{"product_id":"brothel-isbn-9780449006580","title":"Brothel","description":"\u003cb\u003eWhat began as a public-health  project by a Harvard medical student evolved into an intimate, ambitious, six-year study of the  brothel ecosystem and a book that puts an unforgettable face on America’s maligned and caricatured  subculture. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“A fascinating glimpse into a hidden lifestyle.... It's an instantly gratifying page-turner.... It emerges as a personality-filled memoir about an unforgettable group of women.\" \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Seattle Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot a single legal prostitute in Nevada had contracted HIV since testing began in 1986. Why? Harvard medical student Alexa Albert traveled to Nevada in search of answers. Gaining unprecedented access to the infamous and notoriously secretive Mustang Ranch, Albert reveals a fascinatingly insular world where the women share their experiences with unexpected candor. There’s Dinah, Mustang’s oldest prostitute, who turned her first trick years ago at age fifty-one. And Savannah, a woman who views her work as a “healing” social service for needy men.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNevada’s legal brothels are an incredibly rich environment for examining some of this nation’s thorniest social issues. From problems of class and race to the meaning of family, honor, and justice—all are found within this complex and singular microcosm. And in a country where prejudice is a dirty word—but not as dirty as hooker—these social issues are compounded and deepened by the stifling stigma that has always plagued the profession. But in the end, all of Mustang’s working girls are just women trying to earn their way to happiness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrothel\u003c\/i\u003e is a landmark work that probes beyond the veil of desire and fantasy in which the sex trade shrouds itself—and uncovers the naked humanity at its core.\"This well-written, non-judgmental, informative book helps to replace ignorance with  understanding concerning the lives and attitudes of women involved in legal prostitution,  as well as their customers.  It could serve as a light at the end of a very long  tunnel, and form the basis of both moral and legal discussions about prostitution  in the future.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—M. Joycelyn Elders, M.D.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Revealing, sympathetic, and compelling . . . Albert offers deft and unforgettable portraits of not only the working women at Mustang Ranch, but also an entire community that has developed around them. . . . Fascinating, gripping.” \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Las Vegas Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[An] everything-you-wanted-to-know look into legalized prostitution.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Providence Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlexa Albert, M.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Medical School.  She has written and lectured widely on issue of public health and prostitution and was named on of \u003ci\u003eMirabella’s\u003c\/i\u003e 1,000 Women for the Nineties for her work with Nevada’s legal prostitutes.  She currently lives in Seattle, where she is completing her residency.Chapter I: The Opening\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The postmark read “Reno Nevada, 24 Dec 1992.” I stared at  the envelope for a long moment before opening it. Reno? My mind was blank. Then it  came to me: the brothel. For three and a half years, off and on, I had tried to convince  a man named George Flint, executive director of the Nevada Brothel Association, to  grant me permission to conduct a research study inside Nevada’s legal brothels, the  only licensed houses of prostitution in America. My letters and telephone calls had  been for naught; Flint stood firm that the brothel industry wasn’t available for  a researcher’s examination. “Brothel people are very private people,” he had told  me. “They don’t like people nosing around.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It had become a ritual to send him a  card every year reminding him of my project. I had long ago stopped entertaining  any serious hope that he would agree, so I was in a slight daze when I tore open  the envelope and read: “Your holiday card arrived earlier today. There may come a  time that we can do something substantive together. Call me sometime and we will  talk. George Flint.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I first began to think seriously about Nevada’s legal brothels  in 1989. I was an undergraduate and fascinated by public health issues; the AIDS  crisis had exploded into mainstream public consciousness; and prostitution was the  focus of national attention as public health officials hotly contested the role of  sex workers in the transmission of HIV. In the context of that debate, I had learned  that certain areas of Nevada licensed brothel prostitution, with specific ordinances  established to safeguard the health and safety of the public. These controls were  said to greatly reduce the dangers typically associated with street prostitution– violent crime, drug use, and disease transmission. Latex condoms were required for  all brothel sexual activity, and women were tested regularly for sexually transmitted  diseases, including HIV. Since HIV testing began in 1986, no brothel worker had tested  positive, I was told, and the incidence of other STDs was negligible.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Before I could  reckon with the public health implications of this information, I had to get over  my astonishment that one of our culture’s great taboos was legally sanctioned by  one (and only one) American state. Why was this fact never made a national issue?  What about the women? Prostitution carries with it a grave stigma; did being licensed  and legal diminish that? Did legality assure these women legitimacy, even a sense  of professionalism? The more I considered the human questions, the more they came  to haunt me, and I found growing within me a desire to get inside this world and  understand it. That the brothels were strictly off-limits to non- \"working\" women  only goaded me further.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That summer, I took an internship in family planning and  human sexuality at Emory University that required me to develop a public health study.  