Prostitution

Oscar Goodman, the current mayor of Las Vegas, has declared that the Las Vegas Strip should be adorned with brothels fancy and large enough to be considered "palaces". For some reason he believes that the women who work the sex trade feel they have found their dream job. The mayor couldn't have it more wrong.

Nevada is a unique state. Of the 17 counties that make up Nevada, 15 have legalized the occupation of prostitute, under certain conditions. The two urbanized counties, Clark and Washoe where Las Vegas and Reno are, have not. If you turn a trick in either of those two counties, it is illegal...or is it?

The yellow pages portion of the phone book in Clark County is nearly 6" thick. If one turns to the section for "massage", a vast selection of full page ads assaults the eyes with photography best left for a mans magazine. Considering the cost of a full page ad in the yellow pages, these simple storefront parlors must be doing a landslide business. At last estimate, the phone company was pulling in over 20 million a year on just that section of ads. Compared to what is the estimated income of the massage parlors that amounts to peanuts.

Over 2 billion a year...that is the estimated cash flow being generated by the illegal sex trade in Nevada. Now if the prostitutes were all the happy hookers of Mayor Goodman's imagination, this would not be such a bad thing, outside of the illegality, that is. The reality is, sadly, something else altogether. The majority of the parlors, massage brothels is a truer description, function as owners of underage oriental slaves, many of them trafficked into the United States from overseas. They live lives of terror and desperation, forced to accede to whatever perverse desire their current "client" wishes to fulfill. I have had the opportunity to interview several women who escaped this existence...it cannot be called a life...and many of the stories they tell would horrify Steven King.

What can be done about this? Currently, very little. Because of the vast amount of money generated by this industry, even the local office of the FBI has little interest in upholding the law. Almost all of the law enforcement officials won't even acknowledge it as a problem. Apparently the abuse of children is not as important as campaign donations. I do have some ideas, but this is such a hot topic that I cannot share them here. Needless to say, they could work, even to the point of inconveniencing the overseas crime organizations involved.

If you are uncertain on this issue, ask yourself this...how would you feel if the girl who was kidnapped and forced into underage prostitution was your daughter? Would that change your mind a bit? Or does your integrity have a price?