Hooker with A Heart of Gold, Etc.

The LA Weekly tackled the sex industry this week with an epic headliner about brothels. The piece, which explores the influx of women from all over this recession-stricken country to legal brothels in Nevada, centers around the stories of a handful of girls with mouths to feed.

Barbara Brents, a sociology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and co-author of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex and Sin in the New American Heartland, says that while she has no hard figures regarding the current recession, turning to prostitution in times of economic hardship is a tried-and-true option for women.

“When we did our interviews of brothel workers for our book, one of our major findings was that a large portion of the women who entered the brothels without having done prior sex work did so because of financial need,” she says. “They were working a low-paying, service-sector job that was just barely supporting them, and turned to the brothels to either get them through a crisis or because they were sick of working a straight job and not getting anywhere.”

It’s a far cry from presenting a complete picture of sex-work in Nevada, which isn’t just composed of women who are there out of desperation and as a last resort, but it’s a start… maybe.

Image by Kevin Scanlon .