The Las Vegas Courtesan

So I opened up the Las Vegas Sun website last week and saw this article plastered to the front page. Just by the mug shot blaring me in the face I knew it was prostitution/vice related, but when I read the headline a little part inside of me rejoiced! I was glad to see that the county had finally grown tired and caught on to these massage clubs scamming tourists out of money all at the expense of the trust of the local cabbies (which is why Nevada Taxicab Authority got involved). Here’s a previous blog post I wrote about it warning any readers about the huge scam.

At first I was glad about the raids, but then I started thinking about the effects this would have on other legitimate businesses in the industry as well. Over the years the scams the cabbies have pulled on these tourists have echoed throughout people’s thoughts on Vegas. More and more I hear of disappointed tourists and have had more verbally aggressive clients because they never want that same event to happen to them again. All in all it makes people have a soured mood about this town like we are all out to scam people out of whatever money they have. They already feel taken by the blackjack tables and now they can’t even have a good time with a girl without feeling like someone is out to get them. I always try to prove clients wrong that those clubs are different than us, but it’s hard to overcome. I know a lot of phone girls who have to sway the client’s opinion and explain that having a stripper come to their room is a totally different experience.

What I am really afraid of is how the local law enforcement will get the idea that ALL of us are bad. Like the agencies who sell strippers to client’s rooms legally, but the client ends up assuming something completely different because he didn’t listen and thought that prostitution is legal here. They then get upset and report us to police or security because of their own ignorance, and in turn we could all be thought of as a public nuisance. The difference between us and these clubs who were raided is this: the clubs sell men the thought that they are getting something much much more while dancing on the line of soliciting (I’ve heard of some places selling “hand jobs” when in fact they receive a hand massage) when in fact these girls never strip, dance or anything else. The agencies will tell you straight up that prostution is illegal here and the girl comes out for a striptease for a fee. People still read into this basic line and assume something different, but really there are no lines to read in between.

The other businesses that are hurt by these scam clubs? The legit massages therapists, reflexology specialists, and massage businesses. These “sex” clubs operate under several different types of business licenses that are all obtained under false pretenses. Several examples of these completely off licenses that are on paper with the county are: bookstores, art galleries, massage therapy parlors, snack stores, fitness clubs, and reflexology specialists. The real massage parlors and masseuses deal with crazy legal battles just to prove that their business that they want to open will not be a rub and tug joint. I even know of a personal friend who had to deal with months of issues with the county because she wanted to set up some massage chairs in a public area.

During the weekend I didn’t notice any real difference, but had one phone girl comment that calls seemed to be easier to book. Besides the clubs that were named in the article as being raided, I’ve noticed the rest of the sex clubs coming back and reopening, sometimes leaving their open signs off but taxis still are dropping unsuspecting clients off at the front and driving away as fast as possible once they are inside. My hopes is that the local government shuts these places down and doesn’t mess with the businesses that are running themselves properly. They are a real public nuisance and constantly use our tax dollars by calling police or clients calling police *constantly*. These places are constantly held up and robbed, pose a threat to other local businesses nearby, and most importantly gives Vegas a bad name (and even taxi drivers). The local economy has a long way to go to rebuild itself and more negative attention and reputation with the tourists is not what this town needs. This is Sin City afterall! Keep it Sin City and not Scam City.

So I left a comment on an old article in my blog about how there was a new operation that the vice squad had come up with to get the top 50 offenders behind bars and actually convict them to send some sort of message to the rest of the working girls. As I said in the comment, the number of girls that were in jail the same time I was back in December had already been in there at least 10 times that month. They talked of stealing and really only hurt the business instead of making it more respectable for the rest of us. So all during the month of February vice thought it would be a good idea to make a top 50 list of the biggest offenders and crack down. The girls they showed in the original Review-Journal article were all presented as prostitutes, but if you scroll down the list of girls and their charges only 3 of them have actual charges for prostitution. The rest of them are simply trespassing charges. I would be really mad if my face appeared on a news site accusing me of being something I wasn’t arrested for.

So the other day I open up my newspaper to find this article on the front page saying out of the 100 or so arrests during Operation VETO they got one conviction! Wow. The funny thing is they say she was “convicted” but really, she wasn’t. The jail sentence was suspended and she was given a $1,000 fine and banned from the Strip for 6 months or get 6 months jail if she is caught again. This is nothing new and the Strip restrictions have been going on for years. I don’t understand why this is any different. The girl is an idiot to have been arrested over 100 times in the past three years, but mostly only for trespassing? Makes no sense how they are saying this girl is being used as an example. How about the Vice squad actually go get those juvenile prostitutes being held against their will, or the people actually committing real crimes? After all of the trouble these cases clog up the court system, nothing will ever teach girls a lesson, so why bother? Get the real criminals… or actually help the underage girls forced into the profession. This 27 year old girl is only over taxing our already suffering court system in Clark County.

