel industry.
"People have a bad image of prostitution," Hof says. "They
think that prostitution means underage, ethnic girls on a
street-corner, pimp waiting down the street. ... Sex is a $14 billion a
year industry. Who's making money? General Motors, DirectTV. They're
all making money off sex. Why shouldn't Reno make money off it?"
He says he wouldn't push for Reno to become too much like
Las Vegas, where family is out and sex is back in.
"Vegas is a sex town, and they brag about it now," he says.
"Somewhere in between, there's a happy medium for Reno. If sex were a
little more prevalent and accepted by the business community, you'd see
tourism go up."
While others may agree, some don't think Hof's methods are
appropriate for the task. In fact, his unpredictable antics keep some
in the industry on edge, as worries mount that he might be putting the
legal sex industry in danger.
When Hof first purchased the Bunnyranch, George Flint of the
Nevada Brothel Association paid a visit to welcome Hof to the
community.
"It seemed to me that Dennis was never interested in
learning the traditions of the business or those things that would
continue to keep the business legal and respected," Flint says. "From
day one, he became aggressive and he began to attempt to normalize what
is in most people's minds not a normal business."
Hof's efforts are "well-intended," in Flint's eyes, but the
media interest being produced is failing to buoy the public's image of
legal brothels.
(I can't help but think of the scene in the HBO show during
which Sunset Thomas and Air Force Amy engage in what's plugged as
recreational off-duty sex with a double-headed dildo.)
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Photo By David Robert
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Dennis Hof's the
center of attention while dining with sex workers at an Asian
restaurant in Carson City. That's Kandi, a single mom (left), and
Victoria, 24.
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"He's attempting to scrub the stripes off the zebra, and it cannot be
done," Flint says. "There's a large segment of society who will always
consider us in the industry as nefarious and, to some degree, immoral.
That's sad. And from my personal perspective, Dennis' behavior saddens
me. His treatment of the women saddens me. And additionally I'm
saddened that he'll never be an asset to our industry even though he
has good intentions."
During the 2003 Nevada Legislature, the idea of a
brothel tax was brought up, hashed out and eventually dismissed in the
final days of the session.
Hof pays about $82,000 annually in license fees and property
taxes to Lyon County, a sum that's probably less than what the average
Bunnyranch girl is said to make in a year. The girls split their
earnings with Hof--he takes 50 percent, and they also pay $19 a day to
rent rooms, eat, drink, exercise, tan, have their kids cared for or
their nails done at the Bunnyranch.
"I eat that in breakfast alone," says Air Force Amy.
"I have that for a snack," adds Happy Horny Heidi.
Girls who work for him say they admire Hof.
"You can talk to Dennis about anything," one girl tells me.
Kandi got married while she was in the U.S. Navy. Her
husband left her and her daughter, who's now 9. He's $8,000 behind in
child support. In Ohio, Kandi worked two jobs to try to support herself
and her daughter but had no time to spend with the girl. She eventually
began stripping and, when she heard about the Bunnyranch, thought it
might be worth a try.
"I thought, 'You gotta do what you gotta do,' " she says.
First, she started flying out one week a month. She made enough to
spend the other three weeks at home with her daughter. Kandi, a cute
blonde who looks much like any other soccer mom when dressed in street
clothes, decided to move with her daughter to Carson City about two
months ago. Her daughter loves her new school, Kandi says.
"And she loves me," Hof adds.
"Yes, she does," Kandi agrees.
When the two couldn't make it to a Bunnyranch Christmas
party, Hof loaded Kandi and her daughter into his Hummer for a shopping
trip to Reno. The three walked into Toys 'R' Us and Hof told the girl
she could pick out any toy in the store. Hof bought her a Nintendo
Gameboy Advance and two games, then the three went to Chuck E. Cheese
for lunch.
"I love Chuck E. Cheese," Hof says. "HBO should do a
segment, 'Dennis goes to Chuck E. Cheese.' Actually, they'd say, 'Don't
ruin your image. Go to a sex shop--that's what people expect.' "
"Dennis is very, very giving," says Kandi. "He does so much
for all of us."
"We have fun like this every day," Hof assures me.
The Opry Station is playing on the TV in Happy Horny
Heidi's room. The room is small, a sink, nightstand and neatly made bed
with a floral spread. A needleworked throw pillow reads: "A wild,
wacky, wonderful woman lives here."
A couple of pennies lie on the carpet by the base of a lamp.
Assorted lotions and lubricants and a Diet Coke rest on the bedside
table.
Happy Horny shows off her Hitachi Magic Wand.
"I like to get the guys up on the bed doggie style and clip
this on," she says, poking the vibrator uncomfortably near my groin.
Heidi puts on her make-up while Air Force Amy rolls around
on Heidi's bed. She fondles the vibrator absently while complaining
about her health insurance. Her Blue Cross premium went up to $417 a
month: "And that's for a single, no dependents, and I don't smoke.
Isn't that insane?"
A diminutive blond, Deanna, dressed in a tiny white shirt
and skin-tight white pants stops by Heidi's room. Deanna's also a
single mom. The father of her 3-year-old son won't pay child support.
But who needs that deadbeat dad? For Christmas, Dennis
bought Deanna's son a Mercedes--a child-size play vehicle.
And who needs a family when you've got dozens of sisters at
the brothel? Deanna and Amy enjoy flying to Vegas or Los Angeles to go
on shopping trips, where they've been known to spend thousands.
Deanna's looking forward to a winter vacation in Hawaii.
"I'm just going to sit on the beach and put the little flag
on my chair up for cocktails," she says.
Before we travel down the hall to Amy's room, Deanna invites
the others to go for pizza and ice skating in Reno the next day. The
girls think it's a great idea.
"This is the happiest place on earth," she insists.
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