GLITTER STRIP SEX INDUSTRY
Inside a legit five-star Gold Coast brothel: ‘If you knew who visited, you’d be surprised ... well-known Gold Coasters.’
IT takes all types.
“If you knew who visited a brothel, I’m sure you’d be surprised,” an employee at the Gold Coast’s Pentagon Grand, says with a wry smile.
“Well-known Gold Coasters. And I mean well ... known ... Gold .... Coasters. As well as everyday people, businessmen, husbands, couples. It really does take all types. You don’t need to be someone who can’t get it anywhere else to see a sex-worker.
“And, who are we to judge?”
The Bulletin’s inside look at the Gold Coast’s legal prostitution business proves just that – people from all walks of life really do pay for sex and the industry is far from black and white.
THE CLIENTS
“Some really hot guys come in here,” another employee chimes in.
“I couldn’t believe it when I first started.”
Pentagon Grand is nestled in the back of an industrial estate at the back of Molendinar.
It has been operating here for the past 19 years, making it the longest-running licensed brothel in Queensland.
It’s got a well-kept garden with a water feature and a black statue affectionately known as Caressa.
The parlour, which is open 24 hours, has 2600 VIP members but many bookings are walk-ins.
It’s about 10am on a Thursday in December when a father and son press the buzzer to enter.
Dad hands over enough money to cover 45 minutes before taking a seat in the foyer while his son spends time with one of the girls.
“Don’t worry, lots of people come here with their dads,” the lady at the front desk tells the young man with a disarming laugh before showing him in.
It’s not his first time at the Gold Coast brothel, but the madam on the morning shift – aka manager – senses he feels a little uneasy today.
She leads him behind a closed door before offering to make his father a cup of tea.
They’re good at that, the managers – reading people and making them feel at ease.
Good at playing mother hen, folding sheets, having a laugh and giving “the girls” tips on how to get more bookings.
Good at second opinions on genital spots and even better at telling people to get out and never come back when they need to.
“It’s a tricky job because you’ve got a lot of things going on,” one neatly presented manager tells the Bulletin, saying she didn’t tell her family about the job at the start but now they think she’s got the best dinner party stories.
The man who came in with his dad is just one of many clients living with a disability who visit the Gold Coast brothel.
They have accessibility for those with mobility issues, known as the “Showroom”, it has a Gold Coast city scape on the wall, a pole for private dances and wheelchair access.
“A lot of people didn’t think about those people when COVID hit and we had to close,” one of the sex workers says.
“A lot of people rely on us for cuddles or touch or just to talk.”
Then there are the bucks parties, the virgins and the husbands who think their wives won’t find out but accidentally leave the “Find My iPhone” app running.
There are the couples looking for a threesome, men who say they’re at the gym, tradies finishing work and businessmen looking for fun after a long Friday lunch.
There are the shy and the evasive: “Are you sure you’re going to turn up because the phone number you’ve given me is not the phone number I can see you’re calling from?” a manager barks down the phone about 4pm on another day the Bulletin visits.
It’s a busy day and the phone rings again.
“We’ve got lots of gorgeous girls on today,” she tells the potential guest, before rattling off a list of working girls’ names followed by their bra and clothing sizes.
THE WORKING GIRLS
When clients arrive at Pentagon Grand, they are taken into what’s called an intro room.
“We’ve got a small window here the girls can look out to make sure the client isn’t someone they know or are related to,” one of the staff explains.
Once in the room, each of the girls enter one by one and introduce themselves before the client makes their choice.
The parlour is unashamedly Gold Coast and once had an Indy-themed room, with a spa, fake traffic lights, a racing car chassis coming out of the wall above the kingsize bed and where clients were invited to “become a part of the Pentagon Grand Racing Team”.
It’s now known as the “Sports Room” and there are a number of other suites with spas and flashy purple king size beds.
All the women work for themselves and come and go as they please.
They must have sexual health checks with a GP and do their own visual health checks on each client under a small light by the bed before a booking.
Here, you pay $170 for 30 minutes with one of the ladies, $220 for 45 minutes and $270 for an hour.
Half the fee goes to the house to cover expenses and security.
Most girls offer additional services called “extras”, which vary between individual sex workers but can range from kissing to “a girlfriend” or “porn star” experience.
Some charge extra for saying: “I love you” or specific fantasies.
Jade, who works at Pentagon Grand, says she got into sex work at age 22 because she wanted to travel and thought she’d try it for a few months to make money for the flights.
Five years later, the softly spoken sex worker has used the cash to put herself through her animal studies course.
