Customer Reviews

Brothels of Nevada: Candid Views of America's Legal Sex Industry

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's a big jump from the lively paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec of prostitutes in Montmarte to Timothy Hursley's interesting coverage of America's only legal sex industry and the one big difference you'll notice is the understandable absence of people in the photos, consequently they offer a rather detached view of this very human activity.

The photos date from the mid-eighties to today so several of the buildings are no more. The five chapters geographically cover Nevada and Hursley seems to have visited most of the State's sex industry. He has tried to cover everything, the wire fenced entrances, parlours, bedrooms, recreation areas, kitchens and the rubbish bins outback. Several kitchen photos show cooking timers, used for obvious reasons. The Shamrock went to the trouble of making a custom unit to house their fourteen timers. The exterior shots suggest that these brothels are rather isolated (parking would never be a problem) though the Chicken Ranch, in 1986, thoughtfully provided a runway, shown on page forty-three.

Overall an interesting book of photos, good color and well designed. As a visual record of this particular area of American life Tim Hursley will probably retain his monopoly. I doubt anyone will do it better and just the book, in the bookcase, to sit next to Barbara Heyl's 'The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution' (ISBN 087855211)

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

From a skilled architectual photographer one might be surprised to find the legal brothel as the subject of this elegant collection. First, the movies have created quite a different image of brothels. As opposed to the pleasure palaces of Victorian Chicago or the upstairs at the saloon, the real brothels of today's Nevada are mostly double wide house trailers singly or in groups (since in the beginning they had to be mobile because of changing zoning ordinances). The excellent large format images shown are not girly pictures and in fact there almost no human figures to be seen. Rather they are a demonstration of a part of America seldom seen and even less understood..
The economics of brothels is not well studied. Naturally owners are intent on the greatest possible profits from the least investment. Since the women work on a piece work basis (no pun) it is difficult to increase the throughput of the operation. To construct a spledid brothel is almost a conflict in terms. Instead, brothels are constructed as a compromise in tastes. What is the minimum place attractive to clients who by definition are unsophisticated but that will not affect business? The women in turn concoct their living-working rooms intended to demonstrate their own taste or lack of it.
For all the housewives with their fanatasies of escaping their bloated husband and being paid for those services thy have contributed in the past, the alternative of those clusters of double wides may be sometimes attractive.
Hursley has captured a lonely and wistful collection of images that are classic Americana. I urge you to read the companion book, "Brothel" by Alexa Albert to form your own conclusions.

This excellent book is more of an exotic voyeur's tour of the legal whore houses, actually trailers, of Nevada's brothels than it is a portrait of the prostitutes working in these houses of ill repute. Only a few or the working girls are seen in the book and in those cases they are only blurred fleeting figures, seen from the back working their Internet sites or practically invisible behind barely open blinds and screen covered windows. This is an architectural photographer's color documentation of what is probably a disappearing remnant of the Wild West. The photographer has won numerous Architectural awards including the "Architect's Honor Award." The book's publisher is the Princeton Architectural Press. It's important to know these facts if you are interested in the book, which is masterfully done in every way, but may not be what many potential readers are searching for. The title may suggest more eroticism than is actually in the tome. It's more a fancy coffee table art book designed to peak the interest of guests and spark some interesting before or after dinner conversations. It's contains only a hint of raciness. It's also a dark portrait of decay and human weakness.
Alexa Albert, M.D. writes a very brief introduction to Timothy Hursley's photographic studies of many of Nevada' s working, some now closed, brothels. Alexa Albert wrote "Brothel: Mustang Ranch and It's Women" about her lengthy study of prostitution and public health while attending Harvard Medical School. The books are somewhat like two facets of the same story. One is about the workingwomen, their safe sex practices, and the other is a comprehensive portrait of the same women's places of business. However, the two facets remain totally independent of each other.
"Brothels of Nevada" very much resembles "Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan" both in style and subject matter, although the Love Hotels of Japan are not brothels and are merely convenient meeting places for lovers from all walks of life.
The rather boring, Spartan, but occasional fancy trailers of Nevada's brothels are only a faint echo of the grand style of the Love Hotels of Japan, which are much more sophisticated and accepted fantasy worlds in every way.