The Cole Memo

In this episode, I speak to Kaytlin Bailey. Kaytlin is a sex worker rights advocate, comedian, and writer. She’s also the Founder & Executive Director of Old Pros, a non-profit media organization creating conditions to change the status of sex workers in society. Kaytlin is the host of The Oldest Profession Podcast. She is also the creator of Whore’s Eye View, a 75-minute mad dash through 10,000 years of sex worker history.

• Watch the episode on Youtube here
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• Stream the episode on Apple Podcast here

Links mentioned during show

• During this episode, I mentioned a podcast episode that Kaytlin had released on the subject of Nevada Brothels and Legalized Prostitution
  • A link to that episode can be found here.
• TheColeMemo.com/Sex

The auto-generated transcript is below.

in this episode of the co memo I sit down with Kaytlin Bailey. Kaytlin is the host of the oldest profession podcast I wish I would have found this podcast when I first started this project on the coal memo in case you didn’t know folks I’ve been releasing episodes on this on the subject of Nevada brothel and legalized prostitution within the state of Nevada if you’d like to see all of the episodes that I’ve released to date you can go to thecolememo.com/sex but honestly if you just want to check out this episode that I’m referencing by Kaytlin Bailey on the oldest professions podcast you’ll I found it a little bit into recording this which is why I invited Kaytlin onto my show it is one of the best pieces of media out there regarding this specific subject Nevada brothel and the truth about legalized prostitution the oldest profession podcast also has the best coverage on sex work in general but I just wanted to say I had been looking for like a comprehensive piece of media and this is exactly it so I’m displaying it on my screen right now I’ll have it linked in the uh show notes for this episode so folks if you’d like to check out this episode that I’m referring to that was uh released by Caitlyn Bailey it’s about this subject Nevada brothel and the truth about legalized prostitution I highly recommend check it out it is one of the best pieces of media out there on this subject which of course we’ve been exploring in this series on the Cole memo folks in case you didn’t know I’m your host Cole Preston every episode of the Cole memo is released in audio video and transcript formats to find the transcript audio or video version of any episode please refer to the description of the episode that you’re listening to now within that description you can find a link that will take you to our webbsite which will display the transcript for this episode and the platforms where you can find this episode in audio or video formats if you’re unable to locate the episode description on whichever platform you’re listening from Simply note the episode episode number and visit the co memo.com from there you can find the corresponding episode and then you’ll be able to access the audio video and transcript version of that episode you might also find any links that we reference during the episode like the one I just referenced so that you might be able to do your own research on these topics if you’re not listening to this episode of the cole memo on patreon then you’re listening to this episode later than our patrons to become a patron go to thecolememo.com/patreon once again that’s thecolememo.com/patreon it’s a great way to support our show one of the best ways to support our show is absolutely free subscribe to or follow our show leave us a positive review from wherever you’re listening to us from favorite this episode give it a thumbs up leave a comment or post review your engagement and support is appreciated folks I know you’re going to enjoy this episode of the Cole memo today is December 25th 2023 and it looks like I originally recorded this episode with Kaytlin around August 1st of 2023 so keep that in mind and enjoy this episode of the co [Music] memo I am so humbled for the opportunity to speak with my next guest Kaytlin Bailey. Kaytlin go ahead and introduce yourself to my audience please thank you so much for having me on the show um I am the host of the oldest profession podcast and the founder and executive director of Old Pros we are a nonprofit media organization trying to create the conditions to change the status of sex workers in society yeah well first of all thank you for what you do um seriously uh not only for your work and sex work uh and in that realm but I also found out that you’re a standup comedian I love comedy so thank you for doing that as well we all need to love and laugh I’ve actually got a show that I hope to be touring uh like next year it’s called um hores ey View and it’s 10,000 years of history in 75 minutes it’s standup history lecture and a little bit of personal storytelling well I will keep my eyes out for that because well let me just tell my fans how I found you so I I’ve been doing and some of my hardcore fans may know this uh because we have like a series on sex work that is exclusively available for those hardcore fans of ours but we’re working on uh rolling that out for public listening and one of the things I wanted to do before I did that was I was just really looking for more coverage on this subject I kept feeling like I’d find a little bit from like Lisa Ling on CNN you know back in the day she was doing some coverage on brothel I’d find a little bit here a little bit there but I couldn’t find everything on Nevada sex work which is uh the major like kind of where we’ll start today I feel like it’s a good springboard uh for the larger topic we’re talking about which is kind of like decriminalization versus legalization which I think you have some thoughts on um but I wanted to just give quickly give you a compliment I stumbled on the oldest profession podcast specifically your episode about the Nevada a sex market and I was like this is what I’ve been looking for all in one I love hearing that thank you yeah seriously it was so hard to get the story from you know the early days of May Cunningham all the way to the days of Dennis Hoff and you laid it all out thank you I really appreciate that I you know what I do at the oldest profession podcast um I was looking for this stuff too um and I I found you know a lot of um sex rights Advocates you don’t know the history and a lot of historians are really focused on a specific period of time or a specific era and so this really broad sweeping like how do sex workers fit into the story how have we contributed to our communities what um what are our stories and our own words has really driven um this multi-year project and so to be able to lay it all out there and really look at how the Nevada brothels came to be I think it it’s a really great demonstration of why we advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution and not the legalization of prostitution which to really smart well-meaning people sounds like a great idea right there’s so much um in the way that this came to be that I think demonstrates why our stated intentions that’s not how it plays out in real life yeah and if I could you know some people laugh at me when I draw this analogy but I see an analogy or a similarity between um sex work and the civil liberties we’re fighting for and drug policy and one of the things that I think people are misled about is that decriminalization is this sort of baby step towards legalization when really actually it’s like the first and foremost goal like we got to get decriminalization done before we even start talking about