Lamar Odom and the last days of Nevada brothels
CRYSTAL, NEV.— When former Los Angeles Lakers star Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel earlier this month, he had wandered far off the beaten path of adult entertainment culture, back into an analog version of an increasingly high-tech sex-play universe. Like Wayne Newton and mobsters wielding Tommy guns, the so-called world’s oldest profession smack of a bygone era in Nevada. Brothels are under siege, more and more considered outdated and distasteful, even in the only U.S. state to sanction prostitution.
Legalized in most of Nevada in 1971, these so-called pleasure dens, many believe, are on their last legs.
“These brothels are really a relic of the past. Even here in Nevada, they’re relegated to what we call the cow counties,” said Nevada state Sen. Richard S. “Tick” Segerblom. “The urban areas have an appetite to abolish them. And given the state’s rapid urbanization, there’s really little popular support left for these businesses.”
Contrary to its reputation, Las Vegas does not sanction prostitution. The 300odd prostitutes working in Nevada’s 17 legal brothels — shady hideaways with names such as the Love Ranch, Angel’s Ladies and the Cherry Patch II — are isolated businesses. While 12 of Nevada’s 16 counties allow brothels, the nearest one to Las Vegas is an hour’s drive to the west, in the small town of Pahrump.
George Flint, Nevada’s last surviving brothel lobbyist, retired earlier this year at age 81, a move that left the struggling industry without a voice in the legislative halls of Carson City.
Flint’s job lately had become more difficult. Despite his folksy, backslapping style, his message was shunned more and more by a new generation of elected officials.
In 2010, when Flint approached Barbara Buckley, then speaker of Nevada’s Assembly, about allowing legalized prostitution in Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, she winced. “She said, ‘George, get the hell out of my office,’ ” Flint recalled in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times. “I told her, ‘I get the hint; I’ll come back later.’ ”
Later, when the lobbyist pitched to former Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, the lawman cut him off. Flint recalled: “He said, ‘Flint, you don’t need to explain anything to me. But let me tell you some- thing: Keep your (butt) out of Clark County.’ ”
This year, most of the 17 freshman lawmakers in Nevada have avoided Flint like a bad cold. “Another anti-brothel movement can’t be far off,” he sighed in the recent interview. But wait: for the brothels, it gets worse. A few years ago, the famed Mustang Ranch threw a steak-and-lobster party for legislators. Three showed up.
And only a handful of the state’s remaining brothels make a profit, Flint said. Most clients pay a few hundred dollars per visit. Special requests — and there are lots on the menu — drive the bill up even more.
Flint said his last budget for political contributions made by the Nevada Brothel Owners Association reflected the plunge in the industry’s fortunes, dropping from $100,000 annually to $20,000.
But a few brothels continue to make stabs at remaining socially legitimate.
Sex tycoon Dennis Hof, who owns seven brothels in the state including the Love Ranch, where Odom was found unconscious, has waged a public-relations campaign to stay relevant.
He recently published The Art of the Pimp, a tabloid-like tell-all of the brothel industry, and Hof’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Carson City was featured in the HBO series Cathouse, which offered a day-to-day look at the lives of the women who work there.
Hof recently made news when he announced that he would begin assisting women at the Bunny Ranch pay off student loans by matching their debt payments. Three years ago, Hof even defended his industry in a speech he gave at Oxford University.
“My life has been a party for 20 years. When you legalize prostitution, you take out all of the criminal elements and get safer sex,” he said. “These girls are educated young businesswomen.”
The Love Ranch is isolated, a collection of roughshod beige buildings a few hours northwest of Las Vegas, not far from the Last Chance mountain range.
The front area is lined with palm trees and alabaster statues of nude women in suggestive poses. Inside, the tiny apartment where Odom spent time with two employees looks like any suburban bachelor pad, with portraits of tigers on the walls.
But that isolation, brothel operators say, is part of the appeal of the place; it gives its customers some privacy.
Brothel diehards insist the industry has outlived other scares — such as AIDS in the ’80s — and can do so again.
But Odom’s collapse is just more bad news to businessmen by now used to bad news.
In an interview with the Times this year, former brothel owner Joe Richards, who once owned three establishments, called Flint’s retirement an omen. “When George is gone, the industry’s going to be history,” he said.
Well, Flint is gone. And many believe the state’s brothel universe will soon follow.