http:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/news\/nevada\/nevada-sex-resort-tries-new-business-plan-world-s-oldest-profession<\/a><\/p>\n\ty HENRY BREAN
\n\tLAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
\n\tFor about the same price as five days in Jamaica, a week in Cancun or two weeks in Acapulco, you can spend three memorable nights at a resort just outside Pahrump that brings a whole new meaning to the phrase \u201call-inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tSheri\u2019s Ranch, one of Nevada\u2019s largest and most elaborate legal brothels, is now offering package deals for individuals and couples with disposable income and the desire for \u201ca pay-for-play erotic vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFor $2,100, you get transportation from Las Vegas, a two-night stay at the property\u2019s hotel, dinner with the \u201cSheri\u2019s lady of your choice,\u201d a souvenir from the gift shop, and a $2,000 voucher good for some of the establishment\u2019s other, ahem, services. The $3,200 package includes all of the above plus an extra night at the hotel, an upgraded dinner of steak and lobster inside a themed bungalow, champagne and an open bar, and a \u201cguaranteed sex ticket\u201d worth $3,000.<\/p>\n
\tThe brothel is marketing the vacation packages as a \u201clegal, safe and STD-free\u201d alternative to sexual retreats overseas. Owner Chuck Lee said Sheri\u2019s is already a \u201ctrusted, internationally respected adult brand\u201d and \u201ca leading sex destination in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe move toward a new, upscale market comes at what could be a make-or-break moment for a struggling industry that has long catered mostly to truckers and transient miners in the dark parlors of ramshackle houses.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cCandidly, it\u2019s not a bad idea, but I think it\u2019s a Hail Mary pass,\u201d said George Flint, longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Owners Association. \u201cIt\u2019s a Hail Mary effort to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAside from a handful of large operations, he said, times are tough for the state\u2019s most controversial industry. Flint said the state\u2019s licensed brothels have been decimated by a combination of factors including high gas prices, the Great Recession, the rise of the Internet and an unfettered illegal sex trade in Clark County, one of five Nevada counties where brothels are outlawed.<\/p>\n
\tThere are half as many bordellos open today as there were 20 years ago, and Flint expects that downward trend to continue.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe brothel industry is about as badly bent as I\u2019ve ever seen it,\u201d said the octogenarian, who first started lobbying more than 50 years ago on behalf of wedding chapels like the one he owns in Reno. \u201cI don\u2019t know that the industry as we know it is going to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe latest victim is the Shady Lady.<\/p>\n
\tAfter making headlines by offering male \u201cprostidudes,\u201d gas-card promotions and a landmark free speech lawsuit, Shady Lady owner Bobbi Davis recently announced plans to shut down her modest operation on Dec. 14.<\/p>\n
\tShe and her husband started the brothel in 1992 along a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 95 in Nye County, about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWhen I came here I thought, \u2018Wow, a state that really allows you to do this,\u2019\u2009\u201d Davis recently told the Pahrump Valley Times. \u201cBut it\u2019s not the same. They treat you like the worst stepchild.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWith the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Davis once sued the state over a law that prohibits businesses like hers from advertising in Clark and other Nevada counties where brothels are illegal. Her First Amendment case, taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union, ended in defeat in federal court.<\/p>\n
\tShe later made international news when she briefly employed a male prostitute in an effort to draw women \u2014 and attention \u2014 to the Shady Lady.<\/p>\n
\tDavis said she began to lose interest in the business after her husband died two years ago. She told the Pahrump newspaper she plans to retire in Texas to care for her ailing parents.<\/p>\n
\tHers will be the second brothel in six months and the third in two years to close in Nye County.<\/p>\n
\tFlint isn\u2019t surprised.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThere\u2019s no business that far from Vegas, and there\u2019s very little business on that highway,\u201d he said. \u201cThe little country brothels are really having a hard time. They\u2019re just not making it selling sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThat leaves the state\u2019s six largest brothel operations to share roughly 90 percent of the business, Flint said.<\/p>\n
\tSheri\u2019s Ranch is one of them.<\/p>\n
\tSince Chuck Lee bought the brothel and the 310 acres surrounding it in 2001, he has said he has poured an estimated $20 million into the property, adding seven standard hotel rooms and three themed suites, a swimming pool, sports bar and restaurant, among other amenities. In 2012, the brothel opened six fantasy bungalows called \u201cSheri\u2019s Playland\u201d and introduced other new services, resulting in a significant increase in business at a time when other, smaller brothels are withering on the vine.<\/p>\n
\tBarb Brents is a University of Nevada, Las Vegas sociology professor who has studied and written about Nevada\u2019s legal brothel industry for more than a decade. She said in an email that \u201cabsolutely yes the industry does need saving,\u201d though she\u2019s not as pessemistic about its future as Flint is.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI doubt that the industry is on its deathbed, but the business model needs to reflect changing trends in sexual commerce,\u201d Brents said. \u201cThe U.S. is behind the curve globally in exploring models other than criminalization, and Nevada is actually a forerunner in this regard. It is a workable model that needs to be expanded, not contracted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFlint doesn\u2019t represent Sheri\u2019s Ranch, but he said he is impressed by what Lee has built there. In a business often associated with remote collections of rundown trailers, Sheri\u2019s has developed into a place capable of attracting sex tourists from across the country and around the world.<\/p>\n
\tIt might even mark the beginning of a new trend in the brothel business \u2014 something akin to the rise of the megaresort on Las Vegas Boulevard \u2014 in which small, far-flung operations like the Shady Lady give way to opulent brothel resorts clustered as close to Las Vegas as the law will allow.<\/p>\n
\tOr it could be just another gimmick \u2014 one good enough to sustain a place like Sheri\u2019s Ranch but not enough to change the fortunes of a fading industry destined for extinction.<\/p>\n
\tEither way, Flint said, \u201cI think you\u2019re going to see more of this sort of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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For the full picture gallery click to go to site http:\/\/www.reviewjournal.com\/news\/nevada\/nevada-sex-resort-tries-new-business-plan-world-s-oldest-profession y HENRY BREAN LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL For about the same price as five days in Jamaica, a week in Cancun or two weeks in Acapulco, you can spend three…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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