that [ __ ] yeah first priority is to stop the arrests right you’ve got to call off the hunt I will point out because this is a a a conversation I have a lot and so this this Nuance is important to me um is I think it’s really important to remember that drugs are Commodities right and commodities can be regulated right like you know I know that there are you know again smart well-meaning people that have Smart sounding things to say about why it’s so important for the FDA to be involved in like literal drugs fine um but sex worker are people and when there when efforts are made to regulate us like Commodities then you end up turning us into second class citizens you really erode and reduce our negotiating power and that opens up the door for more violence and more exploitation and all of the problems that are associated with prostitution and criminalization yeah yeah and to your point I want to Loosely quote you uh something I wrote down from your episode uh to that point you know typically people think of legalization of drugs and everything is like this hippie movement right this cool oh let’s Legalize It Man and so they might look at Nevada if if people are at all aware that Nevada has legalized sex work I’m going to say that in air quotes um they might think of it as this Progressive open-minded hippie cool reform that happened in the 70s but it was more like a sort of violent Libertarians in the desert defending their right to profit off of the laor of women that they may or may not see as people yeah unfortunately that does feel like a more accurate description it can also be described as a uh you know shitty compromise between the mafia and the FBI uh two other patriarchal institutions with more in common than they’d like to admit yeah and um that’s another quote that uh that I wanted to plug from you on a different show you were on you were on the Holly Randall unfiltered and you said I really think that this speaks to the heart and gets to the heart of everyone’s problem with sex work engaging in sex work gives women the freedom and movement uh oh sorry freedom of movement and purchasing power sex workers have been able to carve out a level of Freedom that was aggressively and violently denied to the majority of most women correct absolutely yeah I mean it wasn’t until the 1970s that married women were allowed to have their own credit cards um you know it’s and sex workers have been trading effective uh respectability for access to public spaces and when yeah and um you know outside of sex work there’s I mean there’s so much policing around what women wear where they go who they associate with and the big fears that they don’t want to be mistaken for sex workers why well when you’re mistaken for a sex worker all kinds of things are allowed to happen to you right you know we’re serial killers uh all kinds of predators you can be uh kicked out of respectable establishments Etc but you’re also allowed to go where you want and trading that respectability opens doors that are and have been historically closed to women who are banking on their respectability and social status um to get by yeah it’s it’s like one of those weird ways where I’m going to have a really hard time phrasing this so please uh forgive me if I phrase like in a way that’s sensitive but like to to your point and the reason I brought that up is I think about back in the day when men did think that they just had ultimate power over women and that women were just their property so to say and to to to hear that yes sex workers were able to kind of carve that out turn the tables so to say and be like oh you you know you want to treat us like this like I I’m that’s where I struggle to finish my example but sure you get what I’m trying TR go no you can absolutely turn the tables and you know sex workers were uh you know some of the first entrepreneurs right they call it the oldest profession um one of the first published authors in the western world was Veronica Franco of you know from the 16th 17th century I always get those mixed up because I’m not a real historian but uh she lived in Venice at a time when respectable well-born women were not allowed uh to read or access the library and she became a renowned author and publisher an editor an advocate for women um in her own right and that wasn’t in spite of being a sex worker but because of her status as a cortison she had access to Publishers and libraries and paper in a in a way that no yeah no respectable woman would be able to even enter those spaces yeah and I kind of want to go ahead sorry and it’s just so interesting and frustrating to me that we have all of these examples right of women who have used sex work to escape abusive relationships to start businesses to put themselves through school to fund a career in the Arts and yet it persists as a symbol of violence against women right you have the Glorious shums in the of the world Katherine McKinnon who have turned prostitution um or you know like erotic content really across the board into uh synonymous they’ve made it synonymous with exploitation um and that has led to so many bad laws and policies that hurt the people so many of these Advocates claim they’re trying to help yeah yeah and that’s actually one of the questions I was going to ask towards the end of today’s show that that I’ve been asked you know when I when I kind of premiered so I currently I host this show called The chinois podcast and it’s been kind of focused on drug decriminalization and when I rolled this out and one of the things I said was I mean this is the the oldest profession and one of the questions somebody asked me was or is it the world’s oldest exploitation and I’m like does it have to be either or right yeah I mean what if all work is bad right right whoa yeah that’s an example you gave that I thought was powerful your father uh on a show that I listened to your father technically gave up his body my grandfather gave up his body at the young age of like 18 or 17 years old to go fight for our country so absolutely I mean there are real examples of violence and exploitation um in the sex trade and also across all labor sectors and I often talk about you know my father’s experience because the you know story of soldiers and sex workers goes way back and I think it’s a really good comparison between you know the cultural narrative and the lived reality right people said that I sold my body right people said that I debased myself people said that I you know gave myself a level of trauma that would make human connection more difficult for me later in life and none of those things uh you know reflect my experience and all of them reflect the way that I saw multiple tours of Duty at multiple Wars impact my father you know my dad signed uh signed up for the Army at 17 and one month old right he was sent to the Dominican Republic he was sent to Vietnam he actually died last year from cancer uh that was caused by exposure to agent orange so you know we can talk about selling your body and violence and exploitation but I hope that we can really talk about it instead of using prostitution as this obscuring symbol um for all of the things that we’re actually too afraid to face right right yeah it’s um like I said I thought that was a really powerful example that I’ve heard you use and that I was able to relate to so thank you yeah I think you know we can talk about you know slaughter houses right I mean there was a recently several news Cycles where we found you know 11 12 13year old children right mostly migrants or you know uh that were working in in slaughter houses or in textile mills or in processing