Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women

Let the reader of this review be aware that the reason I wrote it is because it was written by a former local Boston author that was also a neighbor of mine for a while and we share a lot of friends and acquaintances. I like my readers to know if I have a personal bias about a book I'm reviewing. It doesn't usually affect my reviews other than influencing me to do review the book in the first place.
While the young medical student and researcher who was doing a study on safe sex practices at one of Nevada's legal brothels (called ranches) she realized there was enough interest in this subject that she should also write a book about her experiences while doing the research project at the Harvard University School of Public Health. This ranch was later seized by the IRS for non-payment of taxes by the owners and at one time was going to be turned into a museum and park for the namesake wild horses that inhabit the area. It's since been literally moved to another location.
Alexa Albert spent three years trying to get permission to do her study on the use of condoms at The Mustang Ranch. She was finally given permission since she was an accredited medical expert on the subject from Harvard School of Public Health. Since the state regulators and the ranch managers insist that only sex with a condom is allowed, they already knew what the medical research study would confirm and weren't worried about any additional adverse publicity that would have the public up in arms to shut down Nevada's legal brothels. The author was most surprised at the reaction her study produced from the 100 plus working prostitutes at the ranch. They were dying to tell their stories. They individually confirmed that they never, ever practiced unsafe sex at the brothel. They knew such an action would not only endanger their lives, but would also get them fired from a job that annually paid many of them more than the President of the United States gets in a year. The women at Mustang were neither poor nor unwilling to be sex workers and were drop-dead beautiful. Most of them were supporting other family members.
The author had previously worked with and studied street prostitutes in NYC and found that they better fit the stereotypical mold of battered women, druggies, and were often working against their will. While they preferred practicing safe sex, their customers didn't want to cooperate and even their own pimps would not provide them with condoms even though they could be gotten from medical authorities at no cost. Many of those pimps and boy friends used drugs and violence to control their posse of "whores."
Albert discovered the difference in the unregulated and licensed brothels was like night and day. The experience convinced her that regulating prostitution was by far the best for the prostitutes, their customers and society in general.
The book is full of interviews and personal stories and even a few unbelievable sex practices which probably weren't necessary to fulfill the book's main purpose but that make it infinitely more interesting to read. Some things are just plain hard to believe and are weird enough to be included in the "Guinness Book of World Records."
The reader of this tome won't be bored, but will learn much that they didn't expect when they started reading about the almost legendary Mustang Ranch that is only miles from Virginia City fabulous "Comstock Silver Mnes" and the world Mark Twain wrote about as a young news reporter. Brothels and prostitution have always been an institution in Nevada, The Silver State.
Albert also wrote a brief forward for "Brothels of Nevada: Candid Views of America's Legal Sex Industry." This book of fine art photography will provide the curious reader with a good look at the inside of the Mustang Ranch as well of most of Nevada's other Legal Brothels. The reader won't find any pictures of the girls themselves in that architectural study by award winning photographer Timothy Hursley. The book is published by the Princeton Architectural Press, which should provide a good clue as to the subject matter. (See my review).

I'm a sucker for books that take me into a subculture I know nothing about and have no intention of visiting, and this exploration of legalized prostitution in Nevada certainly fits the bill. The author originally approached the Nevada Brothel Association in the early 1990s with the aim of conducting surveys of prostitutes as part of a public health study looking at condom use and efficacy in preventing STDs. However, when she finally did gain access, it turned into a larger anthropological study of Nevada brothel life, focusing on the largest and most well-known of these, the Mustang Ranch.

The author was a live-in guest there off and on, from 1993 until the brothel's closure in 1999, and the portrait she emerged with is an invaluable one for anyone seeking to understand prostitution as a legal, moral, political, and personal issue. She conducted formal and informal interviews with dozens of the women working there, the staff, and others on the outside involved in pro or anti-brothel lobbying, all the while struggling with her own assumptions and attitudes. The only thing more impressive than her fieldwork is her keen synthesis of everything she heard into a compelling straightforward account that is both fair-minded and likely to challenge most reader's assumptions.

