Kourtney Chase is a sex worker at the Love Ranch brothel just outside Las Vegas. Her job is profitable, full of novelty, and like any other job, takes time to master the craft. Chase took Rooster through a day-in-the-life at the Love Ranch to see how she and her fellow sex workers hustle …
[Kourtney Chase]
Kourtney Chase waits in the back room of the Love Ranch brothel. A man walks up and rings the doorbell. The “madam on the menu” checks him out — makes sure he’s a nice, clean man who’s not drunk off his ass — and then lets him in.
Chase listens for the signal. If the madam rings the bell two more times, she has 90 seconds to hustle to the front of the brothel for a lineup. It’s first-come-first served, so if she’s too slow, she won’t be presented to the client for sexual services.
“Sometimes, there are so many of us running to the front that we’re tripping over one another. We leave our shoes lined up by the door because it’s too hard to run in heels. The miracle women who work in strip clubs have a serious advantage,” Chase says.
For the lineup, the man sits in a chair, and the ladies stand in a straight line in front of him, all dressed in something sexy. They each announce their names, and try to lure him back to their room to discuss prices. The man picks his favorite, and the chosen lady can begin giving him her personalized treatment.
“She’ll take him on a tour of the house, showing him all the specialty suites, then take him to her bedroom to discuss personal prices behind closed doors,” Chase says. “All the time they’ll tell you, ‘I think that’s too much.’ You have to be pretty convincing. But if you get the guy’s dick hard during negotiations, do you think he’s going to leave?"
“So you sit on his lap, rub his pants, have porn on the TV, and ask him what he wants," she continues. "Some guys might walk away, but the girls who do step out of the comfort zone and try to get him horny, they’ll see — he’ll pull out the credit card, he’ll figure something out.”
Prices vary depending on what a guy is willing to spend. Many women put the highest possible prices on their “menu,” and leave it to the client to haggle a lower bill.
“What if they have that amount of money and they’re willing to spend it? You’re not going to get it unless you ask for it,” Chase says.
A sex worker’s menu is the list of sex acts they’re willing to perform. Chase’s menu includes dozens of activities, including shower, sensual massage, prostate massage, hand job, blowjob, vaginal sex in missionary position, doggy style, girl on top, reverse cowgirl, dirty talk, role play, costumes, foot fetish, domination, spanking, pegging, golden showers and two girl shows (to name a few).
This can be an overwhelming number of choices, so most sex workers offer packaged deals, like the Girlfriend Experience or the Porn Star Experience.
“Girls also make up their own ‘parties,’ which are basically ‘sex dates.’ They throw together whatever activities and call it whatever they want,” Chase says.
For example, Chase could create a “wedding night” party, where the client gets the honeymoon suite, rose petals on the bed, sensual massage, oral and vaginal sex. Or she could create a “food fetish” party, where she bakes the client dessert, they smear cake on one another’s genitals, and then they clean off together in a bubble bath.
[Kourtney Chase]
The girls have a ton of freedom to offer whatever services they want, at whatever price they want. However, setting your rates too low will get you in trouble with the other women of the brothel.
“If you take a client for a couple hundred bucks, you’re lowering the value of the whole house. Customers become more demanding. They say, ‘why would I pay you if I can get it from her for a fraction of the price?’ It pisses a lot of the girls off, so we set a house standard: no sex for less than $500.”
No surprise, pricing isn’t the only cause of drama in a house full of women. In Nye county, where the Love Ranch is located, licensed sex workers are required to live in the brothel — eat there, sleep there, take their craps there — can’t leave. Living together 24/7 leads to tons of petty problems, but customers will never catch a glimpse of animosity.
“There can definitely be some tension between the girls, but we never show that when guys are in the house,” Chase says. “In front of a customer, me and a girl who don’t get along are suddenly best friends, and if he wants to pay to bang us both, we’ll do it with a smile on our face.”
Despite all their little disagreements, the women of the Love Ranch are united in a much bigger sense — an us against the world mentality. Although these sex workers are located in one of the few specks on the U.S. map where prostitution is legal, it seems puritanical America is still out to get them.
Activists with a moral imperative to stop the exploitation of women are currently ramping up a campaign to close the brothels in multiple Nevada counties, including Nye, where the Love Ranch is located. Voters may have the opportunity to shut down their county’s brothels on the upcoming ballot in November.
Like any other job, working in a brothel has its ups and downs. The workers bitch about money, hours, co-workers and customers. “But we’re not victims. We are consenting adults who choose to be in the sex industry," Chase says. "I don’t want to get a shitty job and earn minimum wage, I don’t want to go to school for 8 years, and I don’t want to work for anybody else. I want to invest my money into a business of my own."
Chase is grateful to work in a region where prostitution is lawful. She hopes her positive experience can highlight the merits of legalizing prostitution in other parts of America.
"When you legalize prostitution, you take the traffickers and child victims out. Every woman working in a brothel is over the legal age, they are there by their own free will, and they are STD tested once per week. I have never felt more safe than when I worked in a brothel," Chase says. "I think brothels are a great role model for prostitution, but like other sex work activists, I hope one day independent and brothel workers can co-exist under a regulated system."
Whether they're working legally within brothels or selling illegal escort services online, their choices should be respected, because sex work is work.
[Kourtney Chase]
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