plants I mean there are horrific abuses that are happening but none of these are problems that we can arrest our way out of yeah I think just this year I read that there have been a few youth deaths because I think some states have started child labor again in the United States yeah yeah that’s there that’s their solution to the uh Millennials not having enough kids right anyways that’s yeah or or organized labor right yeah yeah exactly but I I wanted to ask you um how just to back up a little bit how did you approach looking into this topic and was your inspiration I guess just to start before we get to how you looked into the topic was your inspiration this that that like misconception that I quoted you on earlier like if you were to ask me before I did all this research I would have told you this was this it was that Nevada was this state that decided like hey people should have the right to do whatever they want man we’re the sin we’re the sin State man and I would have thought that this was for like for women but I learned very quickly it’s it’s not so I wanted to ask you first yeah what in what inspired you to look into it and and how did you approach looking into this yeah I mean you’re absolutely right so clearing up that misconception was at the Forefront of my mind right and there are you know again smart uh people that you know are good intentions that believe in the liberation of women that think that sex workers are fine that have questions like what’s wrong with mandatory STI testing right brothel sound great why wouldn’t we want to create zoning and so helping people really understand who these systems benefit and the way that those systems play out and sort of erode the negotiating power and erode you know the the workers rights um for sex workers and and are so grounded in these like old long debunk ideas right of like sex workers being vectors of disease or like some people that have to you know you have to protect communities from uh like literal or proverbial infection and I think it’s important to to know that history right and to know um how this plays out in real life so that when you find yourself advocating for policies or thinking through um how this should go we can avoid some of those pitfalls yeah yeah and so how did you um how did you approach doing this research I saw that you kind of maybe even worked with a historian and stuff oh yeah so yeah Dr um Dr Charlene Fletcher helped me prepare for all of the episodes for season 3 and season 4 very talented um historian and I’ve also been talking to people that work in Nevada brothel at conferences and in sex worker right circles and and I wrote an article several years ago um trying to understand this phenomenon myself when I started advocating for sex worker rights you really need to be able to explain to people why decriminalization is the only policy that reduces violence like what is wrong with you know workplace protections that in Progressive circles right sound like progress or sound like something that would be beneficial to employees um but isn’t when it’s in this like deeply horh obic context yeah yeah and I mean I guess if we want to just Dive Right In because I have also been interviewing um workers current former uh you know all in between you know managers just to try to get the whole spectrum of perspectives on what the hell is going on there and and I know we’ve kind of already made this point but yeah it doesn’t sound like this libertine uh women’s Freedom location which is yeah which is not to say that you can’t have a good time right as a worker or a client in a Nevada brothel right I have tons of friends that like really enjoyed the ability of like flying in not having to worry about arrest doing your time flying back home fine but I also know women right who’ve had their kids taken away because it was revealed in court that they were a legally registered prostitute in Nevada I know people who um you know worked for weeks on end and ended up owing more money to the house I know women who you know went to Nevada for a period of time um and felt uh trapped and exploited and like they couldn’t tell the difference between state law and house rules and some you know something that some guy was just making up because you had a shitty manager that shift or whatever and for me with a background working as an independent escort in you know a sort of criminalized but not surveilled capacity I really got in there in this like golden age right after cell phones with chrys erotic services uh before all of those tools were taken away so I had a very privileged experience as an independent but you know working at a brothel seemed to combine everything that was hard and complicated about being a sex worker with everything that sucks about being a waitress except you’re only doing 12 and 24-hour shifts yeah yeah and it kind of goes back to my thing that I agree with I’m glad you actually LED with that because I just went to the negative and I think it is important to lead with this experience is not a monolith in fact some of the women that I spoke to both entered and exited maybe not on the best of terms but they were able to do that like you described though some people aren’t and that’s those are the those are the really those are the ones that you know concern me the most but like you say there are people and I you know you can look online even and see some who have been able to enter exit or thrive in the Nevada sex Market and yeah so it’s not like I say it’s not binary it’s not the world’s oldest profession or the world’s oldest exploitation maybe it’s somewhere in the middle you know but I will say that as a system it has failed to reduce violence it has failed to reduce arrests and it has failed uh to create a system that increases uh the negotiating power of sex workers yeah and and that’s that’s kind of where that’s where I was going is I think you had said it um on on your episode that I’m referring to about Nevada sex Market which by the way folks we’ll have that Linked In Our podcast description if you want to check it out you talked about how these laws and this this is the similarity that I see between drugs I agree with what you said earlier where like the the whole idea of regulating a substance versus a person like definitely not going there um but the here’s the similarities I see these rules are not set up to protect the the patron or the person working at The Establishment correct they’re only set up to protect the person making that money off of The Establishment the license holder right that’s what creating a licensing system does right it creates a prohibitively expensive and difficult process where you have a select group of folks who are profiting from what is effectively like a state run Monopoly not an especially effective state run Monopoly as the amount of sex work happening outside of these legally licensed brothel is astronomical right the Le which is why Nevada has the highest arrest rate per capita for prostitution related offenses despite being the only state with legal prostitution so yeah it’s it’s definitely a system that was set up to benefit like 12 dudes instead of this historically marginalized underclass of people yeah yeah and I want to dwell on what you um just said there again and it’s I don’t know if I could say it just as perfectly as as you just did but yeah it’s not you said it perfectly it’s it’s meant to well if there’s any fact that I if there’s only one fact that you leave this conversation with or you know that you move forward with um of like why is legalization a problem It’s like because Nevada is the only state