In rural Nevada, the possible expansion of the brothel industry has sex workers hoping to be given a central role in governing their own industry, rather than being seen as at-risk women who require protection from themselves.

Sex workers

have long struggled to be regarded as leaders in the prevention of HIV, not as

vectors of disease from which the public must be protected. This challenge extends to the few counties in

the United States where

prostitution is regulated and permitted under law — in rural Nevada,

where the possible expansion of the brothel industry has US sex workers

hoping at last to be given a central role in governing their own industry,

rather than being seen as at-risk women who require protection from themselves.

In January,

the key lobbyist for Nevada’s legal brothel

industry, George Flint, obtained the backing of state Senator Bob Coffin for a bill to impose

a statewide tax on Nevada’s 25 legal brothels. Flint’s

aspirations are two-fold: gain the favor of Nevada citizens who face bracing budget

cuts, and reinforce the status of brothels as legitimate businesses

contributing to the economy and community welfare. His tax proposal also has

the support of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who has asked Flint

to work on a model bill to create highly regulated legal brothels in Las Vegas, where

prostitution is currently illegal. While

Senator Coffin intends to hold public hearings on prostitution at some point through

the Senate Taxation Committee, Flint’s

proposal is due to be heard by the state legislature this month. All of this has sex workers and advocates

wondering: if the brothel business is going to be taxed and expanded, who will be involved in developing

new regulations? Will it be sex workers?

Sex worker

advocates’ concerns about brothel regulations go back to the early days of the

HIV/AIDS pandemic, when Nevada’s current system of mandatory HIV/STI testing

and quarantining brothel workers from the public were put into law without the

consultation of the workers themselves. Nevada state law mandates that sex workers

in the legal brothels must undergo monthly HIV and syphilis tests and weekly

gonorrhea and chlamydia tests. In

addition, some county and municipal codes stipulate that sex workers may not

leave the brothels for more than 24 hours without being tested again. Some brothels do not permit workers to be

off-premises at all in evening hours, unless accompanied by a chaperone. "Girls

do leave all the time, to go to town, to get their nails done," said George

Flint, "but I’m a huge fan of girls staying on-premises. Without the controlled

environment that the brothel provides, they may turn tricks outside without safety

things [condoms]."

Sex workers

don’t object to being tested for HIV and STIs on principle, sociologists Barb

Brents and Kate Hausbeck of the University

of Nevada – Las Vegas found in their

research with brothel workers. But workers and health advocates argue that

regulations governing their workplaces were put into place as a reaction to

public misperceptions about HIV, and that these practices have not been updated

now that more accurate information on HIV transmission and prevention has

emerged. "The current system is old and

ineffective," said Amanda Brooks, who

has worked at a legal brothel in Nevada.

"It’s time for the brothel industry to enter the 21st century."

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The Nevada brothels’

mandatory HIV testing laws were established in the mid-80’s, in response to

concerns that tourism dollars would be lost in the panic over HIV. State law stipulates that all new workers to

the brothels must test negative for HIV as part of a pre-employment screening

conducted at approved testing sites, in addition to testing every thirty days

of continued employment. Even as these

regulations were first adopted into law, the state Department of Public Health

maintained that the compulsory testing was passed "as a symbolic gesture," said

Barb Brents. "It was a gut reaction to

the AIDS crisis." In a 2006 interview,

Rick Reich, Communicable Disease / AIDS Services Supervisor for the Clark

County Health Department, said of the mandatory testing law, "[W]e test these

people so often, it’s almost like we over-test them. That doesn’t stop the

infections from coming into the brothels by the customers. That’s where the mandatory condom use comes

in."

The one existing Nevada brothel regulation that effectively

keeps sex

workers safe was pushed for by workers themselves — a statewide

mandatory

condom policy. Sex

workers had been demanding that condom use be made mandatory across the

brothel system in order to make uniform the safety practices they

already knew worked best, but it wasn’t until 1987, after compulsory

HIV/STI testing had been adopted into law, that brothel owners realized

their competitive advantage was at risk

unless a statewide condom policy was in place.