“I like the flexibility, I can work when I want,” she says. Every day is different. Sometimes Jade has bookings with 11 clients, other days only two.
“In the beginning, I was nervous to tell people what I did for work and I was kind of living a double life. I didn’t know how to say it and I was worried about what people would think but the more I do this, the more I realise if people think negatively of me I don’t need those people in my life,” Jade says, adding her mother previously worked as a manager of a brothel so never really fell for her cover story anyway.
Jade says the most common thing people pay extra for is kissing or touching.
“… there are so many different things that people want and I’m willing to try almost anything as long as I feel safe and comfortable,” she says.
“Some people who come through have something in mind and they have something they think it would be better to fulfil it here rather than with a partner.”
Jade knows some of the men that she sleeps with are married but makes it a rule never to ask.
“Some are, some aren’t. It’s none of my business really what they do,” she says.
Some men fall in love with her, but it comes with the territory, she explains.
In the information manual provided by the house it reminds clients: “Remember you’re not here to find a girlfriend – someone who isn’t quite your physical type might just provide a blow your mind kind of service.”
“Some clients do become more attached than others, but it’s not really often,” Jade says.
“It’s like any other job, you walk in a door, you do it, you go home. It’s similar to any other job I’ve had before. For me, the sex really is just work.
“There are good days and bad days. I guess the laws and the stigma that surrounds it is the hardest thing for me.”
She said some people, even clients, have made derogatory comments about her choice of career, but on the whole it’s been a positive way to make money.
“It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter what size you are, it doesn’t matter how old you are: you are going to be someone’s preference and everyone is going to love you basically,” Jade says.
“You get a lot of love. I feel my self-confidence has grown. It’s really not what people think it is. For me, it’s not that hard to do it. I know some workers have come through and they’ve tried a shift and they say it’s not for them, but I haven’t found that.
“We are all just normal people.”
THE YOUNGEST BROTHEL OWNER
Pentagon Grand owner Neil Gilmore’s beginnings are worlds apart to where he’s ended up.
He became the youngest licensed brothel owner in Queensland when he bought the Gold Coast parlour in 2002 at just age 26.
“I’m a respectable brothel owner,” the 45-year-old says.
“I really am. For me it’s a business, I don’t have any (sexual) dealings with the girls who work here.”
Mr Gilmore grew up in Scone, NSW where he lived and breathed horses.
His father worked for the Packer family at their 27,000ha Ellerston property and his family name is royalty in polo circles.
Mr Gilmore was a promising player himself before turning his mind to business.
After a career as a Sydney stock trader, he studied a Master of Business Administration at Bond University.
At 26, he got wind that a former Federal cop mate was having trouble buying a brothel and saw it as a chance to try something new.
One year later, he had a house full of women and had to learn the ropes quickly.
But he was more worried about his love life.
“It was a pretty big turn off on a first date when I dropped that I was a brothel owner,” Mr Gilmore jokes, but says he is now happily partnered to a woman who is actively involved in the business and supportive of his career.
Today, he says he loves the job because every day is different.
Mr Gilmore has been through it all on the Gold Coast over the years, with bikies terrorising the Glitter Strip and years of contending with the perception that illegal activity is rife in the industry. “Some members of the public believe that there is crime associated with brothels but the reality is that is not true in the licensed industry because of how heavily regulated it is. You can’t drink or take drugs here and we are subject to massive fines if we don’t pass audits,” he said.
Since 2005, he has lobbied for change in the industry.
In 2014, he told the Bulletin massage parlours were destroying the regulated industry.
He said the city’s legal prostitution market was being pushed to the brink by illegal operators. Six years later as the president of the Queensland Adult Business Association (QABA), he says nothing has changed.
In an exclusive report published by the Bulletin on Monday, Mr Gilmore said the problem had only “proliferated”, leading fed-up operators to commission an undercover sting to identify the massage parlours on the Glitter Strip operating as illegal brothels.
In a staff meeting this month, he told his managers the biggest blow for the industry this year had been COVID.
Mr Gilmore concedes there is nothing quite like a pandemic to kill the vibe inside a brothel.
No kissing, no threesomes, plastic liners on the beds and a yellow hazmat bin in the rooms.
“Not a nice subtle bin, this bright yellow bin,” Mr Gilmore jokes. “It’s not that sexy is it? But we just really want to get back to business after being closed this year.
“We want people to know we’re open and we’re doing everything we can to make things COVID safe as well as fun, even if it means having the yellow bin.”