with legal regulated prostitution and it has the highest arrest rate per capita by a huge margin than any other state in the country this is not a system that reduces arrests this is a system that creates incentives right for brothel owners to want to crack down on their criminalized competition it increases arrests Bingo and that is like that oh my gosh I’m so glad you just restated that because I’m going to like I’ll be able to clip that put it in a bottle and just if that is like such an analogous uh sentiment that you just it not only applies perfectly to what I’ve found in the sex industry but also the Cannabis industry other industries that are starting you know I mean I I went into um I got I look I read some reviews online I it doesn’t matter how it happened but I got my medical marijuana card so that I could shop at one of the licensed uh retailers that’s here in New York and in order to do that I have to pass like six unlicensed places that you know probably have fine stuff and seem to be doing a good job I just I wanted something in particular and sort of went to do that and was um not surprised but disheartened to hear the establishment kind of talking [ __ ] about the unlicensed places and and I totally get it right because they went through all of the hoops and like their customers have to get cards and it’s a whole riger roll and it feels like they’re fighting uphill because they have to do it this way well you know in the meantime my corner store is just like sativa in right and so I get it but it it really does pit the sort of like criminalized element of the industry against the legalized and regulated one and it distracts us from our common enemy which is the um people that would ever arrest us for doing any of this because it’s never been a problem yeah I don’t want to jump ahead too far but actually bringing up this person might be helpful in kind of rounding out our conversation on Nevada and then moving on to maybe what ideally would be a better model um Dennis Hoff Dennis Hoff used to bastardize uh the illegal sex Market talk about how dirty it was used yes Pat himself on the back about talking about how he’s fighting trafficking did he die too soon to become a qinon guy or did he like get did we get a taste of that sort of before before I am honestly surprised that that there was not some sort of like controver or uh conspiracy theory surrounding his death that that is interesting I did not hear that and you’re right it does feel like it would it would be that would be on brand but yeah no Dennis Hoff um got a lot of mileage out of you know perpetuating these these false narratives about sex work because it benefited his business and you know I know from sex broker rights Advocates that if you if you got him in private I mean he would admit to you that like you know sex workers working outside of the legal brothel have the same tools available to them to reduce STI that you know they do in the brothel and generally do um but uh but yeah it would be an existential threat to his business if you could just hire an independent escort in Vegas why would you drive to one of his brothel in the middle of the desert yeah and uh really quick before we move on any further can you tell my listeners who Dennis Hoff is in case they don’t know sure uh yes I I don’t I hope I get um yeah so Dennis Hoff was one of the largest brothel owners in Nevada I forget the exact number um that he owned but it was several of them and he really Rose to notoriety with an HBO uh series called the cat house which was like a reality show set in one of these brothel and he just comes across as like a blo hard and uh he has a lot of smart things to say about why prostitution shouldn’t be illegal but he has a lot of dumb and terrible things to say about you know why independent sex about decriminalization um and so I feel like he sort of betrayed uh the movement that he was never that he never considers himself a part of right by spending most of his energy [ __ ] on criminalized sex workers uh rather than being an advocate uh for DM yeah although he did do one cool thing that I want to give him credit for there was a pantri sex instructor who was running a temple and a school for tantric providers in Arizona and she was arrested on prostitution trafficking and procuring charges and Dennis Hoff testified uh in her defense and said look as somebody who runs the brothel this is not what that is H yeah okay well yeah and I’ll give him some credit too before I guess I kind of bring up some of the bad things I’ve heard about maybe the he’s perpetuated and everything else um I think he’s done a lot to bring forth the conversation whether you like it or not what he’s talking about or his angle on it like to go on Oprah to go on Howard Stern all the different shows he went on like a lot of media attention frankly he’s the reason I’m aware of it and and frankly he’s the reason I’m a supporter like if it his confident interviews that I used to see back in the day against critics I was like cuz I was kind of like whoa why is it why is this able to go on are these women okay and then he would give this like confident speech of like these women want to be here and I make them rich and blah blah blah and so yeah he kind of a l made the supporter in me you know yeah and and again like he was a very confident advocate for the legalization of prostitution and I know a lot of folks that he did make rich and I also know a lot of folks who he made feel small because he was just you know like so many charismatic men in the entertainment industry just a stone cold misogynist yeah yeah and I mean that’s maybe that’s a good place to start one of the things I recently heard uh from his workers that I was picking up but it was it was told to me more clearly that it was from him this culture of if you don’t have drama if you don’t have drama well you need to stir some up it’s like this idea that uh if they’re not competing yep yep then then that’s not they’re not working hard enough right right yeah yeah like creating a sales culture yeah and that’s one of my big critiques of the Nevada uh model as I’m not sure if your listeners know about the the culture or the rigma role or what a you know a session or an appointment at um a legal brothel looks like but it starts with the lineup right where you know a potential client enters and all of the available you know providers literally line up and there are pretty strict rules about whether or not they can talk or you know what what can happen during these interactions where the client walks down the line to sort of choose His companion for for the evening and so it’s it it really is baked into the model of having a a pretty competitive and aggressive workplace environment which you know look some people thrive in that and other people don’t and so it shouldn’t be the only available option if you’re trying to avoid arrest right yeah and um you know one of the things that that really gets me you know just to take it a bit further uh first of all I actually went um to the Bunny Ranch humpa bunny um I got a coffee cup I did not purchase any Services uh which I think they were a little bit upset with me about but hey they said I could come and get a free tour and a free beer there were like several signs on the way up the road so that’s what I did anyways um you know so I experienced the lineup that you’re talking about and I will say as a person that was not even actually there to purchas sex it was intimidating yeah I’m sure Air Force Amy was there that was pretty crazy oh that’s cool yeah yeah I got to say hi to her um but um what I’ve noticed