The range of topics covered is vast, including: brothel pricing and business strategies, internal cliques and feuds among the prostitutes, attitudes of customers, attitudes toward customers, feelings of kinship among prostitute, the debate among prostitutes as to whether or not "enjoying" their work is acceptable, online "customer" forums, and much more. Perhaps the most surprising (and depressing) aspect to me was the extent to which many of the women interviewed were emotionally blackmailed or coerced into prostitution by family members (usually husbands, but at least one mother and one mother-in-law were mentioned). Indeed, the extent to which informal pimps exist in legalized prostitution is rather a shock. Throughout it all, she presents what she is told in clear, concise, and compassionate prose that raise the veil on a shadowy world and will likely challenge many readers assumptions.

Note: Academy Award winners Joe Pesci and Helen Mirren are starring in Academy Award winning director Taylor Hackford's (Ray) 2009 film, "Love Ranch," which is about the rise and fall of the Mustang Ranch.

Overall, this is an easy read, nothing too filthy, nothing too disturbing, and most definitely a window into a world most of us know nothing of. But make no mistake, this is very adult content.

I found the narrative simple and straightforward, basically a story following the Mustang Ranch until its demise in the summer of 1999.

Author Albert approaches the Mustang Ranch and its women, and her initial research project from a solidly anti-prostitution perspective, viewing it--without the benefit of truly knowing the subject--clearly as the manipulation, subjugation, and entrapment of vulnerable women. But quite interestingly, by the end of the book, having seen the business and its commodity up close and personal, she has had what appears to me to be an almost total change of heart, now seeing prostitution, at least in the context of a legally constituted and regulated industry, as an empowering profession lived by real people who more or less choose their involvement within it.

So, this is not necessarily an objective study on legalized prostitution. For a woman with the kind of medical and research credentials which author Albert professes to have, the book is remarkably devoid of research language, descriptions of her research methodologies, her trials, observations, etc. The book is virtually sanitized of just about any trace of her research, its methods, and its outcome. The entire reason for her to be at Mustang in the first place was for her to conduct research, but that issue and story is quickly left behind for the clearly far more interesting and compelling story of the Mustang Ranch, its ladies, and the business.

If you're looking for graphic descriptions of sexual encounters, this book will not deliver. There are a couple of passages in which she describes sexual acts and encounters, but the descriptions are not titillating. Thankfully, she also dispenses with any kind of medical or clinical descriptions of the acts as well. Yes, the f-word does creep in a couple of times, and there are some passages containing graphic language, although these are usually not from the author, but her quotations of her brothel-mates.

No, author Albert does not become one of the girls, although she is accepted as one by the ladies of the ranch. I was very much reminded of Patpong Sisters: An American Woman's View of the Bangkok Sex World, which I think would be a great companion-read to this book.

As a male reader, it was very refreshing to read the passage in which Albert actually buys a set of hooker lingerie to bring home as a gift to her husband. Now that's education in action.

More than anything in this book, I was heartened to see this story of an author with an established set of beliefs who set out to confirm them, only to have them changed almost completely, all because she kept an open mind and listened to her subjects.

It's too bad this isn't required reading for "I've got my mind made up, don't confuse me with the facts," anti-prostitution people. Alexa Albert is a graduate from the Harvard school of medicine, and she brings a balanced, non-emotional, non-judgmental perspective to the topic of legal prostitution in Nevada (which is pretty rare for this topic). This book adds a candid, human dimension to the lives of sex workers. Highly recommended reading for anyone who wants the real story.

This book is a very powerful, moving, and professionally written look into the workings of what was once one of the largest legal brothels in the country. The author is essentially sympathetic to the concept of legalized prostitution, but conveys very clearly her own ambiguity, and makes no effort to gloss over the admitted negatives associated with the trade. This is a very balanced look at a subject that it is very hard to be evenhanded with, and gives very clear insights into the lives that legalized prostitution touches.