February 2003

Texas Bill on Sportsman.

Flyfisher, again, on The Wild Horse Canyon Ranch.

Bigrick's advice.

ArcticBear on the CWMC / LPIN award voting / banquet.

Phoenix on brothels for sale.

Who is this?

Who yanked on Mike Dallas' ear?

Interested bystander on women.

foofighter on himself.

Pat's question.

Avid Reader wanted to own a brothel?

Nikki's post.

EDITORIAL #007 :

Last week I merely discussed the lack of a codied standard for professional ethical conduct for prostitutes, without actually proposing any. This week I'll postpone again any discussion of specific proposals, and instead focus on the obvious lack of standards for brothel owners and management.

The big question for this week is, "What are the professional standards of ethical conduct for pimps?" I've been around enough legal Nevada prostitutes to know that most of them, at least rhetorically, attach the label "pimp" to the owners of legal Nevada brothels, and they use that word to describe female owners as well as male owners. The resentment of the fact that almost all the brothels take half the money is something that cuts across the entire industry. Although this matter of fifty-percent cut is obviously an issue of constant turmoil within the industry, it clouds any consideration of ethical standards of conduct because of various conflict-of-interest compromises and trade-offs. Who do the brothel owners represent (besides themselves), and how do they balance the many, varied interests that are brought before them?

By law, both Nevada state law and local county law, the brothels are given a license to pimp. I know that there are many who don't like that word, but it gets used a lot within the industry itself and, minus its negative connotations, is accurate. About the only direct regulation of the working girls themselves that any government entity does is the background check and regular medical checks, resulting in a simple licensing for the working girls, with the provision that they can only then work under the larger license of a legal bordello. All other policing, to my knowledge, that is done of the working girls by representative government is through the pimp proxy of the brothels themselves. This amounts to a lot of power in the hands of the brothel owners / managers, and though I know that some brothels are well-respected in their use of this power by the prostitutes that work within them, other brothels have a terrible and indeed downright scary reputation for abuse of power.

The power that the brothels have is huge. They, to various degrees, represent four different entities. By way of their license, they represent four different groups with, all-too-often, conflicting interests. Those four groups are :

1. State and local government. The license that the brothels get allows them to regulate the comings and goings of the women that work for them to a degree that is unheard of in any other business that has independent contractors, and the brothels are not afraid to use their regulatory power. There is also no recourse for the women, no higher authority that they can appeal to. You either do exactly what the brothel demands, whatever that is, or leave. What this means is that the brothels are the effective representatives of the government itself. I have heard of no instances of either the state or county government ever over-ruling the action of a legal Nevada brothel on the behalf of a sex worker. If anyone reading this knows of even one instance of this then please let me know.

2. Themselves. Of course the brothels have a right to represent themselves, but any entity that has such enormous regulatory power as the brothels are given, and which represents all the parties involved (not just itself), needs to be extra careful of conflicts of interest. It is, indeed, from conflicts of interest that most ethical dilemmas arise.

3. The legal prostitutes. Aside from the initial background check and the regular medical checks, all other regulation of the sex workers themselves is done by the brothels. And, the writing of the rules that the prostitutes must adhere to is written by the brothels, not government. All so-called "house rules" are, in effect, created by the brothels, enforced by the brothels, and even violated by the brothels, at the complete and final and total discretion and whim of the brothels themselves.

4. The customer. Any and all disputes between the sex worker and her client are moderated, in full, by the brothel itself, with no possible appeal by either side.

Given that Nevada has opted for legal pimping (other forms of legal prostitution are possible), the fact that the legal Nevada brothels represent these four very different and competing entities is not in and of itself a big problem. As with so many things in life, the real issue is the design of the process, with built-in checks and balances. Regrettably, there are no such checks and balances in the state and county licenses for pimping. Any codified standard for ethics must contain them.

There needs to be, in Nevada state law, a set of ethical standards for the conduct of a licensed pimp, especially a set of standards for a powerful pimp that represents the interests of the four different entities as enumerated above. What all those ethical standards should be I will leave to the imagination of you, the reader, but I will for now make some broad suggestions :

* Nevada state law must mandate some sort of a regulatory body with compulsory membership by all legal Nevada brothels and a code of ethics, much like the medical community of physicians has and as attornies have with their bar association. The exact same code of ethics (published publicly) would be imposed on all the legal Nevada brothels, and any brothel which was found in violation of the code would have its license revoked by this association. Whether the present Nevada Brothel Association could fulfill this role is something I do not know.

* This proposed regulatory body must have a board of appeals capable of hearing from prostitutes who wish to challenge the rules and actions of their brothels, and this board must have the power to enforce its decisions and be held accountable before the state and county governing agencies.

* The regulatory body must also be able to hear and rule on consumer complaints.

* Until the legal Nevada brothel industry has established itself as a reputable institution with a sound ethical basis, it needs to abstain from making political contributions to the election coffers of Nevada candidates. Last fall there were published stories of how George Flint, lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Association, had made contributions to the re-election campaign of at least one candidate, only to have that candidate give the money back when the fact of that contribution was made public. It is unclear if the candidate had prior knowledge about the contribution. This is, to say the least, bad public relations, and I would encourage Geoff Arnold, who is present President of the Nevada Brothel Association and heir apparent to the lobbyist position before the Nevada State Legislature, to be of higher ethical conduct that Mr. Flint has been. The continued existence of his business may depend on it.

I will have more to say next week.

Be seeing you.

Bashful