to take it to something that I feel like was never out front I’m sure it’s something you get told when you call the Bunny Ranch or when you call one of these establish ments to work but I wanted to get your thoughts on this I’ve talked to several workers and it seems like people will go into the Nevada sex industry planning for their future right we’re I’m Gonna Get Rich because I or I’m gonna make some money off of you know what I choose to do this is what I choose to do and so I’m going to do it for college I’m gonna start a business back at home I’m gonna do this for X number of years or you know I’m going to see this pays better than being a nurse you know it’s Bingo yeah a lot of people a lot of stories a lot of motivations you mentioned this earlier but and this is of course again I want to say it’s not everybody’s experience but the fact that it’s a number of people’s experiences like troubles me they go from planning to their future to being sucked into what they’ve been calling or you know what we’ve been calling kind of this Vortex of debt that keeps them focused on the now making their rent payments instead of planning for their future y yeah this is something that you see um in a lot of Industries it’s not unique to to this one but like cash economies sometimes you’ll hear like you know strip performers or you know porn stars talk about this where the culture and the lifestyle starts to to cost what you make and with the brothel there are a lot of builtin costs and some of those are things that like that particular brothel is man dating and some of them are state laws and there’s not a lot of clarity about like what the difference is and so brothel can make you buy things right brothel can make you you know have certain amenities this is something that they did show at the Bunny Ranch right is like when somebody came in it was like okay you know here’s your rent room and board that’s what this costs and here’s the list of all of the things that you need to buy right can you bring your own Lube no you’ve got to buy Bunny Ranch Lube or whatever it is and so you know that is that’s something that has been true of you know all kinds of brothel especially when they operated as boarding houses in the like 18th and 19th century um so yeah that’s that’s the problem yeah and it’s just again I feel like it’s not of course like I I like I have to be like realistic about this like if I were to choose to go into this work do I expect to just go and live somewhere for free yeah maybe not but I mean there’s also a lot of like you know when you are working as a sex worker and when you were in particular working as a sex worker in a legal brothel you still have a lot of the promotion costs right you have to pay for your own head shots you have to keep up your own social media the brothel is not allowed to advertise so it’s not like you do a shift at the brothel and you can just count on this you know revolving door of customers that probably want to see you so there’s a there’s a hustle element that brings in a lot of the more exploitative elements of the entertainment industry right you know actors have to pay for a lot of their own promotional stuff or you know all of the training or the the a thousand and one costs associated with that um you know I’ve worked at restaurants that were like your apron costs $111 no you have to that’ll come out of your first paycheck so this kind of model is present across Industries but I think it’s easier in sort of like glamour jobs right when that require or encourage um a kind of you know a cash culture um you know where people are partying and and all kinds of stuff yeah yeah and um sorry you brought up a point that I think I just lost um that just what you brought up though is brilliant I didn’t even think about that fact um you know that this is something that does occur in other Industries and like you’ve experienced you know I’ve had to pay for my own uniform or whatever before right um so yeah um I want to get to the subject that I think you’re very passionate about uh before we get to ideally what the the model would be which is that this doesn’t and you mentioned it at the Forefront of our conversation this doesn’t do a lot to make it safer for the workers with regard to violence and I’m starting to argue and I’m curious to hear what you think with regard to testing so let’s start with violence first there’s no security from what I’ve been able to tell at any of these brothel mixed bag right so there’s there is some benefit which is you know one of the reasons why sex workers want to work together and why you know anti-trafficking or end demand laws that prohibit that increased violence against sex workers is that being in community can be its own protection right there’s less violence that’s likely to occur what I have seen both like on the show and from anecdotes amongst folks that I know is that uh when you’re working you know at these places you’re subjected to the same kind of sexual harassment that like a waitress might be subjected to your managers have a lot of power over you there’s not a lot of you know good boundaries you’re doing uh a sexual industry but if you hit the panic button in your room with a client someone will come it might be another worker it might be security that lives there um and you’re you know less likely to be uh you know subjected to a a serial killer for example because they’re they’re less likely to come to a brothel where it’s going to be infinitely harder to do that kind of violence but you’re still subjected to the kind of violence that stigmatized sex workers face in their Intimate Relationships domestic violence and again at the hands of managers who know that they’re working with a a stigmatized uh and trapped uh group of people yeah but like go ahead sorry yeah no please I was just gonna say like for the the Bunny Ranch for example like the security was a I mean I guess like you say the other women as one of the women that I spoke to said uh having a lot of women coming after you in stilettos is not a ideal situation which is true but I’m just saying that a man you know uh maybe a couple of men with a gun in the middle of a desert but but we you know I don’t know broel are one of the few places in the US that haven’t been shot up yet so uh there was a recent shooting at the Bunny Ranch but that was one of the girls I missed that uh oh yeah that’s I’m sorry please could you do you edit these can you cut that part out that I missed that is that no I mean why why do you want to edit it out that’s fine you just missed a news story it’s okay I don’t know it’s I don’t know it feels like the kind of thing that I should be it wasn’t very I don’t want to I mean if you insist I can cut it out but okay cool I mean I want to show it’s if you look it up there was a and it wasn’t very well reported on so the fact that you didn’t hear about it is not that makes more sense yeah so um but basically there was uh I’m not going to say the person’s name because uh I just don’t I’ll say their stage name Tiara Tay um who has been a notable brothel worker for some time people call her the bully Barbie you can see how into this culture I am um I know all the little names um but yeah apparently wrestling culture it really is it really is but yeah apparently she had a firearm um she’s facing four charges convicted felon in possession of a firearm so she was a felon and she had a firearm and um yeah apparently this happened on the Bunny Ranch it’s hard to get a lot of details I’ve heard mixed stories because again this wasn’t very well reported on so don’t feel bad also not the case that you