So one of my readers reminded me recently, “Hey you never finished that series about your previous arrests!”. Ah thanks for reminding me, and now that I am back from yet another trip, I will continue the saga. First of all I want to rant about this regular couple who I have discussed about standing me up before in this entry. Maybe I should have learned my lesson from that instance, but they had since proven themselves to keep an appointment and made up for it monetarily. So I was not supposed to fly back from my trip until today but I received a call from said clients who wanted to meet up last night. I change my flight to the tune of almost $200 and guess what they do? Stand me up again. I am still sour about it so I called on with my agencies and the night ended up being a complete dud. As you can see, I am still bitter about it and they have not called me back. I told them I had changed my flight for them, but apparently that went unnoticed. That is the first time I have changed my flight to come back to work early, and it actually flopped. Anyway, on with my story!

So my second run in with the law after this entry occurred two months later in December of that year. At the time craigslist wasn’t a terrible place and they had just started doing busts on there and figuring out it was a mecca of prostitutes for the taking. December is super slow after the rodeo and I decided to try to make up for the slack by posting a few ads a few days in a row and just be really careful. I posted one ad and I swear, it was 15 minutes later a woman called me in reference to the advertisement. I already felt somewhat relieved since it was a woman calling for her husband and herself, and the only thing that made me feel peculiar about the call was how she asked if my fee was for “full service”. I graciously replied, “I’m sorry but that term is eluding to prostitution and that is illegal in Clark County.” She apologized and didn’t mean to offend me but would still like for me to come over and meet them. Okay, sounds good to me! I got their information about staying at Caesar’s, it verified, and I headed over there. I knock at the door and a nicely dressed and polite African-American woman answers the door. She looks like someone who would be a secretary at your junior high with her glasses and simple outfit, and her husband is dressed nice as well and could have played football in high school but now is the business type. I sit down and talk with them how they are from Oakland and I take a look around the room at some of the sex toys on the side tables (of course now seem very staged) and immediately tell them just for coming over I do a strip. I get down to my thong and invite them to touch me immediately. The woman hops up, giggles and fondles my breasts while the man just gently touched with the back of his hand. Doesn’t seem too odd, especially since she was so eager to grab me.

So I sit down and she starts saying how she doesn’t really want anything to do with it and how I don’t have to go down on her. I said, that’s all right because I don’t perform oral on women, I only dance and touch. She says, “okay well I want you to just focus on him and play with him and maybe some oral sex on him”. I immediately tell her I don’t like talking about things like that. So she instead asks me what do I normally get tipped for couples and I told her. Just then the phone rings and she runs to the restroom to answer it. That I thought was odd but it didn’t really alarm me since both of them seemed to pass my little groping test. She comes back in and apologizes and says, “Well lets just get started, $XXX for some dances and maybe a little blowjob for him”. I forget how exactly I answered but it was along the lines of, “okay lets just get started” and not specifically saying yes to the oral sex. The man pulls out a wad of bills and starts counting…

I hear the door open and turn around to see Vice coming in and saying I’m under arrest for soliciting and to put my clothes back on. They hurry me off to the other room because yet another girl I think was on her way up. I think why the phone rang was the cops telling her, “You need to wrap this up and get her to agree”. So as soon as I am dressed in the other room the head officer (who was at the previous bust) informs me that I am being charged with TWO counts since there were two undercover officers in the other room. Even though I had turned the woman down for any prostitution, I was still being charged with soliciting her. Bunch of bull, of course! I went to jail and was released about 24 hours later on bail and would have been released under my own recognizance, but they were so slow that day.

So what happened with this case, and how did it almost screw up the previous one? In the other case they had offered me a plea bargain but the catch was I had to stay out of trouble, remember? I had not accepted the terms yet so it didn’t really count at that point. The lawyer thought if I accepted the plea and finished everything before the court date of this offense, that they wouldn’t conflict nor would it be in the system yet. He was right, I finished the requirements that week and had the other case dismissed the same day this one was going to court. So when the DA asked what was the deal with the case from October, my lawyer replied that I had finished the terms and was being submitted that day. So what did the young and stupid new DA do? Dismissed this case entirely right then and there. I was told that was really lucky and of course I am glad it was dropped too.