"In my understanding, it was the workers

that wanted [mandatory condoms]," said Cheryl Radeloff, assistant

professor of

Women’s Studies at Minnesota State University – Mankato, who has

studied the

Nevada brothels. "They were scared of being exposed to HIV," which

testing the workers

alone cannot prevent from occurring. The practice remains effective,

both for prevention and to demonstrate what workers can accomplish

collectively. As Radeloff observed, "the workers all bought in to this

law because it was the workers who most wanted it."

Sex workers have also questioned

the messages about testing and the sexual health information they receive from

their employers. Amanda Brooks, who

worked in a brothel this summer, wrote that

she was told by the health care providers referred to her by the brothel that

she would not be tested for hepatitis because "Mexicans and Asians carry

hepatitis" and she appeared to be white.

Said Brooks, "We weren’t given accurate basic health information at my

brothel."

"Look at

the tests that are pushed," said Cheryl Radeloff. "We can’t use throat and urine cultures for

testing gonorrhea and chlamydia because the law stipulates a cervical specimen

is to be taken. And with HIV – we can’t

use rapid tests, because there’s no provision for them in the law. There’s a

lag between the law and best practices." In addition to the weakness of relying

on twenty year old laws to set current public health standards, sex workers

have not yet been considered to be important in the design and implementation

of brothel health policy. Asked Radeloff, "Where’s the advocacy for workers

within the brothel system to take roles as peer advisors and mentors?"

"As workers

and health advocates, we can push for an update to the current system, for an

assessment of best practices in brothel health," said Naomi Akers, executive

director of St. James Infirmary,

a peer-run occupational health and safety clinic for sex workers. Akers also

worked in the Nevada

brothels for several years. Currently, brothel workers are responsible for the

costs of their own tests. Additionally,

if a worker leaves the brothel for more than twenty-four hours, she must be

re-tested for HIV before being allowed to return to work. However, the brothels currently use the ELISA

HIV test, which may not detect the antibodies that cause HIV for up to three

months. "If you leave the brothels for

just twenty four hours, it doesn’t make any sense," said Akers. "The RNA PCR

test is what we offer for HIV screening in our clinic. It has a shorter window

period for detection, and tests for the presence of the virus itself."

As brothel

workers carry the cost of their own test, this twenty-four rule may have more

to do with encouraging workers to stay on-site and work continuously rather

than pay to be tested and lose work while waiting for results. Said Susan Lopez, director of the Sex Workers’ Outreach Project-Las Vegas, "Sometimes

it feels like they just want to keep the ‘dirty whores’ out of the city so that

they don’t infect the public," and even with overwhelming evidence that sex

workers are not any more responsible for the transmission of HIV, these attitudes

remain. In fact, there are sex partners

involved in the Nevada

brothel system who aren’t tested: the clients. "I’m sure over the years,

statistically speaking, that I had a client who was HIV positive," said

Akers. "And still, with condom use, it’s

entirely possible for workers to remain HIV negative."

"The

rhetoric that needs to be crushed right off the bat is that women need to be

confined," said Brents. "There is just an acceptance of this being the way

things are. But to hear George Flint talk, there’s the sense that now that we

could do it right." Now that Flint needs to convince

legislators to support his bill giving even more legal status to prostitution

in Nevada,

shifting the public’s perception of brothel workers — from that of outsider threats

to contributing members of the community – could not be better timed.

To date, no sex workers have been

included in the brothel regulatory boards, though Flint said he is open to this. But as sex workers and advocates have said, being

willing to listen to sex workers is not enough.

Rather, ensuring sex workers have an equal voice in lobbying for policy

based on evidence over unfounded fears should be his first step in proving his

commitment to a better brothel business.