were describing right this isn’t a client coming through the door looking to do violence against sex workers right this is somebody that worked there right um having you know some sort of terrible and awful incident yeah but yeah and so you know it’s it’s hard to make big declarative statements you know you don’t see a lot of sex workers uh you know being violently attacked on the brothel premises but you do see people that work at brothel suffering from the same kind of stigma that makes all of us more susceptible to violence yeah yeah and um so the other the other topic to round that out yeah I agree with you um that and yeah and and what I will say is that the structure of the brothel or like having an armed security guard at the door if that was even what was happening which it sounds like it wasn’t isn’t the only way to prevent violence when you decriminalize right when you take the threat of arrest away then there are a lot more tools that are available to sex workers to keep ourselves safe right we can tell our friends and family the truth about where we’re going and who we’re meeting we can travel with a friend without facing you know pimping procuring or trafficking charges we can run people’s license plate or ask for their information up front without them assuming that I am a police officer so there’s a lot of stuff that can happen when you remove the threat of criminalization you don’t have to Coral vulnerable women into an isolated house in the desert and put armed guards there to like keep them safe that’s not the only way to do that yeah that’s a brilliant point and that’s actually one of the reasons that one of the workers I spoke to said that she left she said that she felt um that the security there was something she could do herself she was like I’m doing all this vetting myself you know like nobody even sees me until I’ve vetted them you know what I mean yeah and that’s that’s something that is true about the sort of like criminalized or or segments of the criminalized market is that there’s a lot more vetting the only thing that has to happen for you to go to a you just have to walk through the door of a brothel right but in order to book an appointment with you know some escorts there’s a back and forth there’s a negotiation there’s like a background check that can happen that’s that’s not happening at the brothel and that gets to my other point that she brought up she might be a little bit of an exception because she’s also an adult film star but she I for I got the impression that she prefers her let’s say patrons to also be tested and that’s not something that’s happened in the brothel and when I ask every brothel worker they were very quick to be like well well that wouldn’t be realistic or that would and I get what they’re trying to say of course yeah well I mean I get what they’re trying to say like if you’re going to a brel as a man you’ve made the decision earlier that day like I want to [ __ ] and so I’m going to the brothel and by the time you’re there you’re like let’s do this and so the last thing you want to do maybe is take a test valid point but I I was asking them like wouldn’t it make you feel safer if you know here’s the problem there are many problems with mandatory testing right and one of them is that it decreases uh taking protective measures right so the more you blast this point we test our girl nobody everyone here is clean nobody here has an STI the more clients are like well we should just why let’s what I would like to do is not wear a condom so so what what my Spidey senses right as a sex worker tell me that if you ask clients to go through the rigma RO of getting an STi test that’s only going to empower them to be stronger advocates for removing the necessary protection right right so I think that condoms and not mandatory STI testing is the answer I think that reducing barriers to health care right again decriminalization allows sex workers to tell their doctors the truth about the work that they do um you know I am a huge fan of universal healthcare I think it should be easier for everyone to see the doctor uh public health is a public concern but I think that like forcing sex workers to both pay and undergo these tests that are then sort of like sold as propaganda for like justifying the existence of the brothel and justifying the containment of sex workers all of that is done in the name of disease prevention right the reason that sex workers are not allowed to leave the brothel right when they’re on shift is because of this uh STI concern um it’s also about the fact that the brothel don’t want sex workers leaving the brothel because then they might compete with the brothel by offering sexual services off the premises which you know uh they don’t owe money to the brothel if that happens right so I see I see problems with mandatory STI testing and benefits to increasing access to all kinds of healthare including um STI testing uh prevention and treatment thank you for talking about that you know that is a really holistic view I think of approaching this it doesn’t just have to be that’s what’s interesting about some of the ways I’m approaching to this I haven’t thought about it as holistically as you are so I really appreciate like yeah your approach to that subject yeah I mean we we’re really afraid of STI and I I get it they suck right it’s you no one right like I I get it and the AIDS epidemic um really instilled a level of fear that led to some really bad policies like the criminalization of HIV AIDS you know so you have folks that are being you know arrested for prostitution and then charged as you know felons or whatever for you know engaging insect with this uh with this horrific illness and so that stigma it didn’t do anything to reduce the spread of this horrific STI right it only prevented people from seeking the care that they need from being able to tell their healthc care providers um and from being able to seek like the whole time that we were aggressively criminalizing sex workers who worked with HIV AIDS we also criminalized carrying condoms because we were using it as evidence to prosecute people for prostitution so if we want to make Public Health the goal we can do that but we cannot do that through coercive control and criminalization and all of these other fear tactics um associated with VD yeah yeah um before I switch I was going to to switch to the topic of like lockdown brothel and everything else but any other thoughts on that subject sure no um no thanks for thanks for giving me the space to talk about it it’s nice to have nuanced conversations about STI yeah yeah no seriously thank you um and and you brought up lockdown brothel so I wanted to talk about them um because like you say I feel like that’s that’s another part of the industry that I just don’t know how I feel about like here’s what have heard though just to set the stage and then to give you the space to talk about this subject um I have heard people credit Dennis Hoff actually for ending the complete lockdown culture uh by allowing the women I like that word allowing um it sounds so much like he owns them still but anyways allowing the women to um uh leave for I think a period of like 12 hours and the reason it’s not 24 is because she might have sex and in which case if you are gone for 24 hours you need to retest everyone knows it takes 13 hours to have sex unless you’re in a brothel in which case you can do it in 15 or 30 minute inment um that I believe that I you know I’ve talked to some folks that have worked for with Dennis Hoff and it it was a mixed bag right some people really liked his management