After a lot of thought and much grief from my family and husband, I submitted a proposal  to investigate brothel prostitutes’ condom-use practices. Hard data on the efficacy  of condom use in preventing HIV infection was scarce, and the issue was complicated  by the very real problem of condom slippage and breakage. That hundreds of women  in Nevada should be having multiple sexual partners every day without any reported  HIV transmission was almost too good to be true. If I could verify it, and learn  exactly what the women were doing right, I had a chance, I felt, to accomplish something  important. I thought the brothels would surely cooperate with the project: it offered  society valuable public health information, and it gave them validation as safe and  responsible businesses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My naïveté was rubbed in my face when George Flint point-blank  refused me entry. At least I wasn’t the only one; after doing a little more research,  I realized how few outsiders had ever been permitted to investigate the brothel industry  in any real depth. Prostitutes were kept on the premises behind locked electric gates,  and visitors were surveilled before being buzzed in. Media coverage was very controlled;  the brothels had been featured a few times on television programs like Donahue, Geraldo,  and Jerry Springer, but the audience was shown only the most superficial aspects  of the business.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Needless to say, my astonishment was total when Flint wrote me  three and a half years later to invite me to Nevada to conduct my research project  on condom-use practices. Certainly, the project was still valid, and at this point  in my life I was in the process of applying to medical school. I was put on guard,  though, by something he said when we spoke by phone: “Anything positive that comes  from a prestigious place like Emory helps to support our cause.” Was that what my  study was doing? Was he in dire straits suddenly and desperate for PR? If so, did  I want to help? Did I want to support brothel owners and promote the expansion of  legalized prostitution in America? While I was curious to see whether legalized brothels  actually provided prostitutes with more protection than illegal prostitution, I fundamentally  believed prostitution was a dehumanizing, objectifying business that did women real  damage. Was I being roped into being its booster?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Flint went on to say, “It’s not  going to be like breezing in and counting tomatoes or comparing prices in a grocery  store. The working ladies are very private people. They don’t trust outsiders. You’ re in for a real education, honey.” Suddenly, the study I’d written off was a reality,  and my mind began to race. Absent any more information, nightmare scenarios multiplied.  Who were these women who allowed themselves to be locked behind gates? Were they  all drug addicts and survivors of heinous sexual abuse, like so many street prostitutes?  Were they chained to beds, as prostitutes allegedly were in Thailand? Would they  even agree to speak with me? Above all, did I have it in me to do this? Yes, I decided.  I bought a plane ticket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My family didn’t help. They were even more uncomfortable  than I was. As long as I wasn’t allowed inside, my interest in the project had been  entertaining. But now I was headed to Nevada, and suddenly my parents wondered why  I was so interested in an underworld teeming with criminals and degenerates. My husband’ s parents were even more confused. Let us get this straight: You’re choosing to leave  our son for an entire month to conduct research in a brothel? Do you secretly desire  to become a prostitute? What are we going to tell our friends? Andy, my husband,  had his own worries, my physical safety not the least among them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the end, apprehension  and all, I made that flight to Reno. Awaiting me at the Reno airport was a man named  Marty who had been sent to pick me up and deliver me to Flint at a place called Chapel  of the Bells. Flint was not only executive director of the Nevada Brothel Association,  I learned, but a (retired) ordained minister as well. In fact, he owned one of Reno’ s twelve wedding chapel businesses–and arguably the nicest, or at least the only  freestanding one. (The others were storefronts.) With its whitewashed façade, faux  stained-glass windows, and prominent cupola, Flint’s Chapel of the Bells looked more  like Disney’s version of the gingerbread house in “Hansel and Gretel” than a wedding  chapel.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the lobby, white lace-print paper lined the walls and a pattern of miniature  flowers decorated the ceiling moldings like frosting on a wedding cake. An assortment  of bridal bouquets, boutonnières, garter belts, and champagne flutes was showcased  for newlyweds who wanted such traditional wedding frills. On the walls hung sobering  certificates and plaques that authenticated George Flint’s maternal ancestors, the  Treats, as descendants of the founders of New Jersey and Connecticut. Flint would  later tell me that he could trace his family’s lineage all the way back to Charlemagne.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e While I waited for my audience with Flint, I watched a live feed on a closed-circuit  television of a wedding in progress. A female minister was presiding over the marriage  of a middle-aged Frenchman to a diminutive and considerably younger-looking Vietnamese  bride who clearly spoke much less English than he did, which is to say, almost none.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Finally Flint appeared. For nearly four years, I’d wondered what the brothel industry’ s gatekeeper looked like. A flashy, gum-smacking, middle-aged street hustler with  a cockeyed hairpiece and several heavy gold necklaces buried in dark chest hair is  what I had expected. Instead, I saw a man in his early sixties, of ample proportions  and intense civility. He wore tinted eyeglasses, and several expensive–but not gaudy– rings flashed from thick fingers. He wobbled a little as he walked, because of a  serious leg injury. He looked safer, friendlier, and more polished than I’d imagined.  I couldn’t help but see in my mind’s eye a smiling Midwestern televangelist wooing  an admiring and loving audience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As he led me down to his basement office, he peppered  me with unexpected questions about my family. Did I know my ancestry, he asked? Did  I have any interest in genealogy? I admitted I hadn’t given it much thought–certainly  not as much as he had. He told me about each of the family portraits hanging on the  basement walls. His father had been a professional photographer and Flint confessed  that he had inherited his passion for photography from his dad. In fact, George–he  insisted I call him George rather than Mr. Flint or Reverend Flint–admitted to many  passions, from travel and antiques to Napoleon and the embalming practices of morticians.  I found myself nodding pleasantly and in half-disbelief as his stories rolled over  me, delivered in the soothing cadences of a professional preacher.","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301060563173,"sku":"NP9780449006580","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780449006580.jpg?v=1767723108","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/brothel-isbn-9780449006580","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}