Free Brothel by Alexa Albert Page A

between prostitution and disadvantaged situations, physical limitations (e.g., substance abuse), and previous traumatic experiences, especially sexual abuse. And knee-jerk moralists speak of prostitutes as flawed characters lacking in values.
    But no easy formula fit the women I met in Nevada’s brothels. Several were black and Latino; a few were Asian and Native American; fully two-thirds of Mustang’s prostitutes were white. Almost nine out of ten had either graduated from high school or earned their general equivalency diplomas. While some of the prostitutes I met came from lower-income families, many grew up well-to-do. Some of the women came from broken homes with absent fathers, and some had mothers who had prostituted themselves, but many grew up in intact, functional two-parent households. Although some women admitted to drug and alcohol misuse, the brothel seemed to weed out women with profound addictions. Fewer than half of the women spoke to me of childhood sexual abuse, a prevalencenot all that much higher than national estimates that at least 20 percent of American women have experienced some form of sexual abuse as children. * And two-thirds of Mustang’s prostitutes considered themselves religiously observant and professed membership in traditional organized faith communities, almost exclusively Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish.
    It was clear that the women working in Nevada’s brothels represented a distinct group. Fewer than half of Mustang’s prostitutes had sold sex outside the brothels, whether “on the track” (the street) or through escort or outcall services. Although it wasn’t unusual for streetwalkers to give Nevada brothels a try as a respite from the streets, George Flint figured that under 10 percent of the brothels’ regular prostitutes were former streetwalkers. He speculated that the reason was the brothels’ extensive rules and obligatory confinement: “True street girls can’t make the adjustment. Every one of them fails. Maybe they’re too accustomed to their independence. Or the fact that they choose their customers, their customers don’t choose them.”
    One trait common to most of Mustang’s women was financial hardship. Since Donna’s husband was unemployable, or claimed to be, someone needed to earn a living for the family; she had only a high school education and meager work experience, and he convinced her she had few options. Thiswas a pattern I saw frequently—women who had ended up at Mustang Ranch to provide for loved ones. Instead of lacking family values, as moralists contended, most of the women I came to know there possessed a profound sense of personal responsibility and an unwavering commitment to their families that ultimately drove them to do this “immoral” work.
    Almost every woman was financially supporting someone else—often her husband, sometimes other family members. Carrie, a prostitute in her early thirties, was taking care of her mother, who had turned her out more than a decade ago. With raven-black hair down to her buttocks, Carrie bore an uncanny resemblance to Morticia Addams, a likeness enhanced by the black dress she always wore: tight-fitting, low-cut, long, and sheer. Forbidden to return home until she earned the quota her mother set, Carrie was frequently forced to remain at Mustang for weeks on end.
    Then there was Ivy, whose mother-in-law had packed up her bags and loaded them in the car before announcing that she had freeloaded off her husband’s family long enough—her mother-in-law was taking her to Mustang Ranch to get a job.
    It wasn’t always families that the women subsidized; all too frequently, pimp boyfriends had manipulated them. The women didn’t admit this to me readily, however. In fact, the subject of pimps didn’t come up until I met Brittany, a thirty-one-year-old with a sweet, wholesome face devoid of any makeup, and a pageboy haircut. Instead of the standard brothel “eye patch” bikini top, which barely