style some people really got along with him some people thought he was a douchebag the full spectrum but sure you know I I could absolutely see him being like hey seems weird that one of my jobs is prison Warden uh uh for people that don’t want to be here um so letting people leave the premises go to the movies sleep in their own bed you know there’s uh I I I could see him doing that I don’t know enough about that specific history um but uh I’m sure especially if he could do it with like you got have to get like a hall pass from Dennis that you like you show at the grocery store or something like I to be here I’ve came here for eggs right right gross yeah I could only imagine it would be a really gross Hall Pass like the shape of a you know the shape of a phallic anyways though uh so uh here’s something that I felt hasn’t changed since like the 80s there’s this really good book folks that maybe you’ve heard of uh Caitlyn that I found at my library that I have really been enjoying that talks about a lot of the things you covered in your podcast so I’m just plugging it again the N broth Wars um but to your point uh you’ve brought up earlier with uh and that we’re talking about now so we’re talking about lockdown brothel now but you also talked about their shifts earlier this is a quote from the book days went by in a wh house like the chicken ranch where the girls worked 15 hours first of all I love just how candid the wording is in this book a wh house um anyways uh days went by in a wh house like the chicken ranch where the girls worked 15 hours then went to bed then awoke to another 15 hours they might as well have been hurdling through space in an enclosed capsule as sitting in a trailer out in Nevada the girls worked three weeks on one week off and during those three weeks they were allowed to leave the trailers for a 9-hour stretch only once a week it’s from the 80s doesn’t sound much different from today yeah yeah I mean that’s not the kind of working conditions that I would describe as liberated uh in any capacity yeah but to to your point that you well it’s similar to your point that you made earlier and it’s a it’s a point that one of the sex workers I spoke with made I was like what other job would you be forced to work like 15 hours and stay there and all this stuff and they’re like firefighters firefighters y I was like oh [ __ ] touche you know yeah yeah and so it is interesting and you know I definitely don’t want to uh I think it would be in inaccurate to describe these 15h hour shifts as like one client after another a lot of the 15-hour shift is sitting around chatting with other people that work there you know um but it is uh yeah I mean it’s I don’t know how the brothel is not paying those women to be available right they the independent contractors are there waiting for clients to come through the door so yeah it’s now another point you made earlier and sorry I’m having so much fun today are we good on time I’ve only got a little bit more before we get to our final yeah yeah yeah this is fine I’m good till 12:30 sweet perfect um so uh the the idea that um women you know have that are they aren’t paid right I heard that is something that also started with Dennis Hoff which is interesting like when I went to the Bunny Ranch like many women approached me and they kind of like hit on me not really it’s not like they were like wow this guy’s so hot they were like wow maybe I could get some money out this guy so I can pay room and board I’m not trying to flatter myself I’m like like like at a strip club right correct correct thank you yes I mean or even or at a restaurant right it’s like when the waitress is coming up like would you like to eat is that is that what you good point yeah yeah yeah that’s a really good point that’s what we serve here yeah so I just wanted to make that point though that apparently like you know workers may not be as big of a fan of that and like some men for example so like I’ve heard workers have mixed feelings about all those signs leading up to the Bunny Ranch where it’s like get a free tour have a beer no sex required because then the sex workers are not paid to be tour guides they are paid to provide sexual services and if they are not being paid for sexual Services they are not being paid to Usher curious folks right through through the establishment um so yeah I mean it it it makes sense right where like some people would love that because you know talking to people but I think I would come to resent it if I started spending you know 30 40% of my day um talking to folks that were not paying me for my time well and back to your point of uh these women having to be very uh Innovative and and resourceful with their advertising with well I don’t want to call it advertising because but that’s basically what it is you know social media work because they’re in the middle of a [ __ ] desert it’s not like people are just walking in and out all day you know you got get people out there so yeah and so you know there’s some sex workers that will like spend time on the like trucker radio system right talking to folks that are on the road uh trying to create reasons w why people should take a stop I never even thought about that that’s kind of crazy get yourself a CB radio yeah yeah sex workers have had to have had to be real innovators and they’ve driven that right and there there are real laws that con strict the kind of advertising that brothel can do but it’s also money they don’t have to spend on Advertising right if they have a bunch of independent contractors that are uniquely independently motivated to do their best to get people to come through the door why would the establishment invest in that yeah yeah well well hey I just realized since you’re in New York it is about 12:30 so I want to be mindful of your time um I have two questions I wanted to end off with and give you space on the first one you may not be aware of as a story so maybe we don’t have much to talk about maybe it’s something we could revisit in a future conversation I’d love to have uh you back on the show I’d love to come back so uh thank you by the way uh I recently read this story and like I say it just oh I say I recently read it but apparently it was in March I had never heard about this though uh one of the sex workers that I interviewed shared it and apparently the The Love Ranch South not North I was told there too that’s something I learned um was purchased by the Jensen pro project a nonprofit dedicated to ending sexual violence this is going to be like the crisis pregnancy centers but for sex work yeah so that’s that’s what that’s what I think is gonna happen there yeah yeah this is the first I’m hearing of this story too which um it’s uh something I I wish we we’d covered I got to set up a news alert for brothel Nevada make sure I don’t don’t miss this stuff in the future well now we’re connected so we can share stuff please yeah don’t hesitate to forward me stories I get a lot of emails where it’s like you’ve probably already seen this and I was like please keep sending me the Articles um but yeah I mean that sounds uh that sounds like something a religiously motivated group of folks that think that all prostitution is the worst form of exploitation uh would invest in taking over the space of a brothel and you know carving out space for themselves um but yeah I imagine and I’m absolutely this is all conjecture but I imagine that they are operating similar to a Crisis Pregnancy Center where they’re trying to get uh who they would call like sex buyers to come through the door and instead of providing them uh with a consensual adult sex worker they’re probably providing them a lot of literature and scary stories about how all sex work is trafficking in the way that you would like a voluntary John school if if you would right yeah that’s crazy um yeah but yeah um I wanted to run that story by you we can talk about it more in the future see how it all plays out actually yeah I’ll do some research and see yeah well the last topic I wanted to to discuss and I wanted to lead with using an example and then give you the space as we close the show um we’re I wanted to close on DCM vers legalization and why DCM is the best and I really liked an example you used which is that decrim ends rest Al together you Ed the example of decriminalization of like gay sex and example you know like no paperworks needed to engage in that versus the legal system so swing at it DM vers legalization I think it’s important to start with definitions right so legalization means creating regulatory structures that are specific to sex work and this can look different in different places it can look like licensed brothel it can look like forced Registries it can look like mandatory STI testing but the point is that if you’re engaging in sex work there is something extra that you have to do to be a protected worker this inevitably creates a two-tiered system right where you have legal protected workers and then you have criminalized workers where you’re not solving any of the problems of criminalization decriminalization simply means removing criminal penalties and does not create a new structure or system but still has like all of the laws that other people have to follow you also have to follow right but it uh decriminalization means that nobody is arrested um evicted or fired Just for participating in this work um which is not to say that you can open up um a brothel in your apartment complex for the same reason that you can’t open a restaurant in your apartment complex uh but you can probably have people over for dinner parties a couple of nights a week um so I think it’s important or useful to think about sex worker rights through the lens of lgbtq plus rights because although sex work is work it is also sex and every that you can come up with to surveil or control adult consensual sex work effectively means surveilling and controlling adult consensual sex but if you remove the criminal penalties right if consensual sex between adults is just not a crime whether people are paying for it or not that allows sex workers you know who’ve been doing it for a day or a year or a decade to be strong self- Advocates right to uh to advocate for protection to tell their doctors the truth to um report crimes committed against them or that they witness uh which is very important but if you create a special legal structure that creates a barrier for the overwhelming majority of people who do this work um outside of whatever the regulatory system is I hope that you feel like I covered it yeah yeah great and I mean we we definitely can talk about it more in the future with with what’s going on in the United States because I know like New York I think just am I wrong just deed or will no no no there are two competing bills right now actually which brings me to another really important distinction um there’s an end demand bill that is being sold as partial decriminalization and then there is a uh Community safety and health bill that is actual full decriminalization and so in demand um it’s sometimes called the Nordic model or the entrapment model or uh you know the feminist or equality model um but effectively it means criminalizing the clients of sex workers or anyone who helps facilitate prostitution while treating everyone who does this work as a hapless victim suffering from false consciousness who can’t be trusted the way that this plays out is everywhere these policies are implemented sex workers get evicted why because landlords if they become aware of the sex work become uh legally pimps right living off the proceeds of of sex work it means that sex workers can’t have roommates it means means that they can’t have partners that live with them uh it means that they can’t hire security or a cleaning service or any of the other support systems that you would want to invest in and critically it means that you still can’t report crimes committed against you because if you let the local authorities know you’re a sex worker they’re going to stake out your apartment so that they can arrest your clients preventing people from making a living is not a form of Liberation it is not a a handout and when you take weigh people’s livelihood or you make it more complicated for people to meet clients desperate people do desperate things you increase the likelihood that someone is going to do more for Less someone that is going to um you know not do their safety protocols and again you create this really perverse incentive where if you are criminalizing clients and not sex workers that undermines all of our safety precautions right so in order to book an appointment with me it it used to be that uh you know I needed to see um two industry references I needed your real name and where you worked if you try to ask that of a client when they’re the only ones facing criminalization they’re not going to give it to you and I as a provider can’t tell the difference between a reasonable rational person that does not want to provide a potential undercover cop with incriminating information or a predator who’s trying to get around my screening practice so that’s why everywhere these laws uh have been implemented violence against sex workers goes up yeah and if I could really quick I feel like the whole undertone of what you just described of those policies is that women are just so inept they would never choose to get in right am I wrong yeah no these Poli are sold as a way of protecting women but it’s protecting women in the way that we protect children it’s protecting those women from their own choices it is not treating sex workers as active agents in their own lives yeah yeah well I uh I did have one last thought uh if I could really quick you’re it’s it’s remarkable to me that and this is one of the examples that one of the sex workers I met used like I literally met her in her hotel room and after I was leaving like clients were coming in and I I just jokingly said I was like you know you could always just keep my camera and tripod here and then what you’re doing is completely legal she’s like that’s that’s kind of the secret yeah it’s weird that that’s the loophole across the unit States it’s a loophole in a lot of places too New Hampshire I think is a an example of this and it’s it’s interesting too because you know so in order to not be committing a crime right so you set up a camera lights record the whole thing happening now you’re making yourself more vulnerable to being docked being outed to your community do having all of these other things whether your intention was ever to make that you know public or not so it it is bananas really how um all of these laws that we’ve conceived um around the oldest Prof protection uh excuse me around the oldest profession do the opposite of what we say we want to do which is help women be less vulnerable yeah well folks you got to check out the oldest profession podcast it’s an amazing show and Caitlyn I really look forward to the next time we connect uh thank you so much for I really appreciate it thank you so much for having me on and for a great conversation and for covering this topic it’s it’s really important thank you absolutely thank you well folks we’